Now showing items tagged Innovation

Every sacred cow was once an innovation. One day someone discovers a new technique that offers greater efficiency, it is implemented, considered best practice and its use is mandated and monitored across the organisation. It is then taught in in induction and training programs, but without the new staff being taught why it was originally developed. Before long, what was once an innovative idea is a stale habit and any efforts to challenge or change it are met with active resistance. The innovation has become a sacred cow.

We often hear about echo chambers and groupthink in regards to the online world, our political leanings and our social groups. However, one of the areas most prone to the effects of groupthink is the corporate world.

One of the great challenges in any established industry is that players in a sector begin to look, think and operate in a very similar way — a phenomenon often referred to as strategy convergence. The reasons for this are quite simple. Companies tend to engage the same consulting firms to work with them, hire talent form the same pools of graduates, subscribe to the same news and attend the same conferences.

In an age dominated by constant, tech-powered connection, it would seem that the last thing we need more of is more time spent together – especially at work, and especially in person. Having spent the first two years of the decade rapidly adjusting to remote work and adopting the tech solutions that made this possible, dragging ourselves back into cities and workplaces can feel like time and energy wasted.

In a world that is becoming more and more futuristic by the minute, there are few places that need our attention as urgently as education. While innovations and changes may represent exciting strides towards the future for those of us already in the adult world, they place urgent demands on the knowledge and skills of today’s students - the ones who will actually inhabit the future that is approaching.

Today’s students need to be equipped within innovative classrooms with adaptable skills for their unpredictable futures. However, for teachers, the disruption of the pandemic to students’ learning, the speed at which technologies like ChatGPT are infiltrating the classrooms and ever-increasing layers of bureaucracy mean integrating innovation and creativity in the classroom is often far beyond their capacity.

The tech world is off to a great start this year with the famously ground-breaking and mind-blowing tech convention, CES, presenting some breakthrough innovations. The Las Vegas megashow is known for showcasing the most futuristic and quirky of the tech world’s inventions, and this year’s event lived up to its reputation.

Here are some of the most promising gamechangers.

At some point in history, the ideas and assumptions we take for granted were controversial. Now, their opposing idea would be the one considered extreme, and those who hold it are likely to be rejected or simply remain silent. Majority opinion feels stable, but it is constantly in flux.

Back in the 1930s, French historian and political scientist Alexis de Tocqueville, suggested that “As long as the majority is still undecided, discussion is carried on; but as soon as its decision is irrevocably pronounced, everyone is silent, and the friends as well as the opponents of the measure unite in assenting to its propriety.” Known as the Tocqueville effect, this dynamic in human behaviour is alive and well today.[1]

With the last couple of years boasting an unrivalled pace of change, 2022 is approaching with promise of further transformations in the way we live, work and shop. With global crises exposing inefficiencies and issues of remote living raising demands for new solutions, technological innovations have been quickly adopted by businesses and are set to continue taking over our work and play.

With abilities that seem to have come straight from the future, 3D printing is gaining traction across all industries. While 3D printing has been a fringe technology for decades, the numbers give some indication of how quickly it is moving towards the mainstream. Recent years have seen worldwide sales of desktop 3D printers triple with estimates that annual sales will exceed 100 million units by 2030. Siemens predicts that 3D printing will become 50% cheaper and up to 400% faster in the coming decade.[1]

The powers and potentials of 3D printers are hard to overstate. Here are 3 of these key powers, driving this technology’s march to the mainstream.

Trust is a non-negotiable in today’s economy. For obvious reasons, businesses that are trusted are more lucrative and more loved than their competitors. However, time has told that trusted brands also outlast their competition. Trust consistently emerges as the common denominator between the world’s longest lasting companies, proving to keep them afloat through every new fad, wave and trend.