Ini Salah satu motor di Japan...gede..berat bro...
Ikut foto mba ya...ada orang lewat...pake kimono....yaudah gak apa mas...lakukan....foto maksudnya.....hehe..Jpreeeett....
Nah ini lagi jalan ama Guide...di Katakana Nagoya....Festifal Musim Panas...
Sama Orang 1 Orang Japan dan 2 orang Vietnam..tebak yang mana Vietnam yang mana Japanies...??!!
Ini nich yang namanya Sake...
Yah..dibawah sendiriaannn...biarlah..yang penting JPrett...klik klik...
Briefing.....nich...
Banyak rumbai rumbai di Kota...lagi festifal musim Panas (Summer Festifal)...Jpreeettt...
Jalan jalan di Pertokoan ama Orang Vietnam dan Myanmar....
Nah kalo udah santai..baru foto foto lagi...
Stttt ini lagi serius belajar di Nagoya University....
Jalan jalan di Osakana Tample...beli earphone...harganya 1000 Yen...berarti Rp 110.000 ....mahal gak?!.....
Dipilih dipilih...kimono.....penglaris..naahh ini nih yang namannya pakaian tradisional Japan..
Siapa bilang Japan gak ada pengemis...nih....jpreeett...dah gitu..diatangannya nunjuk ke bungkusan kecil....apa?!! oh receh...haik haik!!! Arigato gozaimas...
Motor dijepang kaya gini...tapi motor sangat jarang di Japan...orang lebih seneng jalan kaki....
Itu siapa sih baju biru gak mau minggir...mau mfoto kuil juga...huz huz...
Deket kuil ada burung merpatinya juga...jinak lagi....wuih..jadi laper nich...
Pokoknya tiap ada gapura tulisan Kanji....jepreeet ajah....masa bodo artinya apa....(Jangan jangan arti tulisannya 'Maaf Jangan Foto disini')...wuaddduuh...
Orang Venezuela...Mba Marilyn...demennya belanja melulu...untung masih bujang...aeh....gadis...alias gak ada tanggungan....foya foya lah...
Jalan jalan sore...asik juga nemu Tample....semacam kuil gitu...nama tempatnya Osakana..masih di Nagoya juga...
Ada tugu kecil di pertigaan.....gak tau tulisannya apa yang penting jepreeeet..aja...khan tulisan kanji...keren gitu lho...
Ini sepeda di Japan bro..bannya mungiiil banget...irit kali ya...
ini minimarket di Japan....100 Yen Shop....semua barang 100 Yen= Rp 10.000 di Toko ini...
Nih patung raksasa...itu kepala siapa sih?! ikut nampang aja!...tapi ada gunanya juga sih...jadi tau seberapa tinggi patungnya....
Ini Fast Train....lewat tiap 2 menit...fiuwfhhhh...nungguin 7 kali baru dapet jepretan gambarnya bro.....masih untung cameranya canggih nich....jadi gambarnya tajem brur.....
Naah ini Japan Tulen nich....tapi sayang...beliau ngoordinatorin program training yang laen....awas mbak jangan deket deket...yah....dikit lah lumayan....:-) hahaha...
Ini Panitia Training..namanya 'Muoko'....mirip orang Indonesia yah...
Nah ini nich...orang Vene...Marilyn....ck ck..biar kagak pusing minum aja panadol..hahahaha...
Di foto atas dari Philippine, Kenya, Venezuela, Japan, Myanmar dan tentu Indonesia (Gue:-))....ada pesta sake alias alkohol....(tapi diriku tidak minum lho...hehe), tapi orang jepangnya...kaya profesor gitu..pada minum sake....disana biasa....
Ini saat Opening Ceremony di 1st Floor JICA Center....dari kiri ke kanan : Saya, Koordinator Training (Yamada), Orang penting dari Belanda (sy lupa namanya ada di name card), Marilyn (Come from Venezuela), Joseph (From Kenya)...
Ini didepan Kantor JICA (Japan International Cooperation Center) Chubu, merangkap tempat tinggalku, yang berada di 4 Floor...
Temen-temen satu grup training...saat mau check up kesehatan....
Inilah pemandangan diluar asrama saat pertama kali aku tiba di Japan....6 Juli 2009, Pukul 08.00 Waktu Japan.
Dan inilah teman-teman satu program training...
A personification of innovation as represented by a statue in The American Adventure in the World Showcase pavilion of Walt Disney World's Epcot.
The term innovation means a new way of doing something. It may refer to incremental, radical, and revolutionary changes in thinking, products, processes, or organizations. A distinction is typically made between Invention, an idea made manifest, and innovation, ideas applied successfully. In many fields, something new must be substantially different to be innovative, not an insignificant change, e.g., in the arts, economics, business and government policy. In economics the change must increase value, customer value, or producer value. The goal of innovation is positive change, to make someone or something better. Innovation leading to increased productivity is the fundamental source of increasing wealth in an economy.
Innovation is an important topic in the study of economics, business, technology, sociology, and engineering. Colloquially, the word "innovation" is often used as synonymous with the output of the process. However, economists tend to focus on the process itself, from the origination of an idea to its transformation into something useful, to its implementation; and on the system within which the process of innovation unfolds. Since innovation is also considered a major driver of the economy, the factors that lead to innovation are also considered to be critical to policy makers.
Those who are directly responsible for application of the innovation are often called pioneers in their field, whether they are individuals or organisations.
Introduction
In the organizational context, innovation may be linked to performance and growth through improvements in efficiency, productivity, quality, competitive positioning, market share, etc. All organizations can innovate, including for example hospitals, universities, and local governments.
While innovation typically adds value, innovation may also have a negative or destructive effect as new developments clear away or change old organizational forms and practices. Organizations that do not innovate effectively may be destroyed by those that do. Hence innovation typically involves risk. A key challenge in innovation is maintaining a balance between process and product innovations where process innovations tend to involve a business model which may develop shareholder satisfaction through improved efficiencies while product innovations develop customer support however at the risk of costly R&D that can erode shareholder return.
Conceptualizing innovation
Innovation has been studied in a variety of contexts, including in relation to technology, commerce, social systems, economic development, and policy construction. There are, therefore, naturally a wide range of approaches to conceptualizing innovation in the scholarly literature. See, e.g., Fagerberg et al. (2004).
Fortunately, however, a consistent theme may be identified: innovation is typically understood as the successful introduction of something new and useful, for example introducing new methods, techniques, or practices or new or altered products and services.
Distinguishing from Invention and other concepts
"An important distinction is normally made between invention and innovation. Invention is the first occurrence of an idea for a new product or process, while innovation is the first attempt to carry it out into practice" (Fagerberg, 2004: 4)
It is useful, when conceptualizing innovation, to consider whether other words suffice. Invention – the creation of new forms, compositions of matter, or processes – is often confused with innovation. An improvement on an existing form, composition or processes might be an invention, an innovation, both or neither if it is not substantial enough. It can be difficult to differentiate change from innovation. According to business literature, an idea, a change or an improvement is only an innovation when it is put to use and effectively causes a social or commercial reorganization.
Innovation occurs when someone uses an invention or an idea to change how the world works, how people organize themselves, or how they conduct their lives. In this view innovation occurs whether or not the act of innovating succeeds in generating value for its champions. Innovation is distinct from improvement in that it permeates society and can cause reorganization. It is distinct from problem solving and may cause problems. Thus, in this view, innovation occurs whether it has positive or negative results.
Innovation in organizations
A convenient definition of innovation from an organizational perspective is given by Luecke and Katz (2003), who wrote:
"Innovation . . . is generally understood as the successful introduction of a new thing or method . . . Innovation is the embodiment, combination, or synthesis of knowledge in original, relevant, valued new products, processes, or services.
Innovation typically involves creativity, but is not identical to it: innovation involves acting on the creative ideas to make some specific and tangible difference in the domain in which the innovation occurs. For example, Amabile et al (1996) propose:
"All innovation begins with creative ideas . . . We define innovation as the successful implementation of creative ideas within an organization. In this view, creativity by individuals and teams is a starting point for innovation; the first is necessary but not sufficient condition for the second".
For innovation to occur, something more than the generation of a creative idea or insight is required: the insight must be put into action to make a genuine difference, resulting for example in new or altered business processes within the organization, or changes in the products and services provided.
A further characterization of innovation is as an organizational or management process. For example, Davila et al (2006), write:
"Innovation, like many business functions, is a management process that requires specific tools, rules, and discipline."
From this point of view the emphasis is moved from the introduction of specific novel and useful ideas to the general organizational processes and procedures for generating, considering, and acting on such insights leading to significant organizational improvements in terms of improved or new business products, services, or internal processes.
It should be noted, however, that the term 'innovation' is used by many authors rather interchangeably with the term 'creativity' when discussing individual and organizational creative activity. As Davila et al (2006) comment,
"Often, in common parlance, the words creativity and innovation are used interchangeably. They shouldn't be, because while creativity implies coming up with ideas, it's the "bringing ideas to life" . . . that makes innovation the distinct undertaking it is."
The distinctions between creativity and innovation discussed above are by no means fixed or universal in the innovation literature. They are however observed by a considerable number of scholars in innovation studies.
Innovation as a behavior
Some in depth work on innovation in organisations, teams and individuals has been carried out by J. L. Byrd , PhD who is co-author of "The Innovation Equation." Dr Jacqueline Byrd is the brain behind the Creatrix Inventory which can be used to look at innovation and what is behind it. The Innovation Equation she developed is:
Innovation = Creativity * Risk Taking
Using this inventory it is possible to plot on axis where individuals fit on their Risk Taking and Creativity.
Economic conceptions of innovation
Joseph Schumpeter defined economic innovation in The Theory of Economic Development, 1934, Harvard University Press, Boston.
1. The introduction of a new good — that is one with which consumers are not yet familiar — or of a new quality of a good.
2. The introduction of a new method of production, which need by no means be founded upon a discovery scientifically new, and can also exist in a new way of handling a commodity commercially.
3. The opening of a new market, that is a market into which the particular branch of manufacture of the country in question has not previously entered, whether or not this market has existed before.
4. The conquest of a new source of supply of raw materials or half-manufactured goods, again irrespective of whether this source already exists or whether it has first to be created.
5. The carrying out of the new organization of any industry, like the creation of a monopoly position (for example through trustification) or the breaking up of a monopoly position
Schumpeter's focus on innovation is reflected in Neo-Schumpeterian economics, developed by such scholars as Christopher Freeman and Giovanni Dosi.
In the 1980s, Veneris (1984, 1990) developed a systems dynamics computer simulation model which takes into account business cycles and innovations.
Innovation is also studied by economists in a variety of contexts, for example in theories of entrepreneurship or in Paul Romer's New Growth Theory.
Transaction cost and network theory perspectives
According to Regis Cabral (1998, 2003):
"Innovation is a new element introduced in the network which changes, even if momentarily, the costs of transactions between at least two actors, elements or nodes, in the network."
Innovation and market outcome
Market outcome from innovation can be studied from different lenses. The industrial organizational approach of market characterization according to the degree of competitive pressure and the consequent modelling of firm behavior often using sophisticated game theoretic tools, while permitting mathematical modelling, has shifted the ground away from an intuitive understanding of markets. The earlier visual framework in economics, of market demand and supply along price and quantity dimensions, has given way to powerful mathematical models which though intellectually satisfying has led policy makers and managers groping for more intuitive and less theoretical analyses to which they can relate to at a practical level. Non quantifiable variables find little place in these models, and when they do, mathematical gymnastics (such as the use of different demand elasticities for differentiated products) embrace many of these qualitative variables, but in an intuitively unsatisfactory way.
In the management (strategy) literature on the other hand, there is a vast array of relatively simple and intuitive models for both managers and consultants to choose from. Most of these models provide insights to the manager which help in crafting a strategic plan consistent with the desired aims. Indeed most strategy models are generally simple, wherein lie their virtue. In the process however, these models often fail to offer insights into situations beyond that for which they are designed, often due to the adoption of frameworks seldom analytical, seldom rigorous. The situational analyses of these models often tend to be descriptive and seldom robust and rarely present behavioral relationship between variables under study.
From an academic point of view, there is often a divorce between industrial organisation theory and strategic management models. While many economists view management models as being too simplistic, strategic management consultants perceive academic economists as being too theoretical, and the analytical tools that they devise as too complex for managers to understand.
Innovation literature while rich in typologies and descriptions of innovation dynamics is mostly technology focused. Most research on innovation has been devoted to the process (technological) of innovation, or has otherwise taken a how to (innovate) approach. The integrated innovation model of Soumodip Sarkar goes some way to providing the academic, the manager and the consultant an intuitive understanding of the innovation – market linkages in a simple yet rigorous framework in his book, Innovation, Market Archetypes and Outcome- An Integrated Framework.
The integrated model presents a new framework for understanding firm and market dynamics, as it relates to innovation. The model is enriched by the different strands of literature – industrial organization, management and innovation. The integrated approach that allows the academic, the management consultant and the manager alike to understand where a product (or a single product firm) is located in an integrated innovation space, why it is so located and which then provides valuable clues as to what to do while designing strategy. The integration of the important determinant variables in one visual framework with a robust and an internally consistent theoretical basis is an important step towards devising comprehensive firm strategy. The integrated framework provides vital clues towards framing a what to guide for managers and consultants. Furthermore, the model permits metrics and consequently diagnostics of both the firm and the sector and this set of assessment tools provide a valuable guide for devising strategy.
Sources of innovation
There are several sources of innovation. In the linear model the traditionally recognized source is manufacturer innovation. This is where an agent (person or business) innovates in order to sell the innovation. Another source of innovation, only now becoming widely recognized, is end-user innovation. This is where an agent (person or company) develops an innovation for their own (personal or in-house) use because existing products do not meet their needs. Eric von Hippel has identified end-user innovation as, by far, the most important and critical in his classic book on the subject, Sources of Innovation.
Innovation by businesses is achieved in many ways, with much attention now given to formal research and development for "breakthrough innovations." But innovations may be developed by less formal on-the-job modifications of practice, through exchange and combination of professional experience and by many other routes. The more radical and revolutionary innovations tend to emerge from R&D, while more incremental innovations may emerge from practice – but there are many exceptions to each of these trends.
Regarding user innovation, rarely user innovators may become entrepreneurs, selling their product, or more often they may choose to trade their innovation in exchange for other innovations. Nowadays, they may also choose to freely reveal their innovations, using methods like open source. In such networks of innovation the creativity of the users or communities of users can further develop technologies and their use.
Whether innovation is mainly supply-pushed (based on new technological possibilities) or demand-led (based on social needs and market requirements) has been a hotly debated topic. Similarly, what exactly drives innovation in organizations and economies remains an open question.
More recent theoretical work moves beyond this simple dualistic problem, and through empirical work shows that innovation does not just happen within the industrial supply-side, or as a result of the articulation of user demand, but through a complex set of processes that links many different players together – not only developers and users, but a wide variety of intermediary organisations such as consultancies, standards bodies etc. Work on social networks suggests that much of the most successful innovation occurs at the boundaries of organisations and industries where the problems and needs of users, and the potential of technologies can be linked together in a creative process that challenges both.
Value of experimentation in innovation
When an innovative idea requires a new business model, or radically redesigns the delivery of value to focus on the customer, a real world experimentation approach increases the chances of market success. New business models and customer experiences can’t be tested through traditional market research methods. Pilot programs for new innovations set the path in stone too early thus increasing the costs of failure.
Stefan Thomke of Harvard Business School has written a definitive book on the importance of experimentation. Experimentation Matters argues that every company’s ability to innovate depends on a series of experiments [successful or not], that help create new products and services or improve old ones. That period between the earliest point in the design cycle and the final release should be filled with experimentation, failure, analysis, and yet another round of experimentation. “Lather, rinse, repeat,” Thomke says. Unfortunately, uncertainty often causes the most able innovators to bypass the experimental stage.
In his book, Thomke outlines six principles companies can follow to unlock their innovative potential.
1. Anticipate and Exploit Early Information Through ‘Front-Loaded’ Innovation Processes
2. Experiment Frequently but Do Not Overload Your Organization.
3. Integrate New and Traditional Technologies to Unlock Performance.
4. Organize for Rapid Experimentation.
5. Fail Early and Often but Avoid ‘Mistakes’.
6. Manage Projects as Experiments.
Thomke further explores what would happen if the principles outlined above were used beyond the confines of the individual organization. For instance, in the state of Rhode Island, innovators are collaboratively leveraging the state's compact geography, economic and demographic diversity and close-knit networks to quickly and cost-effectively test new business models through a real-world experimentation lab.
Diffusion of innovations
Once innovation occurs, innovations may be spread from the innovator to other individuals and groups. This process has been studied extensively in the scholarly literature from a variety of viewpoints, most notably in Everett Rogers' classic book, The Diffusion of Innovations. However, this 'linear model' of innovation has been substantinally challenged by scholars in the last 20 years, and much research has shown that the simple invention-innovation-diffusion model does not do justice to the multilevel, non-linear processes that firms, entrepreneurs and users participate in to create successful and sustainable innovations.
Rogers proposed that the life cycle of innovations can be described using the ‘s-curve’ or diffusion curve. The s-curve maps growth of revenue or productivity against time. In the early stage of a particular innovation, growth is relatively slow as the new product establishes itself. At some point customers begin to demand and the product growth increases more rapidly. New incremental innovations or changes to the product allow growth to continue. Towards the end of its life cycle growth slows and may even begin to decline. In the later stages, no amount of new investment in that product will yield a normal rate of return.
The s-curve is derived from half of a normal distribution curve. There is an assumption that new products are likely to have "product Life". i.e. a start-up phase, a rapid increase in revenue and eventual decline. In fact the great majority of innovations never get off the bottom of the curve, and never produce normal returns.
Innovative companies will typically be working on new innovations that will eventually replace older ones. Successive s-curves will come along to replace older ones and continue to drive growth upwards. In the figure above the first curve shows a current technology. The second shows an emerging technology that current yields lower growth but will eventually overtake current technology and lead to even greater levels of growth. The length of life will depend on many factors.
Goals of innovation
Programs of organizational innovation are typically tightly linked to organizational goals and objectives, to the business plan, and to market competitive positioning.
For example, one driver for innovation programs in corporations is to achieve growth objectives. As Davila et al (2006) note,
"Companies cannot grow through cost reduction and reengineering alone . . . Innovation is the key element in providing aggressive top-line growth, and for increasing bottom-line results"
In general, business organisations spend a significant amount of their turnover on innovation i.e. making changes to their established products, processes and services. The amount of investment can vary from as low as a half a percent of turnover for organisations with a low rate of change to anything over twenty percent of turnover for organisations with a high rate of change.
The average investment across all types of organizations is four percent. For an organisation with a turnover of say one billion currency units, this represents an investment of forty million units. This budget will typically be spread across various functions including marketing, product design, information systems, manufacturing systems and quality assurance.
The investment may vary by industry and by market positioning.
One survey across a large number of manufacturing and services organisations found, ranked in decreasing order of popularity, that systematic programs of organizational innovation are most frequently driven by:
1. Improved quality
2. Creation of new markets
3. Extension of the product range
4. Reduced labour costs
5. Improved production processes
6. Reduced materials
7. Reduced environmental damage
8. Replacement of products/services
9. Reduced energy consumption
10. Conformance to regulations
These goals vary between improvements to products, processes and services and dispel a popular myth that innovation deals mainly with new product development. Most of the goals could apply to any organisation be it a manufacturing facility, marketing firm, hospital or local government.
Failure of innovation
Research findings vary, ranging from fifty to ninety percent of innovation projects judged to have made little or no contribution to organizational goals. One survey regarding product innovation quotes that out of three thousand ideas for new products, only one becomes a success in the marketplace.[citation needed] Failure is an inevitable part of the innovation process, and most successful organisations factor in an appropriate level of risk. Perhaps it is because all organisations experience failure that many choose not to monitor the level of failure very closely. The impact of failure goes beyond the simple loss of investment. Failure can also lead to loss of morale among employees, an increase in cynicism and even higher resistance to change in the future.
Innovations that fail are often potentially ‘good’ ideas but have been rejected or ‘shelved’ due to budgetary constraints, lack of skills or poor fit with current goals. Failures should be identified and screened out as early in the process as possible. Early screening avoids unsuitable ideas devouring scarce resources that are needed to progress more beneficial ones. Organizations can learn how to avoid failure when it is openly discussed and debated. The lessons learned from failure often reside longer in the organisational consciousness than lessons learned from success. While learning is important, high failure rates throughout the innovation process are wasteful and a threat to the organisation's future.
The causes of failure have been widely researched and can vary considerably. Some causes will be external to the organisation and outside its influence of control. Others will be internal and ultimately within the control of the organisation. Internal causes of failure can be divided into causes associated with the cultural infrastructure and causes associated with the innovation process itself. Failure in the cultural infrastructure varies between organisations but the following are common across all organisations at some stage in their life cycle (O'Sullivan, 2002):
1. Poor Leadership
2. Poor Organisation
3. Poor Communication
4. Poor Empowerment
5. Poor Knowledge Management
Common causes of failure within the innovation process in most organisations can be distilled into five types:
1. Poor goal definition
2. Poor alignment of actions to goals
3. Poor participation in teams
4. Poor monitoring of results
5. Poor communication and access to information
Effective goal definition requires that organisations state explicitly what their goals are in terms understandable to everyone involved in the innovation process. This often involves stating goals in a number of ways. Effective alignment of actions to goals should link explicit actions such as ideas and projects to specific goals. It also implies effective management of action portfolios. Participation in teams refers to the behaviour of individuals in and of teams, and each individual should have an explicitly allocated responsibility regarding their role in goals and actions and the payment and rewards systems that link them to goal attainment. Finally, effective monitoring of results requires the monitoring of all goals, actions and teams involved in the innovation process.
Innovation can fail if seen as an organisational process whose success stems from a mechanistic approach i.e. 'pull lever obtain result'. While 'driving' change has an emphasis on control, enforcement and structure it is only a partial truth in achieving innovation. Organisational gatekeepers frame the organisational environment that "Enables" innovation; however innovation is "Enacted" – recognised, developed, applied and adopted – through individuals.
Individuals are the 'atom' of the organisation close to the minutiae of daily activities. Within individuals gritty appreciation of the small detail combines with a sense of desired organisational objectives to deliver (and innovate for) a product/service offer.
From this perspective innovation succeeds from strategic structures that engage the individual to the organisation's benefit. Innovation pivots on intrinsically motivated individuals, within a supportive culture, informed by a broad sense of the future.
Innovation, implies change, and can be counter to an organisation's orthodoxy. Space for fair hearing of innovative ideas is required to balance the potential autoimmune exclusion that quells an infant innovative culture.
[edit] Measures of innovation
There are two fundamentaly different types of measures for innovation: the organisational level and the political level. The measure of innovation at the organisational level relates to individuals, team-level assessments, private companies from the smallest to the largest. Measure of innovation for organisations can be conducted by surveys, workshops, consultants or internal benchmarking. There is today no established general way to measure organisational innovation. Corporate measurements are generally structured around balanced scorecards which cover several aspects of innovation such as business measures related to finances, innovation process efficiency, employees' contribution and motivation, as well benefits for customers. Measured values will vary widely between businesses, covering for example new product revenue, spending in R&D, time to market, customer and employee perception & satisfaction, number of patents, additional sales resulting from past innovations. For the political level, measures of innovation are more focussing on a country or region competitive advantage through innovation. In this context, organizational capabilities can be evaluated through various evaluation frameworks e.g. efqm (European foundation for quality management). The OECD Oslo Manual from 1995 suggests standard guidelines on measuring technological product and process innovation. Some people consider the Oslo Manual complementary to the Frascati Manual from 1963. The new Oslo manual from 2005 takes a wider perspective to innovation, and includes marketing and organizational innovation. Other ways of measuring innovation have traditionally been expenditure, for example, investment in R&D (Research and Development) as percentage of GNP (Gross National Product). Whether this is a good measurement of Innovation has been widely discussed and the Oslo Manual has incorporated some of the critique against earlier methods of measuring. This being said, the traditional methods of measuring still inform many policy decisions. The EU Lisbon Strategy has set as a goal that their average expenditure on R&D should be 3 % of GNP.
The Oslo Manual is focused on North America, Europe, and other rich economies. In 2001 for Latin America and the Caribbean countries it was created the Bogota Manual
Many scholars claim that there is a great bias towards the "science and technology mode" (S&T-mode or STI-mode), while the "learning by doing, using and interacting mode" (DUI-mode) is widely ignored. For an example, that means you can have the better high tech or software, but there are also crucial learning tasks important for innovation. But these measurements and research are rarely done.
Technology transfer is the process of sharing of skills, knowledge, technologies, methods of manufacturing, samples of manufacturing and facilities among industries, universities, governments and other institutions to ensure that scientific and technological developments are accessible to a wider range of users who can then further develop and exploit the technology into new products, processes, applications, materials or services. While conceptually the practice has been utilized for many years (in ancient times, Archimedes was notable for applying science to practical problems), the present-day volume of research, combined with high-profile failures at Xerox PARC and elsewhere, has led to a focus on the process itself.
Transfer process
Many companies, universities and governmental organizations now have an "Office of Technology Transfer" (also known as "Tech Transfer" or "TechXfer") dedicated to identifying research which has potential commercial interest and strategies for how to exploit it. For instance, a research result may be of scientific and commercial interest, but patents are normally only issued for practical processes, and so someone -- not necessarily the researchers -- must come up with a specific practical process. Another consideration is commercial value; for example, while there are many ways to accomplish nuclear fusion, the ones of commercial value are those that generate more energy than they require to operate.
The process to commercially exploit research varies widely. It can involve licensing agreements or setting up joint ventures and partnerships to share both the risks and rewards of bringing new technologies to market. Other corporate vehicles, e.g. spin-outs, are used where the host organization does not have the necessary will, resources or skills to develop a new technology. Often these approaches are associated with raising of venture capital (VC) as a means of funding the development process, a practice more common in the US than in the EU, which has a more conservative approach to VC funding.
In recent years, there has been a marked increase in technology transfer intermediaries specialized in their field. They work on behalf of research institutions, governments and even large multinationals. Where start-ups and spin-outs are the clients, commercial fees are sometimes waived in lieu of an equity stake in the business. As a result of the potential complexity of the technology transfer process, technology transfer organizations are often multidisciplinary, including economists, engineers, lawyers, marketers and scientists. The dynamics of the technology transfer process has attracted attention in its own right, and there are several dedicated societies and journals.
Technological determinism is a reductionist doctrine that a society's technology determines its cultural values, social structure, or history. Rather than the social shaping of technology, "the uses made of technology are largely determined by the structure of the technology itself, that is, that its functions follow from its form" (Neil Postman). However, this is not to be confused with the inevitability thesis (Chandler), which states that once a technology is introduced into a culture that what follows is the inevitable development of that technology.
Technological determinism has been defined as an approach that identifies technology, or technological advances, as the central causal element in processes of social change (Croteau and Hoynes). As a technology is stabilized, its design tends to dictate users' behaviors, consequently diminishing human agency. It ignores the social and cultural circumstances in which the technology was developed. Sociologist Claude Fischer (1992) characterised the most prominent forms of technological determinism as "billiard ball" approaches, in which technology is seen as an external force introduced into a social situation, producing a series of ricochet effects.
Technological determinism has been summarized as 'The belief in technology as a key governing force in society ...' (Merritt Roe Smith). 'The idea that technological development determines social change ...' (Bruce Bimber). It changes the way people think and how they interact with others and can be described as '...a three-word logical proposition: "Technology determines history"' (Rosalind Williams) . It is, '... the belief that social progress is driven by technological innovation, which in turn follows an "inevitable" course.' (Michael L. Smith). This 'idea of progress' or 'doctrine of progress' is centralised around the idea that social problems can be solved by technological advancement, and this is the way that society moves forward. Technological determinists believe that "'You can't stop progress', implying that we are unable to control technology" (Lelia Green). This suggests that we are somewhat powerless and society allows technology to drive social changes because, "societies fail to be aware of the alternatives to the values embedded in it [technology]" (Merritt Roe Smith).
The term is believed to have been coined by Thorstein Veblen (1857-1929), an American sociologist. Most interpretations of technological determinism share two general ideas:
* that the development of technology itself follows a predictable, traceable path largely beyond cultural or political influence, and
* that technology in turn has "effects" on societies that are inherent, rather than socially conditioned or that the society organizes itself in such a way to support and further develop a technology once it has been introduced.
Technological determinism stands in opposition to the theory of the social construction of technology, which holds that both the path of innovation and the consequences of technology for humans are strongly, if not entirely shaped by society itself through the influence of culture, politics, economic arrangements, and the like. In this case of social determinism, “What matters is not the technology itself, but the social or economic system in which it is embedded” (Langdon Winner).
Pessimism towards techno-science arose after the mid 20th century for various reasons including the use of nuclear energy towards nuclear weapons, Nazi human experimentation during World War II , and lack of economic development in the third world (also known as the global south). As a direct consequence, desire for greater control of the course of development of technology gave rise to disenchantment with the model of technological determinism in academia and the creation of the theory of technological constructivism (see social construction of technology).
We look to see why Romance Novels have become so dominant in our society compared to other forms of novels like the Detective or Western novel. We could say that it was because of the invention of the perfect binding system developed by publishers. This was where glue was used instead of the time-consuming and very costly process of binding books by sewing in separate signatures. This meant that these books could be mass-produced for the wider public. We would not be able to have mass literary without mass production. This example is closely related to Marshall McLuhan's belief that print helped produce the nation state. This moved society on from an oral culture to a literate culture but also introduced a capitalist society where there was clear class distinction and individualism. As Postman maintains
“the printing press, the computer, and television are not therefore simply machines which convey information. They are metaphors through which we conceptualize reality in one way or another. They will classify the world for us, sequence it, frame it, enlarge it, reduce it, argue a case for what it is like. Through these media metaphors, we do not see the world as it is. We see it as our coding systems are. Such is the power of the form of information”.
Hard and soft
In examining determinism we should also touch upon Aslam Mamu and the idea of Hard determinism and Soft Determinism. A compatibilist says that it is possible for free will and determinism to exist in the world together while a incompatibilist would say that they can not and there must be one or the other. Those who support determinism can be further divided.
Hard determinists would view technology as developing independent from social concerns. They would say that technology creates a set of powerful forces acting to regulate our social activity and its meaning. According to this view of determinism we organize ourselves to meet the needs of technology and the outcome of this organization is beyond our control or we do not have the freedom to make a choice regarding the outcome.
Soft Determinism, as the name suggests, is a more passive view of the way technology interacts with socio-political situations. Soft determinists still subscribe to the fact that technology is the guiding force in our evolution, but would maintain that we have a chance to make decisions regarding the outcomes of a situation. This is not to say that free will exists but it is the possibility for us to roll the dice and see what the outcome is. A slightly different variant of soft determinism is the 1922 technology-driven theory of social change proposed by William Fielding Ogburn, in which society must adjust to the consequences of major inventions, but often does so only after a period of cultural lag.
Technology as neutral
Individuals who consider technology as neutral see technology as neither good nor bad and what matters are the ways in which we use technology. An example of a neutral viewpoint is, ‘guns are neutral and its up to how we use them’ weather it would be ‘good or bad’ (Green,2001). Mackenzie and Wajcman (1997) believe that technology is only neutral if its never been used before, or if no one knows what its is going to be used for (Green,2001). In effect, guns would only be classified as neutral if society were none the wiser of their existence and functionalities (Green,2001). Obviously, a society like this is non existent and once becoming knowledgeable about technology, its drawn in a social progression and nothing whatsoever is ‘neutral about society’ (Green). According to Leila Green, if one believes technology is neutral, one would disregard the cultural and social conditions that technology was produced (Green, 2001). To determine whether or not technology may be neutral depends on the individual and the beliefs they hold.
Criticism
Modern thinkers no longer consider technological determinism to be a very accurate view of the way in which we interact with technology. “The relationship between technology and society cannot be reduced to a simplistic cause-and-affect formula. It is, rather, an ‘intertwining’”, whereby technology does not determine but "...operates, and are operated upon in a complex social field" (Murphie and Potts).
In his article "Subversive Rationalization: Technology, Power and Democracy with technology." Andrew Feenberg argues that technological determinism is not a very well founded concept by illustrating that two of the founding theses of determinism are easily questionable and in doing so calls for what he calls democratic rationalization (Feenberg 210-212).
In his article “Do Artifacts Have Politics?,” Langdon Winner transcends hard and soft technological determinism by elaborating two ways in which artifacts can have politics.
Although "The deterministic model of technology is widely propagated in society" (Sarah Miller), it has also been widely questioned by scholars. Lelia Green explains that, "When technology was perceived as being outside society, it made sense to talk about technology as neutral". Yet, this idea fails to take into account that culture is not fixed and society is dynamic. When "Technology is implicated in social processes, there is nothing neutral about society" (Lelia Green). This confirms one of the major problems with "technological determinism and the resulting denial of human responsibility for change. There is a loss of human involvement that shape technology and society" (Sarah Miller).
Another conflicting idea is that of technological somnambulism a term coined by Winner in his essay "technology as forms of life". Winner wonders whether or not we are simply sleepwalking through our existence with little concern or knowledge as to how we truly interact with technology. In this view it is still possible for us to wake up and once again take control of the direction in which we are traveling (Winner 104). However, it requires society to adopt Ralph Schroeder's claim that, "users don’t just passively consume technology, but actively transform it”.
In opposition to technological determinism are those who suscribe to the belief of social determinism and postmodernism. Where social determinists believe that social circumstance determine which technologies are adopted and that no technology can be considered "inevitable." Technology and culture are not neutral and when knowledge comes into the equation, technology becomes implicated in social processes. The knowledge of how to create and enhance technology, and of how to use technology is socially bound knowledge. Postmodernists take another view, suggesting thst what is right or wrong is dependent on circumstance. They believe technological change can have implications on the past, present and future. While they believe technological change is influenced by changes in government policy, society and culture, they consider the notion of change to be a paradox, since change is constant.
Technological evolution is the name of a science and technology studies theory describing technology development, developed by Czech philosopher Radovan Richta.
Theory of technological evolution
According to Richta and later Bloomfield , technology (which Richta defines as "a material entity created by the application of mental and physical effort to nature in order to achieve some value") evolves in three stages: tools, machine, automation. This evolution, he says, follows two trends: the replacement of physical labour with more efficient mental labour, and the resulting greater degree of control over one's natural environment, including an ability to transform raw materials into ever more complex and pliable products.
Stages of technological development
The pretechnological period, in which all other animal species remain today aside from some avian and primate species was a non-rational period of the early prehistoric man.
The emergence of technology, made possible by the development of the rational faculty, paved the way for the first stage: the tool. A tool provides a mechanical advantage in accomplishing a physical task, and must be powered by human or animal effort.
Hunter-gatherers developed tools mainly for procuring food. Tools such as a container, spear, arrow, plow, or hammer that augments physical labor to more efficiently achieve his objective. Later animal-powered tools such as the plow and the horse, increased the productivity of food production about tenfold over the technology of the hunter-gatherers. Tools allow one to do things impossible to accomplish with one's body alone, such as seeing minute visual detail with a microscope, manipulating heavy objects with a pulley and cart, or carrying volumes of water in a bucket.
The second technological stage was the creation of the machine. A machine (a powered machine to be more precise) is a tool that substitutes the element of human physical effort, and requires the operator only to control its function. Machines became widespread with the industrial revolution, though windmills, a type of machine, are much older.
Examples of this include cars, trains, computers, and lights. Machines allow humans to tremendously exceed the limitations of their bodies. Putting a machine on the farm, a tractor, increased food productivity at least tenfold over the technology of the plow and the horse.
The third, and final stage of technological evolution is the automaton. The automaton is a machine that removes the element of human control with an automatic algorithm. Examples of machines that exhibit this characteristic are digital watches, automatic telephone switches, pacemakers, and computer programs.
It's important to understand that the three stages outline the introduction of the fundamental types of technology, and so all three continue to be widely used today. A spear, a plow, a pen, and an optical microscope are all examples of tools.
Theoretical implications
The process of technological evolution culminates with the ability to achieve all the material values technologically possible and desirable by mental effort.
An economic implication of the above idea is that intellectual labour will become increasingly more important relative to physical labour. Contracts and agreements around information will become increasingly more common at the marketplace. Expansion and creation of new kinds of institutes that works with information such as for example universities, book stores, patent-trading companies, etc. is considered an indication that a civilization is in technological evolution.
Interestingly, this highlights the importance underlining the debate over intellectual property in conjunction with decentralized distribution systems such as today's internet. Where the price of information distribution is going towards zero with ever more efficient tools to distribute information is being invented. Growing amounts of information being distributed to an increasingly larger customer base as times goes by. With growing disintermediation in said markets and growing concerns over the protection of intellectual property rights it is not clear what form markets for information will take with the evolution of the information age.
The Strategy of Technology doctrine involves a country using its advantage in technology to create and deploy weapons of sufficient power and numbers so as to overawe or beggar its opponents, forcing them to spend their limited resources on developing hi-tech countermeasures and straining their economy.
The Strategy of Technology is described in the eponymous book written by Stefan T. Possony and Jerry Pournelle in 1968. This was required reading in the U.S. service academies during the latter half of the Cold War.
Cold War
The classic example of the successful deployment of this strategy was the nuclear build-up between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. during the Cold War.
Some observers believe that the Vietnam War was a necessary attritive component to this war — Soviet industrial capacity was diverted to conventional arms in North Vietnam, rather than development of new weapons and nuclear weapons — but evidence would need to be found that the then-current administration of the US saw it thus. Current consensus and evidence holds that it was but a failed defensive move in the Cold War, in the context of the Domino Doctrine.
The coup-de-grace is considered to have been Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative, a clear attempt to obsolesce the Soviet nuclear arsenal, creating an immense expense for the Soviets to maintain parity.
Opposing views and controversies
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It is argued that the strategy was not a great success in the Cold War; that the Soviet Union did little to try to keep up with the SDI system, and that the War in Afghanistan caused a far greater drain on Soviet resources. However, the Soviets spent a colossal amount of money on their Buran space shuttle in an attempt to compete with a perceived military threat from the American Space Shuttle program, which was to be used in the SDI.
There is a further consideration. It is not seriously in doubt that despite the excellent education and training of Soviet technologists and scientists, it was the nations of Europe and North America, in particular the United States, which made most of the running in technical development.
The Soviet Union did have some extraordinary technical breakthroughs of their own. For example: the 15% efficiency advantage of Soviet rocket engines which used exhaust gases to power the fuel pumps[citation needed], or of the Squall supersonic cavitation torpedo. It was also able to use both its superlative espionage arm and the inherent ability of central planning to concentrate resources to great effect.
But the United States found a way to use its opponent's strengths for its own purposes. In the late 1990s, it emerged that many stolen technological secrets were funnelled by an arm of American intelligence to the Soviet Union. The documents were real. They were of versions of the product which contained a critical but not obvious flaw.
Such was the complexity and depth of the stolen secrets that to check them would have required an effort almost as great as developing a similar product from scratch. Such an effort was possible in nations of the West because the cost could be defrayed by commercial sales. In Soviet states this was not an option. This sort of technological jiu-jitsu may set the pattern of future engagements.
"Superpowers" redirects here. For other uses, see Superpower (disambiguation).
The USA and USSR were the two superpowers during the Cold War. Here Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev meet in 1985. Since 1989 the USA has remained the sole superpower.
A superpower is a state with a leading position in the international system and the ability to influence events and its own interests and project power on a worldwide scale to protect those interests; it is traditionally considered to be one step higher than a great power. Alice Lyman Miller (Professor of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School), defines a superpower as "a country that has the capacity to project dominating power and influence anywhere in the world, and sometimes, in more than one region of the globe at a time, and so may plausibly attain the status of global hegemon." It was a term first applied in 1944 to the United States, the Soviet Union, and the British Empire. Following World War II, as the British Empire transformed itself into the Commonwealth and its territories became independent, the Soviet Union and the United States generally came to be regarded as the only two superpowers, and confronted each other in the Cold War.
After the Cold War, the most common belief held that only the United States fulfilled the criteria to be considered a superpower, although it is a matter of debate whether it is a hegemon or if it is losing its superpower status . China, the European Union, India and Russia are also thought to have the potential of achieving superpower status within the 21st century. Others doubt the existence of superpowers in the post Cold War era altogether, stating that today's complex global marketplace and the rising interdependency between the world's nations has made the concept of a superpower an idea of the past and that the world is now multipolar.
Application of the term
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The term superpower was used to describe nations with greater than great power status as early as 1944, but only gained its specific meaning with regard to the United States and the Soviet Union after World War II.
There have been attempts to apply the term superpower retrospectively, and sometimes very loosely, to a variety of past entities such as Ancient Egypt, Ancient China, Ancient Greece, the Persian Empire, the Roman Empire, the Mongol Empire, Portuguese Empire, the Spanish Empire, the Dutch Republic and the British Empire. Recognition by historians of these older states as superpowers may focus on various superlative traits exhibited by them. For example, at its peak the British Empire was the largest the world had ever seen.
Origin
A world map of 1945. According to William T.R. Fox, the United States (blue), the Soviet Union (red), and the British Empire (teal)/British Commonwealth (light green) were superpowers.
The term in its current political meaning was coined in the book The Superpowers: The United States, Britain and the Soviet Union – Their Responsibility for Peace (1944), written by William T.R. Fox, an American foreign policy professor. The book spoke of the global reach of a super-empowered nation. Fox used the word Superpower to identify a new category of power able to occupy the highest status in a world in which, as the war then raging demonstrated, states could challenge and fight each other on a global scale. According to him, there were (at that moment) three states that were superpowers: Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union. The British Empire was the most extensive empire in world history, which was considered the foremost great power and by 1921, held sway over 25% of the world's population and controlled about 25% of the Earth's total land area, while the United States and the Soviet Union grew in power in World War II.
Characteristics
Military assets such as a US Navy Nimitz class aircraft carrier combined with a blue water navy are a means of power projection on a global scale—one hallmark of a superpower.
The New York Stock Exchange. Economic power such as a large nominal GDP and a world reserve currency are an important factors in projection of soft power.
The criteria of a superpower are not clearly defined and as a consequence they may differ between sources.
According to Lyman Miller, "The basic components of superpower stature may be measured along four axes of power: military, economic, political, and cultural (or what political scientist Joseph Nye has termed “soft”). 
In the opinion of Kim Richard Nossal of McMaster University, "generally this term was used to signify a political community that occupied a continental-sized landmass, had a sizable population (relative at least to other major powers); a superordinate economic capacity, including ample indigenous supplies of food and natural resources; enjoyed a high degree of non-dependence on international intercourse; and, most importantly, had a well-developed nuclear capacity (eventually normally defined as second-strike capability)."
Former Indian National Security Advisor Jyotindra Nath Dixit has also described the characteristics of superpowers. In his view, "first, the state or the nation concerned should have sizable territorial presence in terms of the size of the population. Secondly, such a state should have high levels of domestic cohesion, clear sense of national identity and stable administration based on strong legal and institutional arrangements. Thirdly, the state concerned should be economically well to do and should be endowed with food security and natural resources, particularly energy resources and infrastructural resources in terms of minerals and metals. Such a state should have a strong industrial base backed by productive capacities and technological knowledge. Then the state concerned should have military capacities, particularly nuclear and missile weapons capabilities at least comparable to, if not of higher levels than other countries which may have similar capacities."
In the opinion of Professor Paul Dukes, "a superpower must be able to conduct a global strategy including the possibility of destroying the world; to command vast economic potential and influence; and to present a universal ideology". Although, "many modifications may be made to this basic definition".
According to Professor June Teufel Dreyer, "A superpower must be able to project its power, soft and hard, globally."
Cold War
This map shows two essential global spheres during the Cold War in 1980. Consult the legend on the map for more details.
The 1956 Suez Crisis suggested that Britain, financially weakened by two world wars, could not then pursue its foreign policy objectives on an equal footing with the new superpowers without sacrificing convertibility of its reserve currency as a central goal of policy. As the majority of World War II had been fought far from its national boundaries, the United States had not suffered the industrial destruction or massive civilian casualties that marked the wartime situation of the countries in Europe or Asia. The war had reinforced the position of the United States as the world's largest long-term creditor nation and its principal supplier of goods; moreover it had built up a strong industrial and technological infrastructure that had greatly advanced its military strength into a primary position on the global stage.
Despite attempts to create multinational coalitions or legislative bodies (such as the United Nations), it became increasingly clear that the superpowers had very different visions about what the post-war world ought to look like, and after the withdrawal of British aid to Greece in 1947 the United States took the lead in containing Soviet expansion in the Cold War. The two countries opposed each other ideologically, politically, militarily, and economically. The Soviet Union promoted the ideology of communism, whilst the United States promoted the ideologies of liberal democracy and the free market. This was reflected in the Warsaw Pact and NATO military alliances, respectively, as most of Europe became aligned either with the United States or the Soviet Union. These alliances implied that these two nations were part of an emerging bipolar world, in contrast with a previously multipolar world.
The idea that the Cold War period revolved around only two blocs, or even only two nations, has been challenged by some scholars in the post-Cold War era, who have noted that the bipolar world only exists if one ignores all of the various movements and conflicts that occurred without influence from either of the two superpowers. Additionally, much of the conflict between the superpowers was fought in "proxy wars", which more often than not involved issues more complex than the standard Cold War oppositions.
After the Soviet Union disintegrated in the early 1990s, the term hyperpower began to be applied to the United States, as the sole remaining superpower of the Cold War era. This term, coined by French foreign minister Hubert Védrine in the 1990s, is controversial and the validity of classifying the United States in this way is disputed. One notable opponent to this theory, Samuel P. Huntington, rejects this theory in favor of a multipolar balance of power.
Other International Relations theorists, such as Henry Kissinger, theorize that because the threat of the Soviet Union no longer exists to formerly American-dominated regions such as Japan and Western Europe, American influence is only declining since the end of the Cold War, because such regions no longer need protection or have necessarily similar foreign policies as the United States.
Post Cold War (1991-Present)
After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 that ended the Cold War, the post-Cold War world was sometimes considered as a unipolar world , with the United States as the world's sole remaining superpower. In the words of Samuel P. Huntington, "The United States, of course, is the sole state with preeminence in every domain of power — economic, military, diplomatic, ideological, technological, and cultural — with the reach and capabilities to promote its interests in virtually every part of the world."
Most experts argue that this older assessment of global politics was too simplified, in part because of the difficulty in classifying the European Union at its current stage of development. Others argue that the notion of a superpower is outdated, considering complex global economic interdependencies, and propose that the world is multipolar. According to Samuel P. Huntington, "There is now only one superpower. But that does not mean that the world is unipolar. A unipolar system would have one superpower, no significant major powers, and many minor powers." Huntington thinks, "Contemporary international politics" ... "is instead a strange hybrid, a uni-multipolar system with one superpower and several major powers."
Additionally, there has been some recent speculation that the United States is declining in relative power as the rest of the world rises to match its levels of economic and technological development. Citing economic hardships, Cold War allies becoming less dependent on the United States, a declining dollar, the rise of other great powers around the world, and decreasing education, some experts have suggested the possibility of America losing its superpower status in the distant future or even at the present.
Potential superpowers
The present day governments to be called, or to remain, a potential superpower for the 21st century.
Academics and other qualified commentators sometimes identify potential superpowers thought to have a strong likelihood of being recognized as superpowers in the 21st century. The record of such predictions has not been perfect. For example in the 1980s some commentators thought Japan would become a superpower, due to its large GDP and high economic growth at the time.
Due to their large populations, growing military strength, and economic potential and influence in international affairs, People's Republic of China, the European Union, India, and Russia. are among the powers which are most often cited as having the ability to influence future world politics and reach the status of superpower in the 21st century. While some believe one (or more) of these countries will replace the United States as a superpower, others believe they will rise to rival, but not replace, the United States. Others have argued that the historical notion of a "superpower" is increasingly anachronistic in the 21st century as increased global integration and interdependence makes the projection of a superpower impossible.
