Final student presentations tonight!

• Student Presentations
• Housekeeping

Student Presentations

Distributed Feedback:
Provide feedback on content, how well slides integrate with content, relevance to class/course.
Group 1: Brian, Jeff, Pei-Chieh, Suna, Yu-Hsaun
Group 2: Christy, Jen, Peter, Vera, YunLi
Group 3: Filiz, Michael, Rene, Xioquy

1. Brian

Saving What Matters

2. Christy

Evolution of Internal Communication

3. Filiz

Evolution of Stock Photography

4. Jeff

Connectivity Wants To Be Free

5. Jen

Walkman to iPod

6. Michael

Blogs and Tribal Formation of NFL Fans

7. Pei-Chieh

Presentation Marketing

8. Peter

How Health Information Will Save Your Life

9. Renee

Digital Audio Workstations

10. Suna

NonProfit Communication Using Technology

11. Vera

Word’s Journey

12. Xiaoqy

Evolution of the Cell Phone

13. Yu-Hsuan

Final Presentation

(Slideshare will not load)

14. Yun Li

Technology and Distance Learning

Housekeeping

• Final Deliverables
  • Projects will be published as stand-alone (or integrated) WordPress websites;
  • Final presentations will be published on Slideshare.net
  • Final presentations uploaded to Catalyst CollectIt
  • Final project cited and linked in a blog post on your course blog NLT 18 March (6.00 pm)
• Annotated bibliography (examples, tips)
• Sample project (Chris, Rubi)
• Questions about final deliverables?
• Gradesheet updated
• Evaluation forms

Agenda:

• Guest Speaker: Tom Farmer, Solid State Information Design, on the future of “television”
• Student Presentations:
  Chris, Harry, Matt, Paolo, Rebekkah, Ross, Rubi, Vera, Ziwen
• Setting Up WordPress for final project
• Related Links:
  • For fun: A Completely Unscientific (Yet Accurate) Look At Social Sites
  • More serious: Rogue Archivist Campaigns To Be Obama’s Printer

Tom Farmer

I’ll be experimenting with my new “Pulse Pen” as I take notes.

Student Presentations

Distributed Feedback:
Provide feedback on content, how well slides integrate with content, relevance to class/course.
Group 1: Chris, Paolo, Rubi
Group 2: Harry, Rebekah, ZiWen
Group 3: Matt, Ross, Chao-Wei

Chris

Blog post: The Past, Present, and Future of Online Communities

Harry

Blog post: Penny Press to Digital – does history repeat itself?

Matt

Blog post: ElectronicDating.wordpress.com

Paolo

Blog post: Copyright Law and Music

Rebekkah

Blog post: Crafting Community

Ross

Blog post: What Is The Business of Public Radio?

Rubi

Blog post: Past, Present and Future of the Telephony in Mexico

Ziwen

Blog post: Cellphones in China

Chao-Wei

Blog post

slideshare

Setting Up WordPress Project Site

General Instructions:

1. Recognize that each “page” of the site needs context — this is one reason why I had you write two papers, so that each could “stand alone”
2. The annotated bibliography is its own page
3. Each page of the project (a minimum of two, past & present-future) should have its own sources cited at the bottom. Remember: no need for hanging indents but please use APA for narrative citing format and for the reference list

Stand-Alone Site
Rationale: experience using WordPress as a content management system for a website, not a blog. Minimum number of pages: past, present-future, annotated bibliography, about, (unused) blog

1. Log In
2. Go to WordPress.com
3. Left hand column, look for “Register another blog“
   
4. Pick a name
5. Pick a design that is very readable
6. Widgets: Pages, Blogroll (Links), Meta. Unless you are going to use this as a site to blog about the topic, you won’t want any widgets related to blogging. Use Blogroll (Links) to provide links to your blog, this site, other resources related to your topic.
7. Create a stand-alone page for the home page
   • Pages -> New -> Home
   • Pages -> New -> Blog
   • Settings -> Reading -> Front Page Displays …
8. Provide information on the “about” page about you and this project/course
9. Recognize that each “page” of the site needs context — this is one reason why I had you write two papers, so that each could “stand alone”
10. The annotated bibliography is its own page
11. Each page of the project (a minimum of two, past & present-future) should have its own sources cited at the bottom. Remember: no need for hanging indents but please use APA for narrative citing format and for the reference list

Integrated Site:
If you want everything in one place, and want this paper to be a “sub-section” of your course blog. Minimum number of pages: “home” (contents), past, present-future, annotated bibliography

1. Log In
2. Make sure that your blog design is very readable for long blocks of text (light on dark does not meet this requirement)
3. Provide information on the “about” page about you
4. Create a new page that will be the project home; provide information on this page about the project/course; provide links to the project parts (past, present-future, annotated bibliography)
5. Create the pages that are for the project; each will have, as it parent page, the project home page:
   

• Guest Speaker: Tom Farmer
• Student Presentations
• Converting papers to stand-alone WordPress.com site

Guest Speaker

Student Presentations

1. Chris
2. Harry
3. Matt
4. Paolo
5. Rebekkah
6. Ross
7. Rubi
8. Vera
9. Ziwen

Thinking About The Future (1)

• Guest Speaker, John Musser, ProgrammableWeb, on cloud computing
• MiniLecture
• Class Discussion
• About Weeks 9 & 10

Housekeeping

Second paper (present/future) due Wed 4 March, 11.45pm
(Paper: Collect-It document, feedback given and points assigned)

Draft presentation due 27 February, noon
(Presentation: Collect-It, feedback given and points assigned. Week 9 students take priority, obviously)

Looking for a volunteer from week 10 to present Week 9!

Guest Speaker

• John’s Slides (ppt)

Mini Lecture

• Wired article
• Slides

Class Discussion

• Your Questions

Discussion Leaders

• Jen
• Matthew
• Michael
• YuHsuan
• XiaoYe

Post-Discussion Reflections (Last Week)

• Chao-Wei
• Chris
• Paolo
• Peter
• Vera

Reading Reflections This Week

• Brian – Media Monoploy: You Landed on the Television Industry, Rent is…. Your Soul
• Christy – Preserving Crucial Records
• Filiz – Preserving For The Future
• Filiz – (EC) Instant Messaging v E-mail
• Harry – Paper to Pixels
• Matthew – Ethics of the Future
• Michael – Media Monopoly
• Peter – Notes on Breaking the Wire (Seeing What’s Next) (com546)
• Rebekah – The Paperless Office? Not Anytime Soon.
• Rubi – Should Archivist Be Concerned About Electronic Storage?
• Vera – Media Monopoly
• YunLi – On “Telematics and Informatics” and “The Media Monopoly”
• ZiWen – Media Monopoly

Per listserv email:

Hi folks!

(1) I forgot to remind everyone last night to please provide feedback to one of the three discussion leader presenters (per the past three weeks) as well as to the person you did not hear (read and comment). For the presenters, please pick one of your peers to read& comment.

(2) Week 9 & 10 – presentations
Each student will have 8-10 minutes to present; there will be time for 2-3 minutes discussion. If you like, we can order-in pizza one or both weeks (please bring cash to chip in).

The schedule for Weeks 9 & 10 is on the home page & the students page:

Week 9
:: Chris, Harry, Matt, Paolo, Renee, Rebekkah, Rubi, Vera, Ziwen

Week 10
:: Brian, Chao-Wei,  Christy,  Filiz, Jeff, Jen,  Michael, Pei-Chieh, Peter, Ross, Suna, Yu-Hsuan, Yun Li, Xiaoqy

(3) The gradesheet has been refreshed to show readings and discussion leaders through week 6 (last week).

(4) Rubi was correct – I should have started last night with the positive rather than the negative. I was trying (not successfully, perhaps) to show that there were common issues, so that if one of those was identified on your paper, you wouldn’t feel like you were the only person.

Look for an email from me later today with your paper attached (Word doc). Be sure to turn the comments feature “on” to read the comments!

Frameworks and Theories: Computer-Mediated Communication and Hypertext

• Guest Speaker: Warren Sukernek (twitter), Director of Content Marketing – Radian6
• Discussion Leader Group 4
• Theoretical Review/Exercise
• Housekeeping

Discussion Leaders

Notes from Warren’s talk:

• Radian6.com – favorites for word-of-mouth
• Facebook controversy : New privacy rules under fire; EPIC prepares lawsuit on Facebook privacy policy

A note about learning (which I should have shared week 1)

• Chao-Wei (abstract, slides, video)
• Vera
• Paolo
• Peter

Last week’s DL post-class reflection

• Pei-Chieh
• Rebekah
• Ross
• Yun Li

Possible group questions:

• How does the concept of the “tragedy of the commons” apply in a digital world where the commons exists of zeroes and ones?
• Facebook, as becoming our social capital tool, follows a path from offline to online in building social networks. By this means, since our offline and online presence are perceived as one, what makes an online political activity different from the offline one?
• How might digital technologies make it profitable for firms to be socially responsible? How might these technologies empower consumers to reward socially responsible firms?

Theoretical Review/Exercise

A look at the VCR.

• 10 Minutes:
  Read: With shift to digital TV, how long can VCRs stay afloat?
  As you read, think about Christensen, Rogers and Winston.
  List the theories or conceptual ideas from the course that are embodied in this article.
  Answer the question!
• Discuss in threes
• Discuss at large

Housekeeping: Papers

Posts (NCR) to read:

• Christy
• Ross

To Make Mine & Meg’s Lives Easier:

• Readability: no justified type!
• Submit papers as WordDoc (not pdf) with yourName_paper_no as the file name.
• See range of word counts

Grammatical Areas For Improvement (Common Mistakes)

• Passive tense
• Verb-noun agreement
• Punctuation (comma splices; 1900s not 1900’s … it is plural, not possessive!)
• Missing bridges between ideas
• Super-long (or super-short) sentences/paragraphs. Each paragraph should be one idea. Sentences, generally speaking, should have one idea and be short enough for the reader to breathe while reading! Single-sentence paragraphs do not usually fit this writing style.

Structural Areas For Improvement (Common Mistakes)

• Lack of clear structure for paper: the structure is a formula … introduction, usually three points, conclusion. Tell the reader what you are going to argue (your thesis) and how (part 1, part 2, part 3 of this paper) in the introduction.
• Lack of clear thesis statement/introduction.
• Lack of clear timeline/boundaries (what is the past, the present, the future).
• Conclusion does not reframe introduction (impossible to do if there is no clear introduction!). Conclusions rest on evidence presented in the paper, no citations in the best conclusion — it’s your own words.
• Lack of evidence for claims (data are the most persuasive; failing in that, cite someone). Unless a “fact” is common knowledge, it should be credited, where it is in the paper (there may be multiple citations in one paragraph). Any claim (argument) that you make should either follow from the evidence you have presented up to that point or be credited to someone else who made that claim.
• Missing linkage between facts and rationale. Why did xyz happen? Why is xyz important in the scheme of your paper? How did xyz’s happening link to a theory or concept discussed in this (or in some other) class?

Citing Sources (Common Mistakes)

• Wikipedia is a good place to start with research but is usually not the best (most credible) source. Exceptions may be definitions and very new technological innovations (which should not have been in this paper!).
• References cited should be in alphabetical order by author’s last name (or title, in the event of a source cited in that manner)
• References are single-spaced with double-space between each source.
• In-line citations: we discussed in class the method is (LastName, date). If you want to talk about someone’s book, the first time you reference that person, please use FirstName LastName (year) in the sentence. After that, it’s OK (to me, maybe not to APA) to use LastName if there is only one reference by this person; in that case, it’s LastName (date).
• Remember to include the “retrieve date” for all electronic resources.
• Credit images separately, if you decide to use images in the web version of this paper, but be sure to credit them.
• Each paper contains a cited reference list. In your annotated bibliography, you may include sources that you found but that you did not use in your paper. When the source is used in the paper, part of the annotation is an explanation of how it is used.

Example – Ross (pdf)

Example – concise introduction:

In an era where “Google” is a verb and almost any type of information can be found on sites like How.com or Wikipedia.org, it can be easy to forget how people learned skills and created communities of common interest before the internet. This paper will examine how people who created quilts, needlework, and other crafts communicated with each other before the internet and how their communication and craft influenced and developed their community. Specifically this paper will discuss why crafting was important, how women learned skills and techniques, and ways that information was shared through the use of patterns. It will then examine how women gathered based on a common interest in crafting and, as a result, created a community that became a powerful influencer in fundraising, civil rights, and the war effort. Finally the paper will discuss the financial value women found in handmade items versus those that were store-bought.

Example – multiple sources in one paragraph (synthesis):

Because of copyright law, music can be a product to be bought and sold like any product – this is the cornerstone for the U.S. music economy. However, copyright law’s existence doesn’t come without challenges. As University of Massachusetts professor Reebee Garofalo (2004) observes: “Since its inception, copyright has never simply been an exclusive contract to exploit the fruits of one’s creativity, but rather a balancing act, weighting the legal protection of intellectual property against the public rights of access to information and freedom of expression” (Frith, 2004, p. 90). Because copyright both protects musicians’ work and limits public access to these works, copyright law embodies a dichotomy that Garofalo (2004) approaches somewhat cynically. She asks, “Is copyright law really a means of protecting composers from exploitation? Or is it better understood as a mechanism through which the loosely collective and inter-textual tradition of popular music-making… is straight-jacketed by the legal structure of the market economy?” (Frith, 2004, p. 2) Regardless of perspective about whose best interests copyright law serves, there is no question that it is central to the U.S. music industry.

Example – scope:

The first section of this historical analysis begins around 1920 and continues to the mid to late 1990s when the proliferation of internet access in American households provided tribe members with opportunities to take ownership of the production, sharing and consumption of information than was possible given the structural models of mass media communications technologies like the radio and television. The year 1920 is a logical place to begin because it happened to be the year that the first sporting event was broadcast to a mass audience, albeit an event other than football. It was also the first year that the professional football league that would soon be re-named the National Football League (NFL) formalized its operations.

Though the most basic psychological needs of group and identity formation would not be satisfactorily met by the communication platforms of the radio and the television, it was their emergence in American society that first gave rise to a larger audience hungry to consume media related to the game more generally, and to their adopted teams of choice more specifically. Communication theory will be applied in the second part of this project to highlight the importance of this re-structuring of control for tribe members collectively and individually, but for this paper it is beyond the scope of what is discussed.

Example:

Content of tonight’s email:

(1) I have changed the due date for the first paper on the home page and Catalyst tools to Thursday at 9 pm.

(2) Extra-Credit Opportunities
Many of you have asked about extra credit opportunities. The answer is yes and is two-fold:

(a) As mentioned in class (and I think in email) you can write extra questions (beyond the two sets required)

(b) You can participate both in- and out of class (more commenting than asked by me). I’ll need you to provide some documentation for this (also, if you do not speak up in class, you should be commenting outside of class … and please provide me with some documentation).

(c) You can post two reading essays the next two weeks (instead of the one that is required).

(3) I forgot to click “submit” last night, so I had to recreate your thoughts from my memory. Take a look — if I missed your group’s contribution (not really an “if”) consider appending it — or anything you’ve thought of in the interim — as another comment.

(dadgumit – my second set did not post either!)

http://com546.wordpress.com/2009/02/10/week-6-class-notes-2/

From Mass Communication To Customized Information

• Guest Speaker, Monica Guzman (twitter), Seattle P-I
• Discussion (Group 3)
• General Discussion
• Housekeeping

Monica Links

• Time Magazine article
• BigBlog
• West Seattle Blog
• Newcastle City Blog
• Eat Sleep Publish
• BBC opens archives (2003)
• How should be finance the BBC (2008)
• ProPublica

Discussion Leaders

1. Chris
2. Pei-Chieh
3. Rebekah
4. Ross
5. Yun Li

Questions:

• How do we change policy to better support new public opinion while still protecting the privileges of those whose past rights are becoming violated, essentially, by new public opinion?
• Fidler states that the mass markets that the national radio broadcast networks created helped to reinforce ethnic, racial and religious segregation in the United States. In the VERY next sentence he writes, ‘as the networks consolidated their power, they became much more than a unifying force for the nation.’ Then goes on to talk about creation of consumer society. I suppose I feel like there should have been a much more detailed explanation about how the national networks helped to reinforce segregation. Explanations from the class as to how this happened?
• There has been no discussion in any of the readings – unless I’m forgetting something pertinent, which is possible – about the business models of the telegraph industry. The models of the newspaper, radio and television industries have been discusses thoroughly in multiple readings; and the history of the telegraph and its central role in the history of communications systems has been touched upon in more than one week’s readings. But I’ve yet to see much analysis about how the economics of the telegraph. What was its business model, how did it evolve and how did its business model effect communications systems?
• How similar is early radio broadcasting to Twitter or blogging?

(Technology + Culture)

(1) Pennsylvania 6-5000 (1939)

(2) Rikki Don’t Lose That Number (1973)

(3) 867-5309 (1982)

Current examples???

• Can You Hear Me Now?
• Pomegranate Smartphone (Google Cache)

Housekeeping

• Grade sheet updated
• Demo Catalyst Collect-It
• Due date for 1st paper – 11.45 Wed night. Suggest moving to 9 pm Th if everyone promises to have someone else read their paper beforehand! [Note: if I specifically asked you do to this in book review feedback, you have an extension.]
• Exemplary Book Reviews – please read them!

Exemplary Book Reviews
Read to see how other students integrate course material into their writing as well as for examples of writing that flows well.

• Christy
• Peter
• Rebekah
• Yu-Hsuan

Theme: We’ve Been Down This Road Before

• Framing mini-lecture
• Discussion – Books
• Discussion Leaders
• Paper discussion, assistance

Housekeeping

• Turn off snap preview! (KEG demo)
• Your questions 
• Food for thought: Joseph Pine, What Do Consumers Really Want?
• New article in eReserve, Vernor Vinge on Rainbow’s End 

Framing Mini-Lecture

• TED Talks – Peter Hirsberg, The Web and TV, a sibling rivalry 

Discussion, Books

• Exemplary reviews:  Michael, Paolo, Peter, Rebekah, Ross 
• Edits needed for most – add a citation like Michael’s at the beginning or the end (for people who are not in our course!) 
• Discussion Groups:
  (1)  Harry, Michael, Ross, Pei-Chieh
  (2) Matthew, Suna, Vera 
  (3) Chao-Wei, Jeff, Renee, Rubi
  (4) Brian, Christy, Jen, Peter, Yu-Hsuan, ZiWen
  (5)  Chris, Filiz, Paolo, Rebecca, Xiaoqi, Yun
• All reviews 

This week’s Discussion Leaders

1. Christy
2. Harry
3. Filiz
4. Rubi
5. Ziwen

Christy:

While the control of the communications technology sector is constantly fought over, overarching good comes from the resulting innovations and improvements. Although consumers often don’t realize what they want (if they are already happy with their current technology), they will come to enjoy the benefits of new technologies that are often more efficient and less costly. 

Rubi:

I remember the first day when one of my teachers in elementary school told us that the inventor of the color television was a Mexican, Guillermo González Camarena, an engineer. He invented the Chromoscopic adapter for television equipment, this equipment was an early color television transmission system in 1941 (with a U.S. patent application: 2,296,019). As a Mexican, I have always been proud of this. However, in this class I have learned the difference between a new invention and a disruptive innovation. The color television was not a new invention; it was an innovation (disruptive technology).

Ziwen: 

On the other hand, we could look at these two articles in this way that if we consider technologies such as semiconductors or transistor as internal forces which ensure the emergence of all kinds of electronic goods, we can also consider social forces as external forces which might resist the internal forces or even hamper the growing rate of those technologies.

 

Possible Questions for overall discussion

• How might  car companies use communication technologies to speed-up the development of “greener” cars?
• When considering information discovery and filtering as when a user is doing research or following a whim, and then considering Google as an example of a service provided for this purpose, what is ‘the next thing” on this path? Why?
• How might the economic slowdown affect Moore’s law?
• What are the impacts of patents on the speed of the innovation-decision process? 

Last Week’s Discussion Leaders – reflections on experience

• Brian
• Jeff
• Renee 
• Suna

Quotes from this week’s reading essays:

Brian:

The patent system really has two opposing goals. One is to protect the inventor and their invention so they can make money from their work and the other is to foster innovation. Maybe they are not entirely opposing, but they don’t seem to be in perfect harmony either.

Matthew:

[T]he thread that brings the three works we are discussing together is thus:  possessing a clear history of a technology and understanding what may have prevented its diffusion to the masses in the past as well as may have bolstered its success during the same period, as well as knowing precisely what major challenges to innovation the technology faces today might be, and being able to see how the past and the present provide insight to the technology’s future are all vital to understanding the development of any technology in general.  Understanding these underlying developments as they have and will occur, in regards to the particular technologies we will discuss herein, helps us understand how we have gotten the tools that we use to communicate today.  Thus, this helps us predict how we will communicate using technology in the future.

Renee:

My sentimental side is always saddened by the casualties of progress. I am reminded of the Twilight Zone episode titled “The Obsolete Man” in which The State decides that the librarian is no longer useful to society because there are no more libraries. With technology evolving so rapidly, how will the people stay ahead of change? Or are we working ourselves into obsolescence?

Time will tell. And sooner than we think. What will the artificially intelligent robots and the new life forms we are creating say of us a hundred years from now?

Rebekah:

As a modern reader of this essay, it is easy to see how the marketplace can change–in just over 50 years. New user groups and needs do surface–the market is not static. The ability to see the glimmer of a need, recognize what technology will grow and evolve, and ask how products can be made faster, easier, and more attuned to users’ needs is one way to ’see’ into the future as Bush did in 1945.

Suna:

Back to the archival question – at this point, online search is one of the best options for short-term archiving of data/content. But search only works as well as the items have been keyworded (or the company that owns the items has paid.) Archiving today is difficult with our ephermal data — photos that get deleted or never removed from their data source (the camera), millions of emails deleted or spammed, twitters lost (or else randomly optimized for search)…

Vera:

Needless to say, the success of a product relies on several factors. From ideation, prototype, invention and diffusion. Sometimes inventors know that there may be a need, but will his/her products will satisfy the need ? To answer this question, inventors should investigate the society, peoples’ behaviors and compete with the other competitors who might produce similar products. It seems so controllable whereas the truth is not. Every moment could be important for every decision whether it is the past or the future. We can see this in Christensen’s chapters.

 

Questions for this week:

• Brian:
  1. Is the US patent system a good way to protect innovation? [CLOSED] If not, what would be a good way to protect innovation and what impact would this have on innovation and the innovators?
  2. Are disruptive technologies bound to succeed? [CLOSED] Could the telegraph have done more to stop the telephone? [CLOSED]Why does it seem like some technologies are inevitably going to succeed?
  3. Can old technologies still have a place in current society like the turntable? [CLOSED] Why would this happen?

   

• Chao-Wei
  1. Intel is a company with exceptional competence to turn threatens into opportunities; what would be the environmental threaten to Intel, such as antitrust laws or other government policies, which are out of Intel’s control and get damaged  
  2. From the innovative theories’ point of view, what is the best strategy for AMD or other entrants to challenge Intel’s leading role in the industry?
  3. Foundries don’t have the ability to design chips hence they are highly depending on fabless companies or IDMs. Is it better for foundries to possess the competence of designing chips? [CLOSED]

   

• Chris
  1. In Bush’s article, he made several predictions about where technology would make advancements in the future. His thoughts on compression of resources such as encyclopedias materialized in the form of the world wide web. Where do you see compression affecting other print volumes in the future, and do you believe we are too attached to the idea of holding physical novels to ever replace those with digital copies on a large scale?
  2. Bush discusses records throughout his article, and talks about the possibilities of ways to record vast amounts of information (his “memex” idea in part6). As more and more records are converted to digital form, the emphasis always seems to be on how vast amounts of information are at our fingertips, and how much space it is saving us….why does there seem to be less of an emphasis on how this is better for the environment to not have as many things printed?
  3. Christensen talks about how Moores Law has affected business models, as customers demand more performance out of products. How has overshooting allowed companies to change competition?
• Harry
  1. Vennavar Bush bemoans the fact that Mendel’s concept of the laws of genetics was lost for a generation because “his publication did not reach the few who were capable of grasping and extending it.” Will some of today’s major discoveries get lost in the mountain of information being generated every minute today? [CLOSED]
  2. Christensen talks about looking beyond Moore’s law to find the next disruptive technology. Will the chip manufacturers be able to shed the incumbent position and look outside the realm of making more and faster? [CLOSED]
  3. How will the current economic turmoil impact the development of disruptive technologies – will innovation slow because companies are unwilling to risk scarce resources [CLOSED]?
• Peter
  1. How would Christensen’s model of innovation and disruption change when economic instability leads to overall decreased market demand? Who would be the least affected by such decreased demand?
  2. Christensen says the semiconductor industry will move towards a “system similar to the one in which Toyota makes cars.” How could the reverse (car companies operating in a system similar to the one in which Intel makes semi-conductors) help speed up development of greener cars?
  3. In what scenarios could customization lead to commoditization?
• Jeff
  1. Why were the innovators working on the telephone and the phonograph so hesitant to pronounce them as ‘break-away’ inventions from the telegraph?
  2. What other industries (beyond the Intel example) have a growing number of obviously overshot customers? What industries might develop this problem soon? What are some potential outcomes in addressing these challenges?
  3. When considering information discovery and filtering as when a user is doing research or following a whim, and then considering Google as an example of a service provided for this purpose, what is ‘the next thing” on this path? Why?
• Paolo
  1. Moore’s law basically says that technology is growing smaller, less expensive and more powerful at an exponential rate. What are some examples of technologies today that are growing at this rate, especially those that apply to communications?
  2. Because Moore’s law results in “overshooting consumers,” consumers are benefitting from technologies they haven’t ever needed. This changes market dynamics drastically, making consumers expect more of the unexpected. Are consumers expectations now unrealistic (i.e. the hoverboard in Back to the Future) because of Moore’s Law?
  3. Much of the technological advancements of the day are now virtual (i.e. search engines, virtualization, etc). How does Moore’s law apply to virtual innovations?
• Pei-Chieh
  1. How dose Moore’s law apply to other technologies possibly?
  2. Bush encourages scientists to improve the accessibility of knowledge, more than increasing physical abilities. How will he measure the achievement is reached or not based on the current technologies, like wikipedia?
• Ross
  1. Christensen, ‘Whither Moore’s Law’ the future of semiconductors
  2. What are the signs that advances in microprocessors are NOT overshooting the market?
  3. What is the basis for predicting there will be fewer processor hungry applications in the future?
  4. How will the economic slowdown affect Moore’s law?
• Rubi
  1. In Chapter 7 from Seen What’s Next, Christensen mentions that one of the innovation’s dilemmas in the case of Intel is that Intel continues to improve its technology, but this creates opportunities for upstarts (disruptive entrants) “The very thing that makes Intel great is the very thing that creates opportunities for the attacking firms.” (171). In this regard, how incumbents like Microsoft can protect themselves from the disruptive entrants’ unique skills as the undershot customers shrinks?
  2. From Chapter 7 from Seen What’s Next by Christensen: What other circumstances can change the actions follow by a company that were successful in the past that may not be successful in the future, especially in companies like Google in regards to Moore’s Law?
  3. In the article As We May Think by Vannevar Bush, the author was able to see or predict what could be next based on the technology available back in 1945. Many of his technological predictions became true. If the internet would have existed back then, what do you think Vannevar Bush would have seeing next after the internet?
  4. On chapter 2 from Winston reading, there was a battle between Gray’s and Bell’s innovations back then, if this would have happen now, what are some of the patent regulation laws that could protect Bell?
• Yu-Hsuan
  1. How can patent accelerate the speed of the innovation-decision process? Sometimes, patent is a barrier for adopting a technology, so how can we alleviate the obstacle result from the patent?
  2. Besides the factor of the expected trajectory of performance improvement beyond the performance improvement required by mainstream market, what other factors may affect us to access promising disruptive technologies, such cost or something else?
  3. As the technology improving, many amateurs can dedicate in the professional field now. What is the trend for this kind of innovation or what existing industries that require specialized professionals today might become available to all tomorrow?
• Yun
  1. How to cultivate the ability to capitalize on disruptive opportunities since Intel had a victory in this case? What experience and lesson can be drew from it?
  2. What are the steps and routes that a disruptive innovation like semiconductor grow from niche markets to the establishment of an industrial kingdom?
  3. “Everyone always hopes for the emergence of new,unimagined applications.But the weight of history suggests the unimagined often remains just that;ultimately ever more demanding applications will stop appearing or will emerge much more slowly than anticipated.But even if new, high-end applications emerge,rocketing toward the technological frontier almost always leaves customers behind.” It seems the pace of technology development is prone to exceed the demands pace of people. Thus,what is the upper limit of technology development if there is one(how about people being satisfied with their status quo)?