journal 5

The article named "Getting Serious about Eradicating Binge Drinking" by Henry Wechsler (2007) discusses a regular phenomenon in many college campuses that eradicating binge drinking is getting serious day by day. The author made his points that how it is serious nowadays and what reasons cause this problem. Another important point, which is related to decrease this behavior, was showed in this article. The author discussed :"Rather than search for contraband alcohol, a college would be wise to engage student leader in helping administrators work out a clearly worded code of conduct that penalizes drunken behavior-and then to enforce it consistently.” It is also the best solution that I can image. As a college student, I really understand what the big influent effects the student leader can bring us. For the main group of college students, they are more willing to accept some suggestions like this from contemporary. Consuming that less binge drinking were put forward by school presidents, more students would let the speech go after a while. At the end of this article, Henry Wechsler put another solution about how to decrease drinking, he said: “making new rules, but not enforcing even the old one-for example, banning alcohol on dormitories, but allowing it to be carried in unmarked cups-tell students that the college is not serious about eradicating the problem.” It can decrease the alcohol in some way; however, it cannot prevent the college drinking outside because they just are forbidden from external factor not from their heart. Here are many ways they can continue drinking, such as in the bar and in their house. In general, the author discussed the problem of eradicating binge drinking. In my opinion, every solution that he mentioned can be worked in reality. Especially asking student leaders’ help, this serious problem should be improved, no matter how difficult it is.

#Journal 4 Yorick

In Jon Gertner’s article (2012) “True Innovation,” the author describes the philosophy for innovation that how innovation contributes to the development of the society. He starts at introducing Bell Labs, which is the most innovative organization in the world. Then he focuses on some significant people in Bell Labs in order to show the elements needed for the innovation. At last, the author shows the influence and effort of innovation that we’re still benefiting from it.

I do believe that Bell Lab did a right way for its business. It combines many significant elements to achieve the innovation, and the great achievements of Bell Labs result from the way it works. I agree with the method of organizational that Mr. Kelly used in Bell Labs. A well-organized company could finish its work step by step, and a company without organization may work in a mess. That’s the reason why every company needs a manager to organize the workers into a group. The manager can also divide them into different departments based on diverse abilities of employees so that everyone can be made full use in their expertise. That’s a good way for organizational.

This philosophy works on almost every kinds of business because businesses all need organizational to manage and plan their work. To start a business needs to know what comes first and what is the next step. For example, if you want to sell a hamburger, the first thing is to buy meet, vegetable and other stuff. Then the hamburger could be made, and a price is also needed to sell it. So organizational helps the business by giving it a list of step to follow rather than doing things randomly. Generally speaking, this method could be used in any businesses. 

Journal#4 Gengwei Zhang

 The article "True Innovation", by Jon Gertner, shows a typical American technology company- Bell Labs. The author talks about some achievements of Bell Labs, and then states some elements about the culture of creativity that Mervin Kelly was most responsible for. At last, author discusses the relationship between innovation and economics.
I strongly agree with the Mr. Kelly's viewpoint that freedom is crucial. With the development of economics, most of companies are involved in dogmatic models in order to keep the high efficiency. Even though the companies achieve much profit, they are also trapped in difficulty to have a qualitative change with lacking creativities. It is one of the reasons that some companies can't become enterprises. Freedom can make employees achieve the goals through different ways, and it can also make employer discover how to improve the company in a correct way. The most important thing is that freedom doesn't focus on the form instead of the truly mental freedom.
Secondly, dogmatism gives employees higher stress, which may decrease the efficiency and cause some negative influence. The typical example is Fujitsu, a globe ICT from Japan. The company limited the marriage of employees; if two employees want to get married, they can't work in the same city. And 8 hours standard work-time exist in name only; employees had to overtime work every day, even on weekends. This kind of high-stress style caused employee serial suicide, which led to a social extensive attention.

Journal #4 by Jules

Jules (Lu Tao)

In Jon Gertner’s article “True Innovation” (Feb. 25, 2012), he states that why innovations is important by a research about Bell Labs. Bell Labs as an innovation factory created a lot of popular products. The manager of Bell Lab have several method to manage the labs for a great work environment. 

As far as I am consider, Bell Lab have a good business model. As an innovation factory, Bell Labs have a lot of famous scientists. These scientists created enormous amount useful products in the world. The transistor, for example, invented in 1947, which is now the building block of all digital products and contemporary life. It is not looks like a modern technology company that have a clearly target and need consider with balance of profit. It had a large and dependable income ensured by its monopoly status because only one of its product can gain a great deal of profit for the world. 

The one of Kelly’s philosophy, physical proximity, is a great idea. Kelly think physical proximity can have some magical effects which phone calls couldn’t got. They mixed together different fields workers such as physicists, metallurgists and electrical engineers. It means the specialists in theory, experimentation and manufacturing can work closer. He even use architectural to approach his philosophy. The design principle of the building is people can interact with each other. Sometimes, people may thought two fields are independent; in fact they are not. Logic can use for almost fields. When the specialists in theory, experimentation and manufacturing can work together, any one problem of these can be solved quickly because they can check faster where the problem are. If In other case, we might need wait longer that they need communicate with other to explain the problem one by one. In other hand, this is a reason why team work can got more effects. People cannot concentrate on thing in a long time; after the main time, they might easy to take some mistake. However, if it is team work, everyone can got some time to relax.

Journal 4 - By Lyric

Summary

According to Jon Gertner in his article “True Innovation,” published in The New York Times on Feb. 25, 2012, innovation is not only the idealized form, but also has some different styles with which we may not be familiar. The popular understanding of innovation in America’s present culture is the pursuit of fast changes and huge developments. However, in more practical situation, innovation has better performance caused by the accumulation of detailed improvements in interdisciplinary communication. This processes include expedite idea exchange, freedom and selflessness of research atmosphere, and the unlimited questions.

Do you believe that the way Bell Lab works is good for business? Explain one specific part of Kelly’s philosophy that you agree or disagree with, explaining why. In what other kinds of businesses would this philosophy work?

Indeed, in a short period, it is rare to see the achievement of business from the way Bell Lab works. Because the unlimited and interest-oriented research is difficult to satisfy the business requirement immediately, the short-sighted enterpriser would not put this method in an important position. However, from the long period, the benefits of this way can be displayed.

The unlimited interdisciplinary communication discussed in this article provides a necessary atmosphere for the researchers. Put scientists and engineers of different concentrations together, the collision of the knowledge through the communication would let them enlarge the database in their brain. The pressure caused by the boundaries of disciplines releases. The combination from different domains would make the incredible breakthrough later.

The interest-oriented habit enhances the motivation of researchers. People always would like to do what they really want. They dislike the limitations or insistencies, especially for the researchers who have high confidence in their concentrated fields. The interest-oriented habit lead to a win-win situation for both the Bell Lab and the researchers. Bell Lab is strong enough to hire researchers who is outstanding in their own disciplines; meanwhile, the researchers can follow their interests and generate more meaningful ideas.

The freedom and the environment of helping each other motivate researchers to study more detailed and expand their fields. Most of people pursue freedom in their common life. They consider freedom is in a significant situation for human being. Less limited environment provides researchers a place to think more, to speak more, and to achieve more. The inclination of helping each other also supply researchers more assistance in their domains.

The more ideas that researchers proposed, the more chance one of them can offer a big business opportunity for the enterprise. As the accumulation and development of the innovations, finding some meaningful market-oriented ideas from them and expend them is the main goal for companies, and definitely, the popularity and profit would satisfy the business requirements.

Thank you for reading.

Journal #4 by Zhang Hao

In Jon Gartner’s article (Feb. 25, 2012) “True Innovation,” he states the innovative process at Bell Labs and Mervin Kelly’s philosophy of innovation. Bell Labs made a great achievement in history. Mervin Kelly’s approach of innovation includes being architectural, being aspirational, freedom, trust people to create and give researchers enough time. At last, the author talks about how to accomplish innovation actually.

There is no doubt that innovation is significant for development of a business. Nowadays many technology companies benefit from innovation and get great success such as Apple and Microsoft. However, every company has to face the competition of market. For them, the most significant problem to be solved is how to provide good product or service to satisfy their consumers at a low cost and in less time. It depends on strict management and the control of quality. For a living creature, the nature of hereditary is much more important than evolution. This is because evolution is merely on good direction and the nature of hereditary can help it to get the benefit of ancients and avoid high risks. For a company, freedom is good but everything must operate according to regulation, trust works is important but supervising is more unless everyone works hard consciously, time should be enough but should not be wasted. Innovation can certainly help to make products better and cost lower but it needs more focus on management and control to ensure that. Although Apple Inc. spares lots of energy on innovation to improve its cellphones, manager must control the process of development according to schedule to make sure that the product could be published on time. Bell Labs has the luxury of serving a parent organization that had a large income and has many great geniuses. As a result, approach of freedom and time unlimited fits Bell Labs. But efficiency is more crucial for a general company which desires to win the game of market competition.

PS: Happy Chinese New Year!

Journal #4 Zhaoyang

In Jon Gertner's article "True Innovation,"(Feb.25, 2012) he shows his thoughts about Bell Labs. The author first states that Bell Labs has presented lots of important innovation to the world. Then he talks about its chairman, Mervin Kelly, who uses his special ways to make Bell have an innovative environment. In the end, the writer says that many ways can lead to the creation, and he believes move fast is not the best way.

In my perspective, I do agree with Mr. Kelly's philosophy, especially at giving employees freedom. Because I believe the same as Mr. Kelly does that freedom is crucial, not only to all employees in that firm but results or profits that the firm pursues. In America, we value personnel feelings a lot so if employees cannot work in a fettered environment, they are less likely to spare no effort, which results in little probability that this firm is going to "break things", mentioned in the article. It is believed that every person thinks differently so employer's idea might be different from his/her employees, and--this is significant--sometimes employees' thoughts are much better than their boss's. Consequently, working with freedom can allow employees work in their own ways to yield better outcomes. I am not saying that staffs can do whatever they want; however, they can choose to work however they expect. We, if assume to be employers, are supposed to excite employees' enthusiasm. We should not presume everyone can work in the same way. It is normal that someone can work with great efficiency under no traditional working rules. I have to commit that factories may not implement bestowing freedom because factories are looking for products. For companies put importance on innovation, staffs having autonomy can be a good thing.


In sum, freeing people can free their mind so that they are able to get new ideas into real things, and this is what we call innovation and creation. 

Journal#3 Gengwei Zhang

In Marcelo Gleiser's article named "Is an Identical Copy of You, You?", the author states that making an identical copy of a person would not be pertect due to the errors in science.

Making an identical copy of a person is still a popular theme in films, but it also is a serious topic in science. I never denied that it would emerge in some day, and I can even accept that there would be another me living with me in the same world. However, I think there is no doubt that I wouldn't response for him because he is not me actually.
Firstly, although we have the same memories and experiences, we are two independent people without any physical connections. There is also no evidence that identical copied person could have a mental connection with the host person. It means that we wouldn't have a private "meeting" before one of us making a decision. The choice he making isn't my choice. Thus, we are different people having independent personalities.
On the other hand, he is just a copy. I don't think he is 100 percent as same as me; there will be some error that makes him differ from me. Physical copy is possible to be controlled, but mental copy is not. Maybe he could copy my activity; he would react just like me with anger, joy or sadness. However, my creativity and emotional expression are detailed and unpredictable, even I can't control it either.
Totally, I don't want someting strange happen to me in some days like files showing: people make copies, and the copies replace host.

Journal #4 Bell's lab true innovation and analysis

Journal #4

-----What is real Innovation method

(This article is created by XIANGRUI SU with English Author name Leo. Article contain some ideas from Jon Gertner' s research achievement and Kelly's opinions. Any unauthorized copy, quote and referencing are not allowed)

Innovation is the driving force of world progress, and also innovation can be defined as blaze new trails. Innovation and examples of it can be found by skimming Jon Gertner’s article which was published in 2012, which use Bell’s lab as an example to discuss the method of creating and innovating. Jon believe Bell’s lab can offer a large quantities of material for learning how those technology companies can make innovation achievement. In this article, author also mentioned a person called Mervin Kelly that through his experience to explain how such a lab can producing a creativity culture. This article very clearly point out some features that effected on Ball Labs’ successful, moreover, this article introduce some another approaches for innovation, and as many authors would like to do, used Silicon Valley as instance. People needs to agree that Ball Labs does very well on innovation, and if concerned about technology business, it would selected as a sufficient helping way. One of the approachs been referred in this article is aspirational. This is the significant attribute of success and achievement for any kind of business. It is because if people want make something, they should believe for sure that they can make it. Aspirational can makes people feel like being promoted, encouraged and inspired. People under those kind of experience will can force on the aims very than the normal situation, which means they will have more opportunity to make an innovation. It is easily fetched from article that Kelly’s thought of necessary element of innovation, which crucial more than others is allowed time. This is the very important philosophy that can makes innovation simpler to be made. This is because those promoted people, who inspired by aspirational, will not waste the given time. More time can make them thinking more, working harder and doing better. This kind of philosophy can also vailed on building construction area. More time allow people design careful, step by step to construct and ensure the quality of it. Ball’s Lab gives very good example for innovating, those Labs can be the theory guidance for innovation progressing. 

Journal 4 by Peng Zhou

Jon Gertner’s article (Feb, 25, 2012) entitled “ True Innovation” discusses several ways and philosophy of innovation by taking Ball Labs as an example. The article talked about Ball Labs with their achievements at beginning. Then it discussed several philosophy of Mervin Kelly who was the chairman of Ball Labs such as architectural, aspirational, organizational, freedom and enough time. After that the author talked about the relationship between innovation and economic.

Personally speaking, I disagree with some of Kelly’s philosophy.

Admittedly, those philosophies of Kelly lead to the success of Ball Labs, and cause a lot of important innovation. But when we talking about business, they may not suit again.

For example, the author mentioned that one of the most important elements of Mervin Kelly is the Time. He believed that innovation needs plenty of time and didn’t consider about the economy of their research. But it is almost impossible of a company.

The main purpose of companies is earning money. When a company established, the most important thing is to achieve profit as soon as possible. So they don’t have enough time to do the innovation. They always have a project plan, and everything is based on the plan. They must design their product at manufacture them on time. Otherwise the capital chain might break and the company may go bankrupt. For example, Apple, one of the most innovative companies of the world, has a time period as one year for updating. After one year, they have to publish their new product. So the researchers have a time limited and it is not always enough.

What’s more, the products of the company will be put into the market, so the researchers have to consider if the market can accept their design. If the products are not suit for the market, it means the failure of the company, even though it including kind of innovation. Another interesting example is the Windows. It published Windows Vista in 2007. The Windows Vista was considered as a version with a significant history of innovation. But several years later, the company admitted that it was a failure of the products. And then they published Windows 7 as an upgraded product quickly. Now we can hardly see the Windows Vista, but there are still a lot of users of Windows XP. The failure of Windows shows that the innovation must consider the market efficiency.

Journal #4 by Huizhong Pan

   In Jon Gertner's article "True Innovation," he introduces the innovative process and products at Bell Labs and states several main elements of of Mervin Keely's approach to creativity. Firstly, the author introduces the background of innovation in America and then concentrates on Bell Labs. Then, several elements which are responsible for the culture of innovation are stated, including fostering a busy exchange of ideas, being architectural, pursuing aspiration, being organizational, creating an atmosphere of freedom, trusting people to create and giving researchers enough time. Lastly, the author discusses that what contemporary innovation should be.

  In my opinion, I actually believe that the way Bell Lab works is good for a business. Because Mr.Kelly and his colleagues at Bell Labs created millions of jobs and a long-lasting platform for society's wealth and well-being. Besides seeking profits, in the process they created not only new products but entirely new and lucrative industries. So whatever from the point of profits or social welfare, I think it is good for a business.
  I really agree with the method that being organizational Mr.Kelly used to push ahead. When all members in a team are restrained to be organized and to follow a common rule, the team can work efficiently. Because everyone can share the same benefits or losses.
 I think that in service business this philosophy would work as well. Even though in a small-scale operated restaurant, all the services must be organizational. For example, the uniforms of the stuff must be same, the work assignment must be reasonable and the management must obtain the public faith.
 In conclusion, I think the innovation philosophy of Mr.Kelly is useful in many kinds of business.