Technology's Promise

Medical Breakthrough Prediction

In reading Technology’s Promise, by William E. Halal, I found the most interesting technological predictions to be centered on medical advances. This is because this industry is one of the most important topics to all of humans around the global. Without accurate healthcare, our live expectancy is endangered. One of the predictions identified in the book centered on genetic therapy.

As stated by Halal, “One of the greatest lures of biotech is eliminating the 5,000 genetic diseases that plague humankind. Progress is slow, but results are likely about 2024 (2008).”

 Coming for the origin of gene therapy, this process use DNA as a pharmaceutical agent to treat various disease forms. Thus far, this is an experimental technique that is still under study and has yet to be proven for mass consumption as this is a risky alternative. This technique is expected to allow treatment by inserting genes into patients instead of using drugs or surgery (U.S. National Library of Medicine, 2012).

 

Forces that could affect effectiveness:

1. Legal (Global) -This alternative is still deemed a “risky” procedure and must obtain special U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) privileges in order for research to be conducted. At any given time, the FDA may reject or suspend the clinical trials if the safety of the participants is suspected. These types of laws vary from country and may yield some unforeseen hurdles for global treatment adoptions. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has an important role in ensuring the safety of gene therapy research (U.S. National Library of Medicine, 2012).  An Institutional Review Board (IRB) and an Institutional Biosafety Committee (IBC) must approve each gene therapy clinical trial before it can be carried out (U.S. National Library of Medicine, 2012).

2. Financial – This treatment is still in the early stages of its development there for the technology that is needed may be somewhat of a costly challenge for families which may be on the poverty borderline. Often these are the high population of patients in which contract incurable disease most useful for the gene therapy procedures.

3. Ethical – This procedure affects the body’s genetic makeup and may people have concerns and questions regarding the use of gene therapy in the development of a fetus that may have long-term side effects. Also if the parent chooses to undergo the treatment it is given to the child as well due to the transference of gene makeup not allowing the child once it is older to be given a choice as to whether or not he would have chosen to undergo the treatment (U.S. National Library of Medicine, 2012).

4. Technical – This is a factor because the treatment must be applied to specific genes and thru the current injection procedure this has been proven to be somewhat a challenge (U.S. National Library of Medicine, 2012).

 

References:

Halal, W. (2008). Technology's promise: Expert knowledge on the transformation of business and society. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire England New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

U.S. National Library of Medicine. (2012 Sept 03).  Gene therapy. Retrieved from: http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/handbook/therapy

 

Halographic Decor

The Next Generation of Decorating

 

 

Lets imagine if we could do virtual previews of how we want our new living room to be designed. With one click of a button *PReSTO!* instant transformation of that once boring room into the fun festive party scence for the next game, or a calm soothing atmosphere for our parents visit this weekend. Wouldn't life just be grand?

 



Make your own photo slideshow at Animoto.

News of the Future

Toothpaste/Toothbrush NO MORE:

In studying future innovations, I came across a unique invention. I like to refer to it as ‘Dentist in a Bottle’. This I find quite interesting because of the trend for many fast quick inventions of today, such as speech to text so that you do not have to type the words. I would have never imagined that the idea of decreasing the amount of time spent paying attention to dental care would be effected. Cutting back on the amount of times needed to brush as well as taking out the amount of effort it takes to brush with a simple 10-30 rinsing approach would be very handy for us on the go individuals of today.

The author of the article touches on how this innovation could have little to no effect on the dental job market. The predictions are that the natural attrition thru retirement will be replenished by a younger workforce along with an increased job market due to the newer technological advances. Also because we are all human, there will be some who will not use the product as directed and will still suffer from minor to major dental problems.

Although I have never been one big on the dental industry, I found this article to be very interesting. The predictions that are amongst us are wide-ranged with endless possibilities. I hope that you found this innovation as interesting and insightful as I did.

Preventing Forces:

These are the top three forces that I feel may prevent this innovation from being successful:

Financial – slow to adopt due to the increased cost (20%) for the product without any decreased dental expense because regular checkups are still advised.

Governmental – there may be some side effects that may have to be fully addressed for the safety of human consumption. The proper studies must be done in order to identify all of the probable effects and reduce as many of the negatives one as possible.

Psychological – there may be some push back from consumers due to the habitual nature of brushing being installed in our mindsets. Often we have been told that brushing is not enough therefore there may be a lot of initial resistance to the concept.

 View full article at: http://p10.hostingprod.com/@www.newsoffuture.com/dentists_keep_the_smile_1.html

New Agora Analysis

New Agora Analysis

I would like to first start off by restating my innovation idea: 3D holographic décor. This would allow consumers to change the décor of any room in the home or office virtually at any time. The items created would be fully functional as if they were traditional solid state furniture and artwork of today.

 

 

For the purpose of the article review, ontology is viewed as a set of ideas/theories within a specific domain and the relationship between those ideas/theories. Structured Process Design Ontologies can be used as a structured method for frame working information. The benefits of the process are: early detection of design flaws, easily modifiable programs, clear and complete documentation and modular design to improve testing and divide problems into smaller pieces.

SDP is a process that can enable effective communication amongst a group of people. It encourages both listening and speaking skills for information sharing and concept development. This developmental process is critical to my particular innovation because this is a new idea and needs the feedback from individuals to be a useful tool in the home or office environment.

This ontology would benefit my innovation idea by aiding in a group consensus as to what the basis for the initial product launch would be; sharing ideas amongst team members aids in a better end result because various perspectives are considered. Also, there is the mention of influencing factors that can be useful within the décor innovation to find which styles and patterns are more acceptable than others.

I would state that using these types of processes can aid in a minimization in the amount of time and expenses that are spent on ideas and concepts.

Forces: Within this innovation cultural factors must be considered. This is because not all cultures view art in the same mannerisms. Developing a global product is dependent on its cultural acceptance. Also the temporal factor would be an issue with this idea. If the timing of the initial revealing is not planned properly society can be highly unacceptable to the idea. Also production demands must be in place to ensure that the assembly can sustain the consumer needs.

References:

SDDP information available at: http://blogora.wetpaint.com/page/Structured+Dialogic+Design

View more at: http://www.harnessingcollectivewisdom.com/sdp_process.html

Schreibman, V. &  Christakis, A. N. "New agora: New geometry of languaging and new technology of democracy: The structured design dialogue process." Retrieved from http://www.harnessingcollectivewisdom.com/pdf/newagora.pdf.

Delphi and NGT

The Delphi Method
Being developed as a toll used for systematic, interactive forecasting relying on a panel of experts, the Delphi method uses data collection and analysis techniques intermingled with feedback (Skulmoski, Hartman, and Krahn, 2007). The use of experts, or structured group of participants, provides more accurate results rather than using individuals who lack expertise in the tested area. This method is known to be one of the more flexible, effective and efficient research methods available for IS graduate students to answer research questions in information systems and to advance the IS body of knowledge (Skulmoski, Hartman, and Krahn, 2007).  This method has three distinct characteristics:

1.       Structured information flow: There is a structured approach to collect information and irrelevant information is filtered.

2.       Consistent feedback on a regular basis: Participants are reminded of their responses throughout the process and are given the choice to revise their earlier statements.  They are also able to comment on the responses of others and on the panel as a whole.

3.       Participants are anonymous: The participants are able to express themselves freely and openly without the need to conform to others around. Their identity is not revealed.  

This method tries to uses informed intuitive judgment in the most effective ways. Trying the best way to use the information that is gathered from the expert’s responses, this method is used to predict what future trends will look like.

The Nominal Group Technique (NGT)
The NGT is defined as an evaluation method that gives a semi-quantitative, rank ordered feedback about a group of individuals’ perceptions of what is good and bad within an educational program (Dobbie, Rhodes, Tysinger, Freeman, 2004).  The method is intended to encourage participation from every individual and thrives on the contributions that are made.  This tool can be used a group of participants varying of any size. With this tool, the decisions need to be made quickly by a vote with all opinions being accounted for.  Solutions are discussed with duplicated solutions being thrown out. Finally the solutions are ranked with the most important one being at the top of the list. This method may be useful where there are group member who are silent or there is concern about participation amongst the members.

This decision making process is one where each participant can be influenced by another. This would not be one of my personal choices only because the results can be distorted by one individual who may have a dominating opinion over the group.  This method lacks flexibility because you can only deal with one problem at a time. The group cannot move on until a decision is agreed upon by all participants. There is also no personal creativeness in the method. Every process is carefully prepared.

Forces which may impact the success:

Social: These methods may not succeed properly if social limitations exist. There must be effective communication in order to use the NGT properly. If a participant prefers to be disconnected and individualized, there would be a great reduction in the successfulness of the method.  

Reliable: How would I be able to rely on the results to be an accurate assessment of the technology?

My choice

For an innovative idea of choice, the open collaboration Delphi method would be one of choice. This is because the model would be used to motivate participants to communicate with each other and learn more about the subject matter in the eyes of the consumer with differing backgrounds other than their own.  In this environment, the participant would be forced to consider the aspects of the entire space which many not normally influence his opinion if here were in an isolated area.

References:

Dobbie, A., Rhodes, M., Tysinger, J. W., Freeman, J. (2004). Using a modified nominal group technique as a curriculum evaluation.

 Skulmoski, G. J., Hartman, F. T., & Krahn, J. (2007). The delphi method for graduate research.

Recreation Tourism Research Institue. (n.d.) The delphi method. Retrieved from http://web.viu.ca/rtri/Delphi%

TED Talks

Four principles for the open world

The video chosen for this week's assignment was "Don Tapscott: Four principles for the open world." In this twenty minute clip, Don Tapscott has analyzed the new generation of children today and enlightened us that technology is similar to air for these individuals. He attempts to highlight the future in his discussion and works to identify the new concepts we need to understand world today as it is transformed by the Internet. The point he highlights about "the cost of staying where you are becoming more expensive then change" as it relates to technology is becoming more and more applicable as things change. Many companies are incorporating new cloud concepts due to the reduced cost of maintaining their own hardware on site. Tapscott defines openness in the clip in four ways that were very enlightening:

1. Collaboration: organizational boundaries are becoming more open, talent is being viewed differently, and social media is now becoming a means of social production.
2. Transparency: finding out what is going on internally within institutions is becoming easier than ever before therefore companies must spend more time and efforts on strengthening its personal value and integrity to build the trust of the consumers.
3. Sharing: giving up organization asses, sharing common ideas, and embracing a different thinking of intellectual property.
4. Empowerment: the distribution of knowledge, power and intelligence.

The open world brings freedom. Collaboration is something that would be very meaningful for a global embracement however they may be some legal concerns as to whether or not an organization would benefit from releasing proprietary information. Would have a true "collaborative" environment be detrimental to and organization or would it aid in the development of new ideas? Also sharing may be a cultural struggle. Many cultures take pride in knowing that what they know or develop truly belongs to them. Sharing those ideas for everyone to expand upon may be somewhat difficult to embrace at first thought.






http://www.ted.com/talks/don_tapscott_four_principles_for_the_open_world_1.html

NMC Report 2

My thoughts on the Delphi Methodology

The Delphi method is defined as a structured communication technique, originally developed as a systematic, interactive forecasting method which relies on a panel of experts.  This was the methodology used for the NMC Horizon Reports. Of this methodology one could possibly say that is can be viewed a bias opinions because the panel selected are “experts” in the respective fields.  One problem with the methodology, as with any of this kinds, is does it truly represent the mindset of the everyday users. These users would the individuals to determine if these technologies are a success or not.  The experts do extensive research to help identify the proposed trends of the consumer based population but are all factors really accounted for. In the report, I do believe that majority of the trends selected will be adopted.  My final thoughts see this method is purely an educated guess based on the research that has been collected, which is accepted and is ok for a bases on technology adoption.