During the first half of the session, we discussed about the different aspects of global dominance and the organizational behavior model. And this got me thinking about the various establishments which used to be dominant in the past but not anymore. Take a look at Microsoft. Years back then, it was the dominant one but has since been overtaken by another giant, Apple. Similarly, Nokia experienced a drastic plunge in the market share too, as compared to the past. Therefore, the bottom line is that: What was dominant today, may not be dominant tomorrow. And this brings us to the next point - The organizational behavior model.
I found this model (as attached from lecture slides) very useful in identifying potentially dominant players of the market based on their characteristics.
As suggested by the name, Rising Stars would be potential rising leaders. They approach new ideas/innovations with a totally different attitude. That is, they maintain an open perspective and are keen to learn more, invest and explore opportunities. With no doubt, this is a good trait as it means constant reflection and self-upgrading. In this day and age, having such a mindset plays a crucial role for survival. Open up and you will do better. An example of a Rising Star would then again, be Apple. It is constantly improving itself from the feedback given by its product users. As such, knowing what the market wants, enable them to retain their market share.
Falling Stars would have traits directly opposite of Rising Stars. Unwilling to learn, they shut off incoming feedback. No offense but in my opinion, i feel that Malaysia is one, in terms of their education system and policies.
Moving on, my fellow classmate, Jannah, did an oral presentation on Google. The question she posed to us was: Is Google making us stupid? While it is indeed true that Google has made lives easier for us based on the fact that we will get our search results easily by entering keywords in the search engine, but it has also allowed us to view data/articles/comments/forums posted by different people with different perspectives. From another point of view, it is basically the gathering of information online and analyzing them; Not just copying and pasting the entire article into our reports. Therefore, one key take-away would be that, it varies based on individual's reliance on technology - To take technology for granted and deprive themselves of analytical skills? Or to garner various perspective for general knowledge but still, have a mind of their own?
Next comes the second half of the session - Technology and Human Development where we watched a Youtube video on the 8 goals of Millennium Development and another on Hans Rosling's Human Population Growth in 4 Minutes.
After knowing the 8 goals of MD which they had wanted to accomplish all by 2015, it seems quite impossible to do so because the focus isn't totally on the areas lacking assistance. Example would be the remote areas of undeveloped or developing countries which have low standard of living (poor healthcare and sanitation, poverty), resulting in low lifespans. The advantage of having these 8 goals helped to raise awareness among the society so that the different nations can start taking action to improvise on the current situation. However, stating that all goals are to be accomplished by 2015 and yet being unable to do so would put them in an unfavorable situation. This is because UN, being such a huge international organization, is definitely very well-respected and look upon by other countries as a leader.
I found Hans Rosling's video especially interesting, due to the visual effects, presentation style and the statistical data. What caught my attention was the progress of the world over 200 years - From extremely low lifespan of below 40 years in 1810 to an average of 75 years in 2009. Something that i would like to compliment about the video is the detailed data of various countries. Although it shows the majority of them improving over the years, but there are parts of the world being overlooked. For instance, when Hans Rosling split China into smaller parts, we could see that there are thriving cities like Shanghai as well as undeveloped areas like GuiZhou. This is where i feel that the respective countries should intervene. After all, we all have equal human rights and they should receive assistance too.
After all the videos, another two classmates made their presentations. They were clear in bringing their points across and posed questions which started interesting discussions. Overall, i felt that this session was great and would rate it 8/10. I gained more insight regarding the world and therefore, the 2nd key take-way for me is that, although the current state of the world is much better than before, there are still rooms for improvement, especially in the rural parts of countries. If the respective governments are willing to intervene and help out those people suffering from poverty, poor healthcare, as well as to educate the young, i believe the mortality rate will decline and the standard of living in those countries will improve tremendously.
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