Uncertainty is the only certainty

In this 4th session of TWC, this time... I found the ideas are everywhere. Though I am a little blur at first, I was finally able to catch all the ideas at the end. I couldn't help but writing down all the things that Prof said and what my peers said in discussion.

Firstly, I want to thank Prof (again) for sharing with the class a great illustration about eagle and ostrich. When problems come or when opportunities appear, we have to decide : be an eagle or an ostrich. Look closely, observe, and immediately take action fast like an eagle, or just look around, hide its head, and pretend nothing happen like an ostrich. I definitely agree that we have to be proactive and reactive in dealing with the changes that occur from time to time. Be it is a revolutionary or an evolutionary change, we have to plan ahead, be ready to face it, and execute our plan at the right place and the right time.

By the way, I found that the concept of revolutionary and evolutionary changes, as well as 'wild cards' rather interesting. I just realized that there were so many shocking events that totally have changed the way people behave and appreciate things. Take Japan as an example. After the unexpected earthquake stroke Fukushima months ago, Japan is forced to look for of a new source of energy that is safer and more sustainable. Not surprisingly, Japanese (and the rest of people in the world) are also changing their way of thinking : they are now more skeptical about the safety and the benefits of the usage of nuclear power. Hopefully, Japan or any other country can come up with a brilliant and fresh ideas that can solve this whole energy problem. Will we be able to find an alternative energy? In my opinion, in this case, the problem is not whether we can or we can't, but whether we have enough time or not. Given the current technology we possess and the advanced way of thinking we now adopt, I believe sooner or later we will come up with a brilliant idea that hopefully can solve this problem.

One presentation that I thought was captivating is the one discussing about the drawbacks of social media. How social media has corrupted us in the sense that it also gives us some negative impacts? According to my peer who is presenting, the two drawbacks are : losing identity and shortening of attention span, which I don't really agree. Let us see the bigger picture here. Social media, as well as internet, is technology that is just and good; it is a media to express our opinions, ideas, or point of views. The main problem lies within ourselves : we sometimes, undeniably, can't control our own behaviors that we end up playing games, checking our emails unnecessarily, blogging, etc. instead of using the social media wisely. Regarding the 'losing identity' statement, I have to admit that there are people who are really into the virtual world to the point they wish that the reality world doesn't exist. However, given the wide range of people who can access social media, we, the users of social media, are indirectly enriched by the so many cultures that are shared through social media, such as Facebook, Twitter, or WordPress. So, in my opinion, I'd rather suggest the term 'enriching our culture' rather than 'losing identity'.

Further Possible Discussion
Talking about social media, we have seen many breakthrough that dramatically changed the market of social media. From the first invention of Friendster to the Facebook amazing breakthrough, we have to admit there are so many things are changing. What do you think of the change management of Friendster's focus from social media to social gaming in response to Facebook amazing features that enable Facebook to thrive in the social media world?

Go Green?

In this session 3 of TWC class, I found some ideas which I never questioned before. As usual, prof provided us with some interesting topics and my peers presented great presentations about many fresh topics.

The first topic that prof brought up was to create a 'cyclical' business and industrial models in order to be sustainable in this fast-moving world. I totally agree with the opinion that our world is now becoming more and more exploited rather than preserved. What we should be doing now is thinking (hard) how to preserve our resources so our future generation will be able to enjoy the same resources we are enjoying currently.

Just like the EU has been doing for the past years, Asia, especially Singapore should be doing the similar thing as well in order to ensure the sustainability of our business and environment. However, I have to admit that we are now living in the world full of hypocrisy : we ought to think that the next generation, instead of our generation, is the generation that should be able to think of a breakthrough to this sustainability problem and this thinking cycle has been occurring for a long time. This kind of point of view hinders our world to become a more sustainable workplace.

In the next session, there was a quotation, which I have known before, that caught my eye. "Life is pretty simple : You do some stuff...The trick is the doing something else." - Tom Peters. What is doing something else? The something else is indeed a thin, however extremely important, line that differentiate between creative successful people and ordinary people. From the presentation of my peers, I found the "Green Sky Thinking" is quite interesting. As the pace of our world is going faster, people also move frequently. Tourism, working requirement, education pursuit, and many other reasons required people to travel far away from their home. Airplanes, which is the fastest with the least possibility of accident vehicles, are now being used more than ever. If only the concept of "Green Sky Thinking" is applied on every airlines, I believe that it will dramatically reduce the air pollution. However, I am still skeptical about this matter : it is the matter of priority, whether we put economical issue first or eco-friendly issue first.

Further possible discussion : 
What do you think Singapore should do? Should our small yet advanced country regulate the Green Sky Thinking? Should Singapore and its citizen put environmental sustainability as a top priority rather than economical issues? What can we do as students, as we embark on our education journey in Singapore?

-TWC Session 2-

A new week. Another interesting class. I was amazed by the new perspective that I received from the readings as well as from the Professor. I am now able to distinguish between 'a rising star' and a 'falling star', terms which I find rather confusing at first!

Well, in the beginning of the class, I clearly remembered the Professor said something similar to this,"If you think you are the king of your hill and then you sit down, you are indeed going down." It made me think that perhaps that kind of attitude is one of the reasons that can explain why the West is slowing down. On the other hand, the attitudes of a 'rising star', which are optimistic, open to new ideas, and keen to invest in new ideas, are the exact kind of point of view and behaviors that everyone-every organization-every country needs most in order to thrive in this race.

There was, however, one intriguing discussion about Google that I found rather fascinating. Is Google really making us stupid and lost of identity? I have to say that I strongly disagree with the author of the article. Google and other search engines are definitely not the only driving factors that affect our identities. Years of life experience and our own point of view as well as attitude towards our surroundings possess a much more impact than what information Google can provide. Google may become the 'universal' tool for searching information, but nothing more. It will not, and can not, make us lose our identities, rather enrich them. By using Google, our knowledge will be broaden and our way of thinking will be changed as we, the users, will encounter many articles whom authors have different point of views.

One last sentence to end this post : I have a feeling that even though this TWC course is going to be tiring, this course will benefit me greatly !

- TWC Session 1 - (15 August 2011)

This TWC class was my first class of my first term. So, this class will be my first impression of how SMU classes will be. Although at first I was not in the mood to study due to the rain this morning, I found the class to be really interesting. 

First of all, each of us gave a brief introduction to the class and then we were given an explanation to the courses as well as the components that would make our final grade. The topic for today's lesson is "Technology and the Rise of Civilizations : Historical Timeline and Technology 'Revolution'". During the lesson, we were shown a video named "Did You Know;Shift Happens" and I was blown away by some statements that were on the video. There was, however, a statement that made me really curious : "Predictions are that by 2013 a supercomputer will be built that exceeds the computation capability of the human brain". If that is to be a reality and we are able to build a supercomputer that can exceeds our brain capability, will we be able to take control over it? Or is it going to be the other way around? It is a question that I still do not know, but I hope that I will be able to get the answer when I complete this TWC class. Nevertheless, this brilliant video made me realized right away that changes are always happening even while I was studying in class!

Later, once again Prof. Shahi showed us an interesting video named"Guns,Germs,and Steel",a video documentation of a book with the same title. There is one question asked by Yali, a New Guinean, that inspired Jared Diamond : "Why you white men have so much cargo and we New Guineans have so little?" That same question also make me wonder why and how come there were so many disparities between countries in this world which I hope that I will be able to answer that question as well as Prof. Shahi will share his knowledge to everyone of us in each lesson. It also made me think that how lucky I am to grow up in a country that almost has everything available for its people to enjoy and that made me feel thankful.

And lastly, there was a picture showing human evolution that surprisingly ends with a picture of an obese man. While at first I found this picture strange, I eventually agree to this picture. The technology human possesses and the technology that is yet to come can be a double-edged sword. If we do not properly control the technology and restrain it from taking control of ourselves, we will eventually become lazy and rely too much on the technology we created. However, if we are able to control it and make it for good use, we will surely benefit greatly and our world will surely become a better place.

Well, it was a rather good first experience and I am hoping to learn more of technology and world change !