Reading Reflection 2.0

Makers: The New Industrial Revolution by Chris Anderson

Theme
The book is based around how entrepreneurship is changing. In the past, inventors could design prototypes, but only big companies were able to produce anything, requiring the inventor to give up some control and money. But nowadays, there are small-scale factories that will produce anything at a reduced number, and for a smaller cost. Also, the process of inventing something is changing from dealing with physical objects to dealing with bytes, memory management, and pixels. And because of the internet, people in similar fields can now get in touch and collaborate easily, and more often than in the past.


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Connection to ENT3003
It kind of gave me a reason to keep doing what I'm doing. What I mean is, ever since I was a kid, I've been switching back and forth between what I wanted to become. First it was firefighter, then it was doctor, then industrial engineer, never really having a personal reason, just out of pressure from my family. This only grew worse when I came to the U.S, where I knew I was going to college. And for the entirety of high school, I convinced myself that I wanted to become a mechanical engineer. It wasn't until the day of preview (yes, U.F's Preview Orientation) that I decided I wanted to major in Computer Science. But when I made the decision I had no idea about programming, or how computers ACTUALLY worked. And yet, after one-and-a-half semesters, and after reading this book, here I am, more excited about what I might end up doing than I've been in my entire life.

And this book talks about entrepreneurship, and how developing an idea is different now, which we are directly experiencing since we are working on a product/service in this class.


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Designing an Exercise
So this might be taking it too far. But to illustrate the changes to entrepreneurship, I would divide a class of students into groups, probably five the first time. One of the groups will be companies, and it will also be the smallest of them. The others will all be entrepreneurs. Each entrepreneur gets some monopoly money. They get 10 minutes to come up with an idea and a concept for a product/service. Then, with the money they have, they have to go to a company and get them to produce their product or develop their service. The catch is the company group members are instructed to not take less than a certain amount of money, and develop no less than enough prototypes for everyone in the class (hence the high price). The entrepreneurs can collaborate, but only within their group.

Once this part is over. We re-do it, adding a group for smaller companies, which is significantly larger than the big-company group. This smaller-company group can produce at most enough prototypes for half of the class, leading to a max price of half that of the big companies (Note: they can produce less for a lower price if the entrepreneur so desires). The entrepreneurs can now go outside of their group and talk to other entrepreneurs from other groups.

This exercise could illustrate how entrepreneurship has changed. In the first part, there is a limit to how much each entrepreneur can spend, and how far they can reach out to others. Sure, they may be lucky to find someone in their group working in something similar and may be able to partner up. But for the most part, this is very unlikely to happen.
On the other hand, once there is a lower production cost, and they are open to collaboration far from their group, we may see new groups forming. People working in similar products may form a team and share ideas. And since they are pooling their resources together, they are able to produce test units before going to the big companies to produce the final product.


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"Aha" Moment
I hate to use this again, but the biggest thing I took away from the book wasn't even part of the book. Like I said, I've always been insecure about my career choice. But after reading this book, and after experiencing quite a bit in my first year of college, I'm absolutely sure of my career choice, which I never expected to learn while still in college, much less from a book.