Maybe it's the fact that I'm not very interested in cars or don't know an extensive amount about how they run. But I do know that these two articles for this Friday's class (2/7) were very hard to delve into for me. Maybe it was the cars, maybe it was the acronyms, or maybe it was both. Either way, I couldn't connect with what was going on.
I would like to note however from "Innovation Too Slow" that money and power does tend to sway innovation. Who can pay for the technology often becomes the targeted market, even if someone else needs it more. Do the thousands of people who die from Dengue Fever not matter? Shouldn't ones intentions be about helping others, not themselves? Sometime I wonder how selfish people truly are in this world, and this pretty much sums it up for a grand total. This also goes back to last week's discussion. It's a truly unfortunate event and circumstances that life saving research and technology are even done based on the consumer's 'ability to pay.'
I agree on the cars... Oh man. I skipped all of the middle part of "Present at the Creation" because it was technological mumbo-jumbo and I didn't think that was the point of us reading the article.
ReplyDeleteI found that same sort of theme in the "Present at the Creation" article. The car companies weren't interested in paying a little more to get technology that would benefit the environment. As much as I'd like to say "Shame on them!" I see how it might be tough for a company to justify (especially to the investors) spending extra money on something there really isn't a market for yet. Once hybrids became a big deal, it was easier for companies to justify, and therefore, they invested in cleaner technology.
I wish it wasn't the same for all markets, especially the ones that provided needed treatments, supplies, and sustenance for people, but unfortunately, that requires people to give things away for little to no charge, and that just means that they are not getting rewarded for their hard work (I do not personally agree with this justification, as I don't understand why people need more money than what is required to live on, but that's another discussion for another day.) Yes, I suppose "selfish" is the word for that.
I'm a car guy and even I skimmed through the car article. The trick for me was to find something I could connect to. By finding a piece of technology that holds personal significance to me, I was able to put the concept of technological slugishness into quantifiable terms.
ReplyDeleteTo address the comment above mine; the world is a very money-centric place. At this point, almost no venture is possible without substantial monetary backing. Humans, by nature, are very "showy" beings. We (as first class citizens) have an innate desire to produce physical manifestations of our success. As noble as living on just enough to survive is, this does not often happen. These first-class citizens almost exclusively choose the instant gratification of monetary satisfaction over the much slower moral satisfaction.
Going off of consumers and customers needing to see worth in purchasing something, the company/designer/engineer etc has to find the problem in which they're trying to solve, and do it well. The customer must have that same need, and see the worth in the solution. This is something we learn about in our PDI studios, and especially in Studio VI. But I do agree that people choose instant gratification of monetary satisfaction over moral satisfaction, especially when things don't directly affect them.
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