Tiisetso Maloma will host a public lecture at Wits Business School titled ‘How to See Into the Future – Innovation, Human Inclinations and the Fourth Industrial Revolution,’ on the 13th of August 2019.
The lecture will examine the patterns that innovation follows, and how to forecast it and participate in it. It further goes into how novel products and novel skills form.
The lecture is based on a series of essays Tiisetso Maloma has written on innovation, industrial revolutions and The Human Greed Pyramid (which he devised). The Human Greed Pyramid is an illustration of how innovations interrelate with humans’ consumption patterns and natural inclinations, the ecology, culture and cognition; and how to plot innovation that works on humans.
The Fourth Industrial Revolution – also known as Industry 4.0 or 4IR – is the first Industrial Revolution that South Africa is experiencing as a free and democratic country.
It does not mean, however, that other economical revolutions did not happen in South Africa, and the rest of Africa, in the past; but I will get to this later.
Please note:-
Because the collective areas of land that now form South Africa were colonised in stages, starting in the Cape by the Dutch and later taken over by the British, I will call it, ‘Project Colonise South Africa.’ Industrial Revolution dates are estimates – i.e. the beginning, duration and end of any given industrial revolution is marked by when its sequel is named and recognised – and they serve to identify eras of significant revolutionary innovations in the world. Note that, although different researchers have different dates, they do not vary significantly.
A comparative timeline of the Industrial Revolutions and colonised/apartheid South Africa (extended industrial revolution definition part 1)
* The ‘c.’ before the year means approximately.
First Industrial Revolution (Steam power)
The First Industrial Revolution began c.1765 – 113 years after the Dutch colonisers arrived in the Cape in 1652. Project Colonise South Africa started when ships, owned by the Dutch East India Company[i], under the command of Jan van Riebeeck[ii]reached Table Bay in the Cape on the 6th of April 1652.
In 1795, 30 years into the First Industrial Revolution, Dutch control of the Cape colony ended when the British Empire occupied the area for the first time. The Dutch were again awarded governance of the Cape for a short period between 1803 and 1806 under the Peace of Amiens. In 1806 the British returned to take occupation of the Cape, after losing their colonies in the Americas during the Napoleonic Wars, and retained control until South Africa was granted independence in 1961.
The Second Industrial Revolution (Electrical power)
The duration of the Second Industrial Revolution was from c.1870 to c.1968.
Apartheid against native (black) South Africans was formally introduced in 1948 by the National Party when the country became self-governing; although it remained within the confines of the British Commonwealth until 1961.
Although apartheid was ‘formally’ introduced, and became policy, in 1948, it does not mean that the colonials did not practice apartheid; each institution is equally guilty of crimes against humanity; it just signifies a change of ownership.
Later, still within the timeline of the Second Industrial Revolution, Apartheid South Africa became a sovereign state; in 1961 Britain gave them sovereignty and South Africa became a republic.
Third Industrial Revolution (Digital)
The Third Industrial Revolution, also known as the Digital Revolution, started 8 years into sovereign Apartheid South Africa in c.1969.
Democratic South Africa and the Fourth Industrial Revolution
It is unclear as to exactly when in the 2000’s we can pinpoint the start of the Fourth Industrial Revolution but ‘we are in it’, as I’d jokingly say.
From what I can tell, the first articles about the Fourth Industrial Revolution began to appear on Google in about 2016; but I speak under correction on this.
What can be said for certain is that many people have been tracking the mammoth innovations in the 2000s and realise that an Industrial Revolution is definitely coming – i.e. a Fourth Industrial Revolution.
Nevertheless, as you continue to read I will expand on what a revolution is, within my context, and it should become clearer as to why we have graduated to a new Industrial Revolution.
The 4th Industrial Revolution is indeed happening in times of a Democratic South Africa – making it the first of the four Industrial Revolutions to happen post-colonial, and apartheid, South Africa.
This is a derivative from this article: The Two Most Important Quotes in Marketing – One is Obviously By the Late Maya Angelou: Becoming an Authority and Expert in Customers’ Eyes – Tiisetso Maloma Blog https://buff.ly/2BLtwTY
To sell to people, they have to view you as an authority in your field.
As the pickup artist – teacher and hypnotist – Roff Jeffries said: You want to establish that you are an authority in the world of the other person. People will not accept that you are an authority on where they should go or what they should do unless they first accept that you are an authority or an expert on where they are at. If you want people to accept that you are an authority on where they should go, you must first demonstrate that you understand where they are at.”
How do we portray that we are an authority? Read more
This is a derivative from this article: The Two Most Important Quotes in Marketing – One is Obviously By the Late Maya Angelou: Becoming an Authority and Expert in Customers’ Eyes – Tiisetso Maloma Blog https://buff.ly/2BLtwTY
We want our products to sell.
Maya Angelou gave one of the most fantastic quotes that many sellers and marketers have cherished and adapted.
She said: “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
To me, this is one of the top quotes in marketing and product to apply as gospel and philosophy
May her soul Rest in Peace. She went through a lot in her life, and yet she chose to still be a pillar of strength and liveliness to the world. Read more
I have made this mistake many times, i.e. overly investing a lot of money in the development of new a product at once. Obviously ‘a lot’ is relative. My ‘lot’ can be less to yours.
The danger with this is, if the product doesn’t work, the loss is greater.
When developing a new product, entrepreneurs should strive for ways to do it in tiny bits and not expose all of their capital, and thus allowing them a safe feasibility test. Read more
Fourth Industrial Revolution – Graphic by Christoph Roser at www.AllAboutLean.com
The Fourth Industrial Revolution (abbreviated 4IR, and also called the Digital Revolution and Industry 4.0) is nothing but innovation moving forward, in the manners detailed throughout this book, as it was with all past categories of Industrial Revolutions:
First Industrial Revolution (breakthrough technologies included mechanisation, water power, steam power)
Second Industrial Revolution (breakthrough technologies included mass production, assembly lines)
Third Industrial Revolution (breakthrough technologies included computers and automation).
Innovation is the stacking of two or more objects or properties to produce more agile tools or products:
Like combining video and the internet to establish YouTube.
Utilising wood and geometry to create a wooden chair.
Using wood, steel and geometry to make a wooden steel chair.
Or mixing electronics with biology to create a heart/cardiac pacemaker to save lives.
Let’s briefly look at a standard definition of the 4IR (on Wikipedia): The Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) is characterized by a fusion of technologies that is blurring the lines between the physical, digital and biological spheres, collectively referred to as cyber-physical systems. It is marked by emerging technology breakthroughs in several fields, including robotics, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, quantum computing, biotechnology, the Internet of Things, the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), decentralized consensus, fifth-generation wireless technologies (5G), additive manufacturing/3D printing and fully autonomous vehicles.
Simply, it means there have been breakthroughs in various novel fields such as biotechnology, 3D printing and nanotechnology. These breakthroughs are what compelled the recognition of a new Industrial Revolution. The innovations which characterise the 4IR are distinguishable from, and arguably superior to, innovations made in the Third Industrial Revolution, and are thus deserving of a separate identity.
Novel innovation is mixing or stacking up old and/or new innovations together to obtain more variety and agility. The 4IR, as an innovation construct, entails mixing up such ideas and discoveries.
The recent breakthroughs are identified as new innovations. This means that further innovations are possible. The pool of innovation grows constantly with new ideas and breakthrough discoveries.
All components/spheres of innovation in the world are being fused, be it physical, digital or biological; hence the movement is defined as a ‘fusion’ and ‘blurring’ of lines.
Let me give you an absurd example of how innovation happens or is made possible
Nanotechnology is a breakthrough. 3D printing is a breakthrough. These two technologies are, or at least seem, very different. Original innovation is about bringing together, and/or inter-stacking, existing innovations and components to bring into being new or improved innovations.
Imagine the possibility of mixing 3D printing with nanotechnology. (A nano is one billionth of a metre, i.e. the measurement metre zoomed into a billion times – it is microscopically tiny). We may be able to produce, and reproduce, something that is able to enter the human body to kill off cancer cells. N.B. This may currently seem impossible and absurd but, although it may not be possible within this (Fourth) Industrial Revolution, it may become viable in another.
The story above is simply to illustrate that an Industrial Revolution is made up of stacking existing innovations to produce newer, more agile innovations. It follows the basic model of creating new-innovation – i.e. stacking innovations. Innovation cannot be created from nothing; it stems from existing components.
A few examples of modern (4IR) Innovation:
Their newness/novelty is rooted in the stacking up of prior innovations:
(a). Smart refrigerators
Source – Wikipedia: The LG Internet Digital DIOS smart refrigerator. It provides information such as inside temperature, the freshness of stored foods, nutrition information and recipes. Other features include a webcam that is used as a scanner and tracks what is inside the refrigerator. In addition, the electricity consumption is half the level of conventional refrigerators.
Smart refrigerators stack-up existing refrigeration engineering, new power-saving technology, camera technology, and other innovations.
(b). Virtual assistants
Source – Wikipedia: Amazon Alexa virtual assistant. It is capable of voice interaction, music playback, making to-do lists, setting alarms, streaming podcasts, playing audiobooks, and providing weather, traffic, sports, and other real-time information, such as news. Alexa can also control several smart devices using itself as a home automation system.
Virtual assistants stack up voice recognition, Wi-Fi, and other innovations.
(c). Cryptocurrencies
Source – Wikipedia: Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency; a form of electronic cash. It is a decentralized digital currency without a central bank or single administrator that can be sent from user to user on the peer-to-peer bitcoin network without the need for intermediaries. Transactions are verified by network nodes through cryptography and recorded in a public distributed ledger called a blockchain.
Cryptocurrency fuses money with blockchain technology, crowdsourcing, and other innovations.
(d). Genetic testing
Source – Wikipedia: 23andMe offers DNA ancestry testing and other health diagnoses.
With just your saliva, predictions can be made about your vulnerability to inherited diseases. If it can be predicted, it can be treated.
Genetic testing fuses microarray chips, data, and other innovations.
In closing
The examples above are a combination, and/or inter-combination, of existing innovations; some new and some old. The whole point is to achieve more up-to-date agility, use, effectiveness and efficiency.
The reason is that human beings have an inherent desire to push innovation further and further. If you don’t, someone else out there does. It is a competitive environment.
The rest is for you to brainstorm what new-innovations are possible, and then maybe create them.
A day will come where more breakthroughs emerge and a Fifth Industrial Revolution is named.
This is a 3-minute quick read. It is a shortened derivative of this article: The Human Greed Pyramid, an Illustration of How Innovations Interrelates With Humans’ Consumption Patterns and Natural Inclinations, and How to Plot Innovation That Works on Humans http://bit.do/eKg2e
Attend the next ‘Human Greed Pyramid workshop – How To See Into The Future: Innovation, Success, Influence & 4IR’ http://qkt.io/xkjMY4
Human beings (PEOPLE) are part of NATURE (first layer in the pyramid).
NATURAL INCLINATIONS is where consumption patterns shape. It is the evolutional biology and psychology of the choices we make.
Some of the INCLINATIONS: Lust, love, anger, joy happiness, need for community, etc.
How does nature relate with human/natural inclinations? Hunger is satisfied by eating food that nature
People’s natural inclinations push them to form cultures, e.g. tribes. Even animals organise themselves into what we choose to call packs, herds, or troops.
People use their cognition to innovate, i.e. create manmade Both hard (a chair) and soft innovations (software, marriage, jokes).
Innovation is that which works, is effective and thus successful. If it does not work, it is not innovative.
Successful innovations mirror people’s inclinations hence they are consumed massively. They feed inclinations. Or else they fail.
e. there is a psychobiological link between humanly inclinations and innovation.
People created and craze and crave Facebook, Mc Donald’s, YouTube, iPhone – to the next phone better than an iPhone, religion, marriage, a beautiful/sexy partner – and another bae on the side, porn, etc.
This is because these things satisfy people’s inclinations.
Inclinations manifest themselves in these innovations. E.g., human beings have evolved to have a sweet tooth – i.e. to love sugary foods. The juicier the fruit, the calorie filled it is, and that is how our ancestors adapted to consuming sugar – that piece of juicy steak, passing this to us genetically and epigenetically. Then commerce made processed sugar to capitalize further. Hence we love Coke and ice cream.
The innovations become part of cultures depending on the extent of their success and spread – new innovations can topple or divide old innovations.
Humans are greedy beings. We want more and more innovations. We push to beat current innovations. It is a biological inclination.
What if there was a framework to explain the innovation, success, and effectiveness of almost everything? Be it in music, technology, comedy, medicine, entrepreneurship or other creative fields.
This is what I’ve indulged in for a long while now. Read more
DEAR PARENTS: Provide an opportunity for your kids to learn entrepreneurship through BUSINESS ME YOUNG half-day workshop, on 1 May 2019 (Workers Day Public Holiday).
For your kids to navigate and thrive in today’s future, they need entrepreneurship taught to them by entrepreneurs.
DEAR YOUTH: Ask your parents to get you a ticket to BMY. There is no other time than at BUSINESS ME YOUNG to learn entrepreneurship.
The Business Me Young workshop has been presented to hundreds of satisfied young people in Gauteng and Limpopo.
I am selling. You are selling. Or you probably want to sell something – now or in the near future.
And we want people to buy from us when we sell, obviously.
To whom do people give their money? They give their money to those they perceive, believe and accept as experts – or authority – in fields they need help in. They pay these people to solve their problems, wants, frustrations and failures.
So then, we should and do want people to think we are an authority – and/or experts – in our given fields.
One of the popular things about Nelson Mandela on the internet is the question on his faith. Was he Christian or not?
One of the other popular things is his favourite line: “I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.” It is a line from the Victorian Poem Invictus by 19th-Century poet and writer William Ernest Henley (1870 –1903).
Invictus was even named in a movie in which Morgan Freeman plays Nelson Mandela. It is a biographical sports film about events leading to the 1995 Rugby World Cup, after South Africa returned to competing internationally due to apartheid being ended and Nelson Mandela elected the first democratic President of the country.
South Africa won that World Cup (Yay!!).
Although Mandela was brought up in a Christian home—he was a card-carrying member of the Methodist Church of Southern Africa (MCSA) in his youth—it is not clear whether he identified as Christian or not in his later life.
There is your reality and there is your ambition; between the two is potential.
When you go after your ambitions, it means you are working on your potential. Your potential bar is filling and charging.
Working on your potential upsets your reality. It gives better levels to your reality.
That call you make, that meeting, that email you send; it means you learning to negotiate ambitions closer. Going after potential makes you a skilled person.
Even if your ambitions don’t materialize, you’ve just learned how to negotiate ambitions. You are skilled baby!
Go after potential with action.
Sitting and dreaming gives you nothing but nothing.
Executing potential gives you skill equity. No one can take that away from. In fact you are more attractive to the world that way.
