People and their times shape technology.

Progress can be continuous or it can evolve in leaps and bounds, sometimes because minds with a special bent towards invention hit upon a new use for something already discovered.

Animals often use technology. Some kingfishers throw leaves onto water to attract fish just as a fisherman casts a lure. Some apes use sticks to poke into ant nests for their prey. Whether this ability came about from some innate animal knowledge and learning or whether it arose by accident and was then copied, is not known. We do know how humans invent to make their lives simpler, if nothing else than because we are they.'

Consider eating. We used our hands from earliest times even to as late as the 18th century supplemented at first by a hunting knife to cut the meat and a spoon to ladle soup. The use of a sharp knife to put meat into one's mouth probably instigated the invention of a blunter instrument. The fork was natural evolution it was just a matter of learning. So we arrive at modern dining

except, that people on the other side of the world came up with a totally different solution to the problem: chopsticks. At some twist in the road, the inventive process took another path. Perhaps bamboo was easier to come by than having to chip flints or that the food at one time didn't need knives to cut, or forks to impale. However, it shows that there is not necessarily one best solution to a problem.

How have labor saving devices been invented recently?

It takes several steps: the problem; a theoretical solution, followed by tests and trials in attempts to engineer a working device, and finally, success. Sometimes a discovery in one field might lie unused until someone saw a use in another field like microwaves for cooking or lasers for eye surgery.

On January 2nd, 1901, a correspondent to Tokyo's Honchi-Shinbun newspaper made a set of predictions for the twentieth century. He was accurate in 12 of his 23 predictions.

The writer predicted that Marconi's new wireless system would be used for a person in Tokyo to speak to another in New York, and, that within 50 years, a newsman in Tokyo would be able to receive a color photograph of an event in Europe. He predicted that automobiles would replace horses and that telephones would show a picture of the caller. He was right even though at the time each prediction took a great leap of imagination.

He was wrong in other predictions: that humans would be able to converse

• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• next page >>

---

Add your voice

Know something about The basics of strategic planning and vision?
We want to hear your view. Write now!