1) What was the general theme or argument of the book?
The general theme of the book discusses how manufacturing has changed with the advancement of technology. It used to be extremely difficult to turn an idea into reality. You would have to hire people to manufacture products which would cost lots of money and time. Nowadays there are more options such as 3D printing that makes it cheaper and easier to manufacture products. The process has shifted from manual labor to sitting behind a computer. This provides tons of opportunities for businesses and economies.
2) How did the book, in your opinion, connect with and enhance what you are learning in ENT 3003?
This booked connected to what we are learning in this class in lots of different ways. It discusses how manufacturing is outsourced and how these technological advancements make it easier to get your product produced in high quantities. A large aspect of entrepreneurship is using creativity to put together different aspects of an organization. Understanding developments in manufacturing can really benefit an entrepreneur.
3) If you had to design an exercise for this class, based on the book you read, what would that exercise involve?
I would design an exercise that split the class into groups that work on developing a physical product. The groups would be given a category and they would have to design a product to benefit people in their sector. After they come up with the designs we would utilize the universities 3D printing lab and actually manufacture the physical product.
4) What was your biggest surprise or 'aha' moment when reading the book? In other words, what did you learn that differed most from your expectations?
Understanding where manufacturing is heading was very eye-opening. Seeing how easy it is to make an idea into a physical prototype will allow me to do more experimenting with my visions.
Dear Bram,
ReplyDeleteI am happy you chose to read a book about technology because technology is so important to EVERYTHING in this world. Yes people can complain how its taking over, but honestly it takes over in a lot of more good ways then bad ways. In relation to this class, technology is a big boost for anyone trying to start a company or sell a product. Isn't it crazy that back in the day everything was by word of mouth. Now a days we can share anything we want, with millions of trillions of people, with just the click of a button. Yes that is kind of scary and has the potential to be dangerous, but if used correctly technology can go a far way with entrepreneurship .
Hi Bram,
ReplyDeleteThis sounds like a really interesting book! One thing that occurred to me while reading your post was the question of whether the opportunities provided by the computerization of manufacturing outweigh the losses that the sector experiences as these computerized methods of manufacturing become more prevalent. This question also applies to concepts such as automation and the like, to what extent are we willing to sacrifice jobs for the sake of efficiency? Your idea for the class exercise based on this book sounds like it would work really well. I participated in almost the exact same thing on a couple of occasions last year in the courses Creativity in Context and Creativity in Action. The first thing we did was to design a product and we made use of the 3-D printing lab at Infinity Hall to create a prototype. The other assignment that we did that was similar was called Catalyst, in which we designed a product for a certain sector and created a business model and presentation for it to propose to local entrepreneurs and the like.