9.01.2009
How to be creative and finally make an Innovation (brief communication)
based on the presentation "Creativity and Innovation" given by Dr. Marcelo H Ang Jr, the Associate Professor from Department of Mechanical Engineering of the National University of Singapore
by Liu Yangfan
EG1471 E25
Monday, September, 2009
People always say that the world now is so advanced that nothing can be improved. However, it is just on the contrary that our world now is changing at a speed faster than ever and it will never stop.
The power to drive the world keep constantly changing is that people will never stop dreaming. And what makes us keep dreaming is the purpose to make life easier and enjoy life more, both of which will never turn to the end.
Based on what is presented above, we can clearly see that everyone can make a difference because everyone can dream. Dare to dream is the beginning of to be creative. “Everyone can be street smart.”(Marcelo H Ang Jr, 2009) The only thing you need to concern is that do not accept things so quickly, that is to say, do not do something as everyone else is doing it.
However, creativity is necessary but not enough to make an invention. Another essential element needed to make an invention is a good study of different produces and system available. In other words, we should be practical as well as creative. Besides, the most important thing is that this invention must be useable because the reason for an invention to exist is to be used in life and change life. It will be meaningless if a new product is invented while nobody wants to use it in real life. So the cost, practicality and attractiveness of a new invention must be considered carefully. Otherwise, it can only exist in the lab and never be an innovation. Only when everybody is willing to use it can an invention become an innovation and eventually change the world.
All those presented above are based on Dr. Marcelo’s presentation. Actually, I cannot agree with him more. Edison can be everyone. After all, Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.
Reference: NUS WEBCAST LECTURES, EG1471-Guest Lecture, http://ivle.nus.edu.sg/bank/media/modvideo.aspx?KEY=c135ac97-e41a-42eb-a4ee-e48927627e75&ChannelID=30a5e9bc-8fb0-4d9c-b54a-028f2c51cb6d#
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(Comment from Xijiao)
ReplyDeleteNowadays, I feel that it is more and more difficult to innovate. Firstly, it is very hard to make a groundbreaking invention as our living standard has been raised in almost all aspects such as housing, dressing, eating and entertainment. We could only improve them on microscope rather than on macroscopic scale. For example, DVD replacing video cassette and Ipod Nano generation 4 replacing Ipod Nano 3 are both innovation. However, former leads to a paradigm shifts but latter only changes the details. Thus, many people agree that technology has developed to a bottleneck and it is quite difficult to find great inventions in short terms.
Secondly, to innovate based on current situation, we need to spend much time not only to study basic knowledge in university, but also to reach out to the real world as much knowledge learnt in college has outdated. Thus, it takes longer for people to create new things. Moreover, ordinary people such as students could hardly gain access to the most advanced technology, not to mention improving the technology.
Last but not least, economic factors play a main role doing research. Within one community, different researches are competing for limited funds. Even though a new product is made, it takes longer time to promote the product to the public due the pressure from existing companies. For example, if a new kind of phone is invented, people may not recognize it because the phone market has been occupied by many existing companies such as Nokia, Samsung，HP and LG. As good invention is defined by the user comments, it is more difficult to popularize new products to the public now as many people have built brand loyalty.
Thus, I seriously feel that it is increasingly difficult to innovate giving all the above restricts.
Comment from Qi Dan:
ReplyDeleteI strongly agree with you that crativity itself cannot make an engineering design successful.
Just as what i mentioned in my entry, nowadays people tent to consider financial benefit as the only factor when measuring performance of a newly designed product. Simialrly, people may go to another extreme which is to judge an invention by how it looks diferrenet from the previous ones. With the advance in technology, inventions, engineering design and even the product we use in our daily life become more and more complex these days. Hence, engineers should create not only something new but also something indeed better than the previous ones which makes people's life easier. In this sense, a balanced view to look at engineering design nowadays in required.