Tuesday 20 November 2012

Invention? Innovation? It's week 3 :D



Hello everyone! Welcome back to view my blog post for this week. This week is the third week I went for Creative Studies and Mr.Yap was still the lecturer for this week but unfortunately we were told by Mr.Yap that others lecturers will be taking over the class the following weeks. Whole class felt so sad because we love Mr. Yap class so much and we know we will missed him. :(

The topics that brought up this week were:
1. Definition of Creativity
2. What is Creativity?

From the slides that Mr.Yap gave to us, Creativity is defined as ability to think up and design new inventions, produce works of art, solve problems in new ways, or develop an idea based on an original, novel, or unconventional approach. There were also other definitions given by 2 other famous people who is Robert E. Franken and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Robert E. Franken defined "Creativity" as the tendency to generate or recognize ideas, alternatives, or possibilities that may be useful in solving problems, communicating with others, and entertaining ourselves and others. What I learned from this definition by Robert E. Franken is that "Creativity" is a way of creating new ideas which can be used to solved a problems or a situations and it can be used in entertainments. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi explained creativity in a form of diagram and it is named The Systems Model of Creativity.








  1. The creative domain, which is nested in culture - the symbolic knowledge shared by a group of or particular society or by humanity as a whole (e.g., visual arts) 
  2.  The field, which includes all the gatekeepers of the domain (e.g., art critics, art teachers, curators of museums, etc.) , the producer and the receiver – audience, collectors, public.
  3. The individual person, who using the symbols of the given domain (such as music, engineering, business, mathematics) has a new idea or sees a new pattern, and when this novelty is selected by the appropriate field for inclusion into the relevant domain 

 And now, what is “creativity”? Creativity is an ability, an attitude and a process.

 An Attitude? Yea. From the slide of this week, we know that the ability to imagine or invent something new. Creativity is not the ability to create out of nothing, but the ability to generate new ideas by combining, changing, or reapplying existing ideas. Some creative ideas are astonishing and brilliant, while others are just simple, good, practical ideas that no one seems to have thought of yet. Creativity is also an attitude: the ability to accept change and newness, a willingness to play with ideas and possibilities, a flexibility of outlook, the habit of enjoying the good, while looking for ways to improve it. Creativity is a process as creative people work hard and continually to improve ideas and solutions, by making gradual alterations and refinements to their works. Contrary to the mythology surrounding creativity, very, very few works of creative excellence are produced with a single stroke of brilliance or in a frenzy of rapid activity.



Ok, now is the time for the assignment for this week. Hrmmmm… it seems like this week assignment is a bit different from the other two. Mr. Yap wanted us to visit the http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/tech/article/the-pc-is-dead-long-live-the-tablet/ and talk about what does it tell us about the process of invention and innovation for the first part of assignment. Whereas the second part of this week assignment is visit another website which is http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20071644 and write about what kind of environment, situation etc., would make ourselves to become a creative/inventive/innovative person.


First part of this week assignment

 

After visiting the the http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/tech/article/the-pc-is-dead-long-live-the-tablet/ , I found out that this article is about tablets will take over the place of personal computer (PC) in future. Yea, I agree too as after the launching if the tablets, many people started to buy tablets to use. Not only that, tablets are also quite cheap compare to computers or laptops and they are many functions that are very useful to their users. When I’m walking on the road, it is common to see people carrying tablets around and use them in public. Therefore, I believe that tablets will be taking over the place of pc in future in high possibility. 



 Anyway, what is invention and what is innovation. Sounds similar huh, both of it have different meanings. According to the Oxford dictionary, the definition of “Invent” is create or design (something that has not existed before); be the originator of. Whereas the definition of “Innovate” is make changes in something established, especially by introducing new methods, ideas, or products. This is clearly explain that “invent” is to create something out of “nothing” while “innovate” is to introduce a better and new idea to make changes in something that already existed. The process of invention and innovation share the same objective which is fulfill human's need. 


Invention

Thomas Alva Edison
 Inventor is basically the one who invent a invention to fulfill human's needs. In the 19th century, Thomas Alva Edison invented the first light bulb in order to help people to see in the dark. This is a great invention that we still using until now. Without it, we are most probably still using fire in the night to light up our room. Invention is the new and unique things or item that introduce to the world. Inventor usually used scientific skills and a lot of research to invent something that is new and can fulfill human's need. Most of the times, invention is also driven by the problems that of human facing. Human has weak ability to see clearly in the night therefore we need something to assist us to solve this problem and the solution is invent a "light-producer".







The picture on the right shows the "light-producer" which is known as the first light bulb that was invented by Thomas Alva Edison.






Innovation

Innovator is the one who combining old ideas and new concepts or transforming several ideas into something new and have high value and create a product or a service that can create new value to the target customers. I am very sure that everyone knows who is Steve Jobs right? Is Steve Jobs invented Apple products? No. Steve Jobs was co-founder and CEO of Apple and a great innovator that create Apple products that millions and billions of people crazy about it. Take iPhone as an example, iPhone is a smartphone and it is invented by someone else before iPhone is release to the market. Steve Jobs combining several ideas and new concepts to the smartphone and make it become the Apple products which is more valuable in market. Innovation of certain products is carry out because of the profit of it. High profit will always drive to more innovation. Innovation does not based on scientific skills like invention, it depends on a set of business strategic, marketing operational and technical skills.





Table shows the different between Invention and Innovation.




And now is the second part of this week assignment which is visit this website, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20071644 and write about what kind of environment, situation etc., would make ourselves to become a creative/inventive/innovative person.


Have your mind become blank and cannot think of anything before? OK, just imagine this situation. You are in your room or your office and thinking about some designs or something in order to hand it up to your client in time and suddenly, your mind become so blank and you cannot come out with any designs for your client and the deadline is just around the corner. I bet everyone has encountered this situation before and this is so upset and frustrating. Me, myself have encountered this situation before too and I found out that environment and situation is very important in order to make our brain works efficiently and it will eventually leads us to create, design or invent something that is outstanding. Environment? I bet some of you will not believe that environment will affect anyone’s thinking but it does. Environment is so important that we must pay attention to it in order for us to make ourselves to become creative or inventive.
So what kind of environment or situation is suitable to make ourselves to become inspired, creative or innovative person?

An environment that is comfortable and relaxing is the most suitable to inspire us and make ourselves to become outstanding in our thinking which will eventually lead to amazing invention or innovation. The working place(environment) should be comfortable for us to work as it will reduce our stress and build up a happy environment for us that we not feel like we are force to do something. This is surely will help us to increase the efficiency of our brain and make us think out of the box! Why Google and Facebook are so successful? Is it because they have geniuses work for them? No! Google and Facebook companies pay a lot attention to the working environment of their workers because they know that a good working environment will increase their working efficiency and this build a road to success for their companies. A comfortable, happy and no pressure working environment will influence all of the workers’ mood and will inspired them which leads to blooming of creative ideas from the workers. A picture worth a thousand words. Let’s look at the pictures of Google and Facebook companies’ working environment.

Google's Company



























 Facebook's Company
























Wow! Such a good environment surely will boost the spirits of all the workers. I also want to work in such great woeking environment.

That all for this week. Thank you! :D


Source:
PCS0013 Week 3 Lecture’s note
http://www.chilloutpoint.com/science_and_technology/google-office-versus-facebook-office.html
http://www.competeprosper.ca/index.php/facts/invention_and_innovation_whats_the_difference/
 http://dailyexhaust.com/2009/07/innovation-vs-invention.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Edison
http://www.askace.com/nature-of-technology/characteristics-of-technology
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs
http://www.forbes.com/sites/connieguglielmo/2012/10/03/untold-stories-about-steve-jobs-friends-and-colleagues-share-their-memories/

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