Modern influences

"When do you consider yourself up-to-date? When you have the latest gadgets? Is that what you want, or what the world wants?"

Today's Lesson (Brief overview/summary)
Today we talked about the dominance of certain countries/organizations over the years, and how there has been a shift in dominance. Dominance is the influence an entity holds over others, in controlling the decisions that they make. To have that control, is one of the reasons why different countries develop at different rates.

However,
Being plentiful in raw materials does not necessarily mean you are the leader of that field. Look at Brunei as compared to Russia (oil)
Being the first to come up with the idea, does not mean you will be the fore-runner for that area of expertise. Look at Friendster as compared to Facebook (social networking websites)
This really caught my attention, what exactly makes them dominant? 


Reasons for dominance of certain organizations over others:
FIRSTLY, through the methods employed to become dominant.
Control (a direct hierarchical structure where decisions are made for the people, ie. communism) or Influence (freedom of choice).
In this day and age, we can safely say that communism is more or less, a thing of the past. People now have more choices than ever on how to live. Yet control need not be a direct order from someone higher up. It can be something much more subtle, like subliminal messages in commercials or through word of mouth from various friends. Because of this, we succumb to the daily peer pressure of checking our facebook accounts, being told what we need according to the latest world trends.


How free are we really?

The thin line between control and influence is being blurred every single day. Our intrinsic human desire to be accepted into society has us looking towards the latest global trends, to find out what is widely accepted as a social norm. This is what successful corporations play at in their advertising campaigns, their method of hooking in consumers. Today, the extent of an organization's dominance depends on not so much on "CREATING the next big thing", but more on "creating the next BIG thing".

SECONDLY, the underlying complications behind the type of products the organization produces.
Since today's lesson was geared towards development, we looked to new, innovative products rather than existing ones. They can be classified into either:
Technology-driven innovation (creativity propelled to newer heights through recent progress in technology) or Need-driven innovation (creativity used to fulfill unmet needs)

I learnt today that the main difference between technology-driven innovation versus need-driven innovation is the time taken for the widespread acceptance of the new technology. Why is this so? Need-driven innovation looks at existing products and tries to improve on the current design. On the other hand, technology-driven innovation really looks to pander to the future needs, to create its own unique niche market and basically think beyond its time.

Needless to say, it is easier for people to accept something which they are already comfortable with, than to accept something totally new. However, once a technologically-driven product gains dominance, it remains dominant for an extended period due to the lack of competitors (unique area of expertise).

Let me illustrate this with a flowchart as shown below:

This shows the difference in the long run between technology-driven innovation, as compared to need-driven innovation. Basically, there is a trigger in a turn of events that allows technology-driven innovation to progress at a exponentially faster rate as compared to need-driven innovation. That is how dominance affects the progress of technology in a big way.

Key take-away points:
1. Dominance is only temporary, it takes constant review of your product to maintain it.
2. Trends and fads change, that is why allocation of resources change as well. This is good as it fosters much more innovation in the technological field (technology-driven innovation)

We have all seen how dominant companies in the world have impacted world change. But I would have liked to analyze how long it would take before they lose their dominance. With all the new and emerging technologies that are springing up, who knows whether what is important now will be irrelevant in the future?

I would rate this session a 7 out of 10, for the in-depth analysis of the relationship between dominance and technology.