2008年10月20日 星期一

System engineering

System thinking
Life is full of problems and challenges. It is important for us to develop a habit of system thinking so that we can overcome these difficulties. System thinking is valuable since it can help me to design smart, enduring solution to problems. I would say system thinking is a useful tool which can be used to address problems in our everyday life. It can also encourage us to see problems and solutions with an eye toward the long view.
Besides, I believe that system thinking is a special language that its unique qualities help us to communicate with others about the system around or within us. What is a system and why we need to have better understanding about it? Some may ask. To my understanding, a system is complex body formed by interaction between groups of components. Systems are everywhere. The ecological system, the social system and blood circulatory system are one of them. With system thinking, complex systems can be recognized by seeing the relationship between the components. In a consequence, we can have the ability to manage some complex work in our job.
However, developing thinking pattern in a systematic way is not an easy task. What we should do is to apply the principle of system thinking in our daily life and try to make use of it whenever there is a problem!
Can engineering learning enhance our system intelligence?
Although we are all studying engineering in the University, some of my friends still do not know what engineering learning is. As the professor has emphasized, what we are receiving is engineering education. Engineering education aims to prepare students to practice engineering as a profession through science and math education. Engineering is the art of applying scientific and mathematical principles, experience, judgment, and common sense to produce technical products to meet the need of society. Engineering learning is the study of qualities required to be a successful engineer. Through the learning in the engineering education, we are trained to be highly analytical and detail oriented. Not only we are strong in mathematics or science, we also have good communication skill. These are all enhancing our system intelligence. System intelligence is the application f system thinking. People with the intelligence have a good problem solving skills and they can understand the behavior of a component in a complex system. It is similar to what the faculty has taught us. In conclude, engineer is a profession with system intelligence.
Why learn programming?
Some people in the society misunderstand that engineers are only good in physics and mathematics. Actually, engineers learn programming well. Not only computer engineers learn programming, other engineer professions like electrical and systemic engineers learn too. But why we need to learn it remains a question in many people’s mind. Learning programming is not just a hobby, we learn a lot from doing programming assignment. I have finished three programming assignment after entering the University. What have found is that programming is a progress of problem solving. Programming is challenge to me because there are always errors existing. Whenever I want to apply new idea to the program, I need to test and debug several times so that the output of the program is what I desire to be. Finding out these errors involve logical and systematic thinking. We also need to have a full understanding of the program before errors are identified. Apart from improving the problem solving skills through programming, the progress of writing source code also provide opportunities for us to apply mathematical knowledge learnt in the lesson.
In today’s society, computer technology is becoming more and more important. It is better for engineer professions to be familiar with both the hardware and software. Programming is the basic foundation of writing software. That why it is worth learning.

2008年10月5日 星期日

Innovation!

1. You can write a summary of this week's lecture. What is innovation and how one can innovate.

In recent years, people from all over the world ask for innovation. Differnt fields such as economic, business and engineering put a lot of emphasis on the topic of innovation. However, many people still do not know what innovation really is and why it is necessiary for us to be innovative. After having lecture based on innovations and doing a lot of reading talking about it, i have a further understanding about the topic. Here in my blog, i would like to share what i have learnt to my blog readers.

First of all, we need find out the difference between innovation and invention. Well, in my view,innovantion is the transformation of invention. Any products, technologies or services new can be invention. However, when people improve these things for the public, it becomes innovation. Innovation is a process which introduce some new ideas, methods and devices which leads to improved engineering, technologies, state of mind and organization.

I believed that the future of the businesses depends a lot on their ability to innovate. the reasons why innovation is so important is not difficult to fidure out. For one thing, innovation is essential for business survival. There is intensive competition between companies in today's society and companies struggle to be competitive in the market. Those with much innovation will know more about what the customer's needs are ,which helps them to stand out above the rest. As an consequence, they make more profits and survive. For another, innovation is also the route to economic growth. Industries can be improvered after appying innovative ideas. So the products are becoming more mature. Innovation creates different new businesses and new businesses create new jobs. That's why people always said that innovation is the foundamental source of growth in business and industry.

How one can be innovated? There are several ways to achieve this. First and foremost, we should not be satisfied with the old system. The old culture are often the barriers to innovation. What we need to do is to think more about their room for improvement but not only focusing on the advantages of practicing old system. Second, develop a habit to think creatively is an essential for one to be innovated. Association is a good way to stimulate creative thinking. Third, action is needed when we want to put our innovative ideas into practice. Don't be afraid of being failure and find ways to do it better. "Rome was not built in one day." If we put a lot effort and time on something, there must be a day that we can sussess. Be an innovator!

2008年9月30日 星期二

SWOT analysis on myself

What is SWOT Analysis?

SWOT analysis is a basic, straightforward model that provides direction and serves as a basis for the development of marketing plans. It accomplishes this by assessing an organizations strengths (what an organization can do) and weaknesses (what an organization cannot do) in addition to opportunities (potential favorable conditions for an organization) and threats (potential unfavorable conditions for an organization). SWOT analysis is an important step in planning and its value is often underestimated despite the simplicity in creation. The role of SWOT analysis is to take the information from the environmental analysis and separate it into internal issues (strengths and weaknesses) and external issues (opportunities and threats). Once this is completed, SWOT analysis determines if the information indicates something that will assist the firm in accomplishing its objectives (a strength or opportunity), or if it indicates an obstacle that must be overcome or minimized to achieve desired results (weakness or threat) (Marketing Strategy, 1998).
SWOT Analysis By Anthony C. Danca

From: http://www.stfrancis.edu/ba/ghkickul/stuwebs/btopics/works/swot.htm



From: http://www.quickmba.com/strategy/swot/

SWOT analysis

SWOT Analysis is a strategic planning method used to evaluate the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats involved in a project or in a business venture. It involves specifying the objective of the business venture or project and identifying the internal and external factors that are favorable and unfavorable to achieving that objective. The technique is credited to Albert Humphrey, who led a research project at Stanford University in the 1960s and 1970s using data from Fortune 500 companies.
From Wikipedia

SWOT analysis on myself:

Strength (S)
I am pretty easygoing and I respect others’ views and opinion. When doing projects, I am good at listening to what my teammates have said and their ideas will be accepted if sensible. When getting along with my friends, I often pay a lot of attention to their feelings so that I can response and try to make them happier.
Morevoer, I am eager to learn new things as I believe that life is a never ending learning experience. I have the ability to learn new tasks and pick it up quickly.
Responsibility is also one of my personal characteristics. I am convinced that everyone has their duties and these tasks must be done well. That’s why I will put a lot of effort in doing my works to make it more perfect. Because it is what I need to do!

Weakness (W)
I use money unwisely and always overspend. I buy things without considering my financial situation. I will only find guilty after discovering that the things is not worth buying. I need to manage my money better and think twice before buying new things.
Sometimes, I do things without planning. I need to remind myself many times so that I won’t forget something important. From now on, I promised to be more organized and improve the time management of my jobs.
Honestly, I am an impatient person. I tend to lose my focus if topics are not interesting me. Besides, I can be distracted by others easily from my studies so I need to have a silent environment to do my works.

Opportunities (O)
Being a student studying in the Chinese University of Hong Kong, I have lots of chance to learn new know ledge and techniques form lectures and tutorials. Moreover, the University provides me with the opportunities to know people from different backgrounds. There are many foreign students come to CUHK through exchange program. Making friends with them can broaden my horizons. All these will be useful for me when working in the society.
I have a good relationship with my family members and I gain sufficient support from my parents. There is not much limitation to my study. I can enjoy my university life well.
As for engineering faculty, there is a valuable opportunity for me to receive Engineering Education as engineer is systemic profession. I hope to learn the way that engineers deal with issues in order to solve problems step by step.
Since my home is far away from CU, I have applied for hostel. It is a good chance for me to learn how to take care of myself. I can be more mature and become an independent individual after three year of university life.

Threats (T)
I have a lot of freedom in the University and there is nobody to restrain me form playing too much. Unlike studying in the secondary school, there are no teachers that keep on asking me to study harder. If I can’t control myself, my academic development will be ruined.
The knowledge taught by professors in the lecture may not be easy to understand. If my preparation for the lecture is not sufficient, I may find problems in learning it.
In today’s society, there are more and more people who have received tertiary education. In order to maintain competitive so as to find a good job, knowledge and skills learnt from engineering education is not enough. That’s why an all-round education is emphasized. Leadership and good communication are important for me if I want to have a remarkable success in my career.

2008年9月22日 星期一

About myself

Hello everybody~I am Leung Fung, a twenty-year-old boy. You can call me Derek as well. I live in Tuen Mun, nevertheless, I choose to study in Tsuen Wan Government Secondary School as Tsuen Wan is good place where you can meet a lot of good friends. Needless to say, CU is also a good place because it is my glad to meet all of you in CUIE.

As for my hobbies, I love playing varieties of ball games, especially football, table tennis and tennis. In leisure time, I may play some online games with my friends or watching movies. Shopping is also one of my favorites. I look forward to make friends with someone who share the same hobbies with me.
Like many people in the world. I live in an ordinary family and lead a normal life. Actually, I don’t have any special skills to make me outstanding in any aspects. During primary and secondary education, I just follow what teachers have asked us to study without thinking whether it is suitable for me or not. At that time, I misunderstand that it is not my business to decide who I am going to be. What I need to do is to memorize the content of textbooks and the academic result will be excellent. Now, we are studying in the University which is totally different from primary and secondary level. It is no longer the time that someone assigns ever jobs for us to do. We need to find different learning resources to study. Moreover, we can choose some courses that we are interested to attend. We learn for our interest but not for a fixed education curriculum. We have lots of freedom here and I will treasure and make good use of it.
Hope all of you graduate from the university without regret!

Big Mac