#missionignition

As the year draws to a close and things start wrapping up, I post my final submission for the Mission Ignition blog series.

University ended last week and I came home after my final presentations. On Saturday I went shopping with my mother. The stores where full as it was just after the 15th, 'payday' for some. We went to a clothes store and I browsed around for some work clothes, as I'll be starting work soon. When I was done, I decided to stand in the line while my mother still browsed the store. When my mother was done, she joined me in the line and we proceeded to the pay point.

While standing in the line, I thought about this process. I decided to do a QuestioningLens Ignition regarding this. Considering my technological focus, I thought about how this process could be made more efficient with the use of technology.

image source: wikimedia.org

Relevant Question: Is a completely wireless shopping experience possible? Can the integration of current technology be used to eliminate queues in a store?

Potential Solution:

This solution has probably been proposed before but I will expand on it. All products could be equipped with RFID-tags. These Radio Frequency Identification tags can be used to determine which products you have put in your shopping trolley. A simple screen on the trolley could display the total of the items in your trolley. This could also be connected to a phone app which totals up the prices and shows the cost.

Another problem is finding products in a store. The overhead boards in the isles are often too vague and you can't determine where products are (if you do not frequent that particular store). I remember hearing about Indoor Navigation by Google Maps which could make this process much more efficient. You could therefore add in your shopping list (on your phone), download the specific map for the store you will be visiting and the application will plot your path through the store (ensuring that you pick up frozens last). Extending this, payments could be made more efficient with the rise of wireless/mobile payment. At a recent music festival I attended, they had NFC wristbands that were connected to an app which you have granted permission to bill your credit card. This Near Field Communication tags identify you at the till point and by tapping the NFC-bracelet onto the receiver, the amount is deducted from your account. NFC can also be a feature of a smartphone.

You therefore simply walk into the store, follow the navigation on your phone and grab the items you want. You simply tap your phone at the exit and off you go. An all-encompassing shopping app.

This system does however bring with it security issues. The biggest probably being stolen phones. Security measures will have to be put in place, such as authorising payments, which might slow down the process once more. The implementation of such a system is a very big project and during the transition to a system like this, the current system will still have to be supported.

It will therefore be more effort to implement if ALL stores don't implement it at roughly the same time. This could very well be one version of our future.

Mission Ignition:

This blog series is based on the Allan Gray Orbis Foundation’s Ignitions program. This type of ignition is known as a Questioning Lens Ignition. The Questioning Lens will help you look at the situation more critically, with a view to practicing the identification of inefficiencies and thinking of solutions. Imagine you are wearing a massive pair of glasses, called the Questioning Lens, through which you view the situation.

University is the perfect time to experiment, expand and grow. 

There are so many students who are looking for any opportunities to build up their portfolios. In the Film and Media department, during my undergrad, there were a lot of students who were creating short films just to build up a portfolio. At University you are surrounded by a group of people who's willing to do the work in order to create something, anything, that shows off their skills.

Sometimes I would be working on a video just for the fun (or perhaps to learn a certain skill). I often require the help of other artists to make a 'good looking' final product that we can actually show. It will therefore be more exciting to work with passionate artists who want to collaborate as opposed to paying someone to do it. There is however no way of knowing about other artists who want to work on fun side projects.

Relevant Question: What is there was a way to connect to people with different skills/talents in order to collaborate?

Potential Solution: Enter Portfolio Connect.

The goal is to put artists in contact with one another, especially at a University level. In a previous post I explored the possibility of a "Portfolio" system. In this post I will expand on this system by including this "connection"-method.

I would therefore post on this site that I am interested in creating short/funny videos in a UCT setting and that I'm looking for a cinematographer to join my project. I could then upload a 'request' to the site explaining the type of project I am working on and what I am looking for. This could be a video or text request. I should be able to upload images, sketches, video or audio that give the other users an idea of what I am working on. 

Before choosing to CONNECT, the users can view each other's public profiles using the existing Portfolio system. The addition of a 'rating' feature could be explored as a security measure when choosing to meet people. The Portfolio system will have to be adapted to account for 'shared' work.

An example of how the 'request' page of a user could look.

The nature of the system, prevents it from being implemented intuitively on existing social media networks such as Facebook or Twitter. It could be implemented by having a certain hashtag but that might become messy quite quickly as you would have to sift through a stream of tweets to see what people are doing. The format of a website with profiles would be more intuitive to use.

Mission Ignition:

This blog series is based on the Allan Gray Orbis Foundation’s Ignitions program. This type of ignition is known as a Questioning Lens Ignition. The Questioning Lens will help you look at the situation more critically, with a view to practicing the identification of inefficiencies and thinking of solutions. Imagine you are wearing a massive pair of glasses, called the Questioning Lens, through which you view the situation.

The past few weekends I attended some events, such as music festivals, where there were no shortage in cameras. Besides simple smartphone cameras, there were DSLRs and GoPros and video cameras and iPads. Some of the times you would even pose for a picture with a group of people who you have just met. I've often wondered how I would get the pictures from these people. How much trouble am I really willing to go through for one picture?

Image Source: heresthethingblog.com

Inefficiency Identified:

At massive events a lot of people take pictures. These pictures get stored on the multiple different photo sites across the web. Some post their albums to Facebook or Google Plus, some simply post pis on Twitter. Others might have blogs or tumblrs filled with concert/event photos. 

What if there was an easy way of tracking down pictures taken at a specified event from all over the internet.

Possible Solution:

The solution lies in the storing of metadata. It would be easy to store a unique tag for each event with the photo. This tag can then be searched and all of the pictures will show up.

A very easy to implement tagging system already exists. This is known as hashtags. Mostly used on Twitter, but slowly growing on other social networking sites such as Facebook, hashtags are used to tag posts or content for easy access via search.

The hashtagging systems of each site is still however fragmented. This means that I will have to do seperate searches on Twitter and on Facebook if I want to look for pictures with a certain tag. A universal tagging system would fix this problem. This would require something similar to Google, which manages search keywords. When a tag is searched, all results from across the web needs to be pulled in.

Seeing that many websites already use hashtags for their own internal archiving systems and Google already provides a really good search algorithm, it would be better to implement a Standard for Tagging rather than create a tag management system.

If a tagging standard is specified, all content should be tagged with hashtags. This would make it easier for search providers to look for data that is public and from different sources.

Mission Ignition:

This blog series is based on the Allan Gray Orbis Foundation’s Ignitions program. This type of ignition is known as a Questioning Lens Ignition. The Questioning Lens will help you look at the situation more critically, with a view to practicing the identification of inefficiencies and thinking of solutions. Imagine you are wearing a massive pair of glasses, called the Questioning Lens, through which you view the situation.

This week I want to do something entirely different.

Even though I enjoy reading, I am a very slow reader. In my current busy schedule (writing a thesis and all) I do not have a lot of time to read. I do however watch a lot of TV as it is a medium of distraction. You don't have to watch TV to be watching TV. You only need to glance at the screen occasionally (and when there's action :D ).

I therefore cannot do a Knowledge Review on some amazing book that I've read. I don't read. The next best thing is to go all out crazy and do it on an amazing TV show that I've watched.

Cue theme music:

Okay, that is not the original theme music but it sets a nice tone for reading the rest of this post. Actually no, stop reading for a few minutes and just listen to the lyrics. It always gets me happy.

So you probably have guessed by now that this amazing show is Pokémon. "...But Ridhô, aren't you too old to be watching silly kids cartoons?" My answer, I think some grown ups should watch more Pokémon. It's taught me quite a lot of "life lessons", but that's a story for another day.

If you don't know anything about the show, here is a quick intro:  The main character, Ash Kechum, wants to be the very best Pokémon Master like no one ever was. The real test is in catching these Pokémon and thereafter training them, a worthy cause indeed. Ash and his friends travel across the land, searching far and wide, while teaching their Pokémon how to harness and control its power.

I however, want to focus on Team Rocket, the show's most frequent antagonists. Made up of Jessie, James and a talking Pokémon named Meowth, these three Team Rocket field agents travel alongside our heroes in the hopes of capturing Pickachu, Ash's Pokémon. (To avoid confusion I will refer to them simply as 'the trio' and the evil organization that they work for as 'Team Rocket'). Even though they are the bad guys, I admire this trio and their other Pokémon. Here's why:

As part of Team Rocket, their main goal is to steal Pokémon, especially rare and powerful ones. The trio however, fails every time at accomplishing this goal. Their plans are always foiled either by Ash and co or simply by their own stupidity. Every now and then, they come up with an truly awesome idea.

How about an example .

In this episode (Lapras of Luxury) the trio encounter a school of Lapras, a water-type Transport Pokémon. Instead of just planning to steal the Lapras, they apply an entrepreneurial mindset by asking a simple Smart Question. 

"What if we were to collect all of those Pokémon? We could rent them out and run our own water taxi service." 

Team Rocket's main goal is always to steal and sell rare Pokémon. The trio however goes above and beyond this malevolent aim and thinks of ways that they can make money. They have had various schemes and plans, similar to this one, which could have succeeded if they had gone about their business correctly (and I don't mean stealing). They always fail because their plans rely on stealing Pokémon, something that they're really bad at.

What is there to learn from Jessie, James and Meowth?

As I said before, this trio has a reputation of failing. So what can we learn from a bunch of failures? Quite a lot actually.

1. Determination Let's forget about their evil intentions for a while and generalise their situation a bit. The trio is, in a way, just like anyone else. They're striving to accomplish a goal that they have set for themselves. They can go around and steal ANY other Pokémon that they want. It could be that easy. However, they have set their sights on Pickachu and are determined to accomplish this goal.

This determination is one of the traits that I admire. We should be just as determined to accomplish our own goals. Failure doesn't mean that you should give up, it merely serves to show you what not to do in order to gain success.

2. Failing is good... They do not learn from their mistakes. Which is the a major contributor to their everlasting losing streak. They try the same kind of plans over and over and over. It's no wonder that they're getting the same result every time. Failing and making mistakes is good but only if you learn and grow from it.

3. Use your strengths Know your strengths and use them to your advantage.If there's at least one thing that the trio is good at, it's digging holes and waiting for Ash and co. to fall into them. This trick has worked almost every time. It is therefore a good starting strategy. Ultimately, they don't know how to follow through. 

4. Know how to follow through Also, have backup plans. Mitigations. Something that they never have.

5. Prioritise They know when to set aside goals when a better opportunity arises. As seen in the episode above, they stop trying to capture Pickachu and go for the Lapras, as this will lead to a better outcome. They also know that if their plans fail, they could always default back to trying to steal Pickachu. Similarly, it is good to prioritise. Evaluate your goals and know which you can postpone or remove in order to obtain other goals. Know which goals have higher priority and which are no longer relevant.

6. Innovate Time and again the trio comes up with a brilliant idea. In this episode, it is to start a water taxi service. This is completely out of character for Team Rocket field agents. Working for Team Rocket, they should only be trying to steal Pokémon (which will be sold to make money for Team Rocket). They however, come up with innovative ideas which are sometimes quite entrepreneurial.

But they're the bad guys, so they won't ever learn from their mistakes and consequently never succeed. Or I might just be watching Pokémon a bit too much.

Looks like Team Rocket's blasting off again.

ridhojeftha

Mission Ignition:

My ignition this week was very linked to my own interests and therefore I went a bit overboard with the "solution". This week's "academics"-theme in conjunction with my current job hunt lead to a questioning lens ignition which proposes a new service.

Inefficiency Identified:

Now I do not know how things work in other departments but this inefficiency is very applicable to my major(s) Computer Science (especially Games Development). It may be applicable to other departments in certain ways.

While looking for a job in the game dev. industry, it has become clear that having a portfolio is essential. This portfolio, in the case of games, would display any coding projects which you have done. As I am quite proud of some of the projects which I coded during my academic years, I would like to display them in my portfolio.

The only method to do this currently, is to copy the code onto an online repository, such as github, where it can be publicly viewed.

Relevant Questions:

What if each student had a public online web page from the University? What if you could choose certain projects to show online on your public profile? What if the University can host your assignments (private and public)?

Potential Solution:

Introducing a concept service called Portfolio.

Portfolio is a service that sits between the University's online coursework management system (Vula if you're at UCT) and the public. As the University already stores the project files for assignments that you have submitted, Portfolio only has to load these files and format them nicely for public display.

Portfolio will need to be connected to Vula to gain access to your data. This will allow Portfolio to automatically load your projects and present them to you on your profile page. You can then decide which projects to make public and which to keep private.

figure 2: Portfolio pulls data from Vula and displays it on your public profile as per your settings.

The system can be generic and fit onto any grading book system. It will pull projects from the grading book system. This will only happen after projects have been marked. Students will be able to log into Portfolio and select whether or not a project is viewable by the public. 

figure 3: An example of the 'profile edit' page where a student can set the status of an assignment.

The Portfolio Website will host the profile page of your publicly viewable projects. It should take into considering different types of media that can be displayed. Students get an address that they can add to their CV's in order to show off their academic work.

figure 4: An example of how the Profile Page could display projects.

This solution is probably best suited for departments that have visual artefacts as part of assessments such as game dev, animation and graphic design.

Being an honours student has completely thrown me out of sync with the rest of the university. Our schedules work differently, our terms work differently... It's just so different to undergrad.

I therefore have no idea how far into the final weeks we are. If I take an educated guess however, I would say that the end is near. The library is always full and I always see people in a rush to get back to studying. I therefore want to focus this week on lectures and academics.

So this week I shall let you get back to studying and keep it short.

image: varsitybreakout.com

Here is this week’s Mission:

What processing regarding academics are you frustrated about? Look at how technology has changed the lecturing process. Is there anything that you would want handled better?

an example question could be: "What if students could ask questions anonymously in class?." How would this work?

Good luck :D

Ignition:

For this mission, you could do a Smart Questioning Ignition. Many great change-agents through history have needed to lift their gaze to see beyond the world around them and picture a different scenario with different norms and changed rules. It allows you to practice thinking the unthinkable and to exercise your ability to form credible scenarios for unseen circumstances and to envision different potential futures. 

After asking a smart question, explore a potential relevant, realistic and sensible scenario analysis. A possible answer to a Smart Question must aim to discover the unseen and have the potential to lead to innovation.

You could also try a Questioning Lens Ignition. The Questioning Lens will help you look at the situation more critically, with a view to practicing the identification of inefficiencies and thinking of solutions. Imagine you are wearing a massive pair of glasses, called the Questioning Lens, through which you view the situation.

image: designspirationsk.com

I followed a recipe the other day and I though about the amount of effort that goes into preparing a meal. There are so many bits and pieces of different foods that go into making one dish... and I have to go to the store and buy them all. So I posed a "Smart Question" and analysed it for this weeks Mission.

What if all food were sold in pre-packaged 'recipes'?

This question imagines a world where food is not entirely sold separate. Food is packaged and classified in terms of popular recipes. The offering of grouping would have changed throughout the years with the most popular groupings staying on offer and least popular ones being taken away. Food will still have to be sold individually for the event that your required recipe is not on offer anymore.

image: foodfamilyfinds.com

Considerations:

Selling food in this manner will minimise the amount of wasted ingredients. Food will be less likely to go off as you would only buy what you need to prepare meals.

The variety of dishes in the world makes this manner of packaging impossible.

If this method is localised it could work in areas where certain dishes are popular.

Advertising and marketing will have to change completely as now products will not be sold individually. The adverts would have to aim at selling 'recipes' or 'dishes'.

The price of food would have to be intricately recalculated as certain recipes only require small amounts of ingredients (e.g. pinch of salt). How much would a pinch of salt contribute to the package price?

image: myhomecooking.net

It seems that this manner of packaging food would certainly be interesting.

I submitted this as a Smart Questioning Ignition. Ignitions regarding food was a bit more difficult than I expected. Let's hope next week is a bit better.

enjoy

ridhojeftha

image: johnsonferrywomen.com

---

Reminder of the week's Mission:

Throughout your day stop for a moment and really think about FOOD. 

Observe the product, packaging, distribution or display thereof.

Ignition:

This type of ignition is known as a Smart Questioning Ignition. Many great change-agents through history have needed to lift their gaze to see beyond the world around them and picture a different scenario with different norms and changed rules. It allows you to practice thinking the unthinkable and to exercise your ability to form credible scenarios for unseen circumstances and to envision different potential futures. 

There came a time during the last "all-nighter" when I lost all interest in what I was doing and started to ponder the meaning of life and such. I was adamant to not to get sucked in by my Procrastination Station which is my laptop. I therefore lazily dragged myself to the kitchen to make some coffee.

And then it hit me.

FOOD... more importantly, the packaging thereof.

Everything we eat comes packaged in nice little boxes or tin cans or packets. Some are practical and some are creative. It is amazing what we, as humans, have come up with in order to store and distribute food... or maybe this was just me being amazed and appreciative of anything in the early hours of the morning.

Here is this week’s Mission:

Throughout your day stop for a moment and really think about FOOD. 

Observe the product, packaging, distribution or display thereof.

http://instagram.com/p/bQmCLykPvO/

I'm sure that it wont be too difficult as we eat (and post pictures of what we eat on Instagram) every day!

Then ask "Smart Questions". Try to picture a different scenario with different norms and changed rules. These questions can be very ambitious or simply practical. The idea is to develop an ability to ask questions that stretch your boundaries and thinking.

--- As a simple example: my uncle, a cabinet-maker, applied this by asking the more practical Smart Question "What if we could use the wood cut-offs, that just go waste, to make small products that we can sell."

One of the products that came out of this was a self-balancing wine bottle stand (display) similar to the one seen below.

Image: distinguishedimports.com

Have fun :D

Ignition:

This type of ignition is known as a Smart Questioning Ignition. Many great change-agents through history have needed to lift their gaze to see beyond the world around them and picture a different scenario with different norms and changed rules. It allows you to practice thinking the unthinkable and to exercise your ability to form credible scenarios for unseen circumstances and to envision different potential futures.