Chapter 4: The power of Searching (Internet Searching)

When it comes to innovation, the beginning stage is often addressing a problem. Addressing the problem could be coming up with a product for people to use, or creating an app that supports users in a specific area. There are so many solutions that one can create to address a problem, but we often struggle to find inspiration, or even know what is or isn't a problem. Sometimes, the problem has already been addressed by numerous other innovators with similar products that just seem to rip off of each other.

Sounds a bit rude right? But in all actuality, many great businessmen and innovators build their ideas off of others creations.

As I was traveling to LA Comic-Con to sell our business wares, I happened to book an AirBnB under a gentleman who was the CEO of a rather large software company. Without giving away too many details, he said something that has stuck with me till this day, "You dont have to be first, you just have to do it better". 

So you might not be the best at finding problems and solutions, and that is okay. You just need to have the right tools to be able to FIND a problem, and the skills to be able to research it accurately.

In my class, we were tasked to search up various items and topics on the internet. We were given a large list of items to search up, ranging from itineraries from Disneyland, to my Professors personal information. Though some of the items seemed impossible to find, with enough dedicated searching, my team was able to find a good portion of the items. Given that I tend to over analyze everything, I ended up spending a good chunk of my searching on a particular task. The task asked me to find a Segway Human Transporter, along with two other items, and screenshot the amount in my cart. When I started searching for the Segway, I quickly found that the specific title he mentioned no longer existed due to the company rebranding from Human Transporter to Personal Transporter. Not to be perturbed, I continued my search from finding when Segway first became a company, to the first product, and finally to when they rebranded from "Human Transporter" to "Personal Transporter". I then searched on eBay, knowing that many first generation items are sold on there, and was successfully able to locate the first generation item before the rebranding.

Was I overanalyzing the task? Absolutely. The point I want to emphasize during the situation is that, even if you dont think you can find information about a problem or topic, you probably can. And if you dont think you can find out everything there is to know about it, you probably can. When you need inspiration, its so easy to look up what you need to through news articles, to public forums, and even to AI assisted searching. It is all out there, just get searching. You'll find your inspiration.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Chapter 5: The Fight Between AI and Education

If you're a student in College, Highschool, and even Middle School, you have more than likely been told to never use AI while completing school work. In most cases, you have probably been threatened to never use AI or some repercussion might ensue. This has been, and currently is, the normal procedure of AI in 2024. But things are starting to change. A famous quote by Upton Sinclair states "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it." In the age of AI, we have seen the impact it has on the workforce with significant job loss. Rachel Curry addresses this issue within her article, "Recent data shows AI job losses are rising, but the numbers don’t tell the full story." Just as the title hints, the article starts with the same unoriginal story of AI causing job loss, but at the end, she points out that AI has only replaced aspects of a job. Though the scope of the job is replaceable by AI, this has allow...
Read more

Chapter 2: AI and Innovation

 When you think of AI, what comes to mind?  Was it "future", "technology","smart","new"," or even "innovative"? Most words that come to mind would be correct, but I want to emphasize that MOST words would be correct. When people think of AI, they think of it as a new-age technology that represents the future. Much of this accurate, but its important to note that AI was actually first developed around the 1950's. While sitting in my university class talking about the beginnings of AI, this tidbit of information was pretty astounding to me. Its hard to think that AI was being discussed so long ago (almost 100 years!) and that the question of what is considered intelligent was a big conversation. The big question around that time was how to classify a program as intelligent when no measurement had been created. This question is still big today, and as I learned in my class, a question that has evolved over the years. Back then, th...
Read more

Chapter 10: Frustration is okay!

One day my Professor asked the class to write an HTML document. He gave us each a set of instructions on how to create a simple HTML document, and we parted with all the "good luck's" he could bestow. Sitting in my chair and reading these instructions, I cam to a few realizations. First realization that I had was how pleased I was with myself for taking the initiative to learn HTML and CSS coding before taking his class. That was quickly followed up with how lucky I felt that I took those classes. As I wrote down my HTML coding, following the instructions as best I could, I realized how long it has been since I wrote simplified coding without the typical sweat inducing external CSS coding page following suit. Lastly, I realized how some of the instructions would be confusing for someone who did not know coding, and how frustrating it could be for an individual who did not understand, or struggled, with coding. As I wrote up my HTML coding, I realized all these things at o...
Read more