Business Skills for Engineers : Tutorial 1 - answers

1. List out the 6Ds of Peter Diamandis’ and Steven Kotler’s 6Ds of Exponential Technology.
Ans: Digitilisation, Deception, Disruption, Demonatisation, Dematerialisation,
Democratisation.

2. In your own words, use the 6Ds of exponential technology to describe the disruption of
KODAK that eventually lead to the company’s bankruptcy in the year 2012.

o Although KODAK was the first to investigate the potential of digital photography,
they did not continue their research because they did not see potential growth in
that direction.
o However, companies like Nikon, Sony and Olympus continued their effort towards
the digitilisation of photography even though their profit margins at this stage was
still considerable low to KODAK at the time.
o Continued deceptive efforts from Nikon, Sony and Olympus began to disrupt
KODAK because the use of photographic films by KODAK dwindled with more
people switching to the use of digital cameras for photography.
o This resulted in significant loss in revenue for KODAK. With digital cameras, there
was no need for many rolls of photographic films that costed money. Digital
cameras essentially demonatised and dematerialized photography and allowed
large numbers of photos to be taken with minimal need for film development.
o This sealed KODAK’s fate and eventually caused the company to file for
bankruptcy in 2012.
o Finally, with the advent of social media and applications such as Instagram, the
distribution of photos and images can be done with ease with widespread reach.
This is the democratization of the photography industry that also contributed to
the downfall of KODAK.

3. Give an example of a Disruptive Technology and explain why it is a disruptive technology.

(This is an open ended question, you can quote examples in the lecture).
ANS
• 3D printing:
• Already existed 30 years ago…is exponential tech NOW!
• Disruptive to manufacturing (e.g. automotive, prosthesis, fashion, military,
toys, etc.)
• Extremely customizable…DIY
• Demonatise and democratize manufacturing.
• Creates more opportunities for more technopreneurs
4. What are the 6 factors to be considered when you develop the customer value proposition?
ANS: Novelty, Price, Brand, Risk Reduction, Performance, Design

5. What are the 3 main parts of the brain and explain the function for each part of the brain.
ANS:
i. Old brain: survival instincts, bodily actions that happen without our realizing
(e.g. breathing, swallowing, blinking, etc.)
ii. Middle brain: Emotion, decision making, finding the meaning to things
iii. New brain: analytical thinking (language learning, mathematics), logical and
rational thoughts

6. Myelination is programming for success. Draw the diagram of the Success formula that
promotes the myelination of neurons in our brains to achieve success.
ANS:

7. Describe the Thinking Mental Model for a baby.

ANS: Naming: A baby first gives the item a name
Classifying: Tries to understand it or classify it
Template rewiring: Decide what to do with it (throw it, cry, eat it, etc.)

8. You have been commissioned to design a jewelry line for the company that you are
working for. Describe the random entry technique and use this technique to formulate 3
ideas for the jewelry line with the random item given to you below. (Open ednded)

ANS:
The random entry technique uses unconnected input to open new lines of thinking
Steps in random entry:
 – Choose a focus
– Choose a random object, picture or a word
– List its attributes and link them back to the focus

3 Attributes of apple: red, rounded in shape, has seeds at its core

With these three attributes, the jewelry line will be designed as follows:
i) Necklaces and bracelets will be designed to have gems that are rounded in
shape
ii) Pendants for necklaces will be made of rubies which are similar in colour
to the red of the apple
iii) Earrings in the jewelry line will have a gem within another gem (similar to
the seeds at the core of the apple).

9. A thinking technique has been applied to redesign the wineglass that you see in the figure
below.

Name the thinking technique concerned and describe how this technique has been applied
to simplify the design of the generic wineglass.
ANS:
i. The technique applied is the trimming technique which is to break a product
or system it its individual components and remove an important component
without affecting the functionality of said product or system.
ii. In this case, the wineglass in the figure on the left can be broken into 3 main
components (i.e. the bowl, the stem and the foot).
iii. With the trimming technique, the stem and the foot has been
trimmed/removed off to leave behind the bowl as the newly designed
wineglass.