Product and Technology

These Focused Discussion Forums are intended to focus deeply on a few critical concepts to demonstrate your understanding of the concepts and your ability to explain, analyze, and apply those concepts in a larger context, and to find interrelations between the concepts and the other information you have learned during the week. Be sure to use EACH numbered item/question below as a side heading, and provide your response to EACH item in a manner that demonstrates in detail your understanding at the graduate level of EACH item.

Focused discussions need to be detailed such that they demonstrate an increased, graduate level of understanding of the topics beyond the general discussions. Examples are also a good approach to do this.

1. Describe from your reading and research what you believe is the science that forms the essence of the technology (the source by which a product form is derived) that is at the core of the product that you selected. (My Product is Amazon’s Alexa Voice Service)
   1. Additionally, describe the form (the physical thing created, or, for a service, the set of steps by which the service will be created) of the product you selected. For example, science behind automated vacuum cleaners (product) uses technology that is based on the science of robotics and artificial intelligence.
   2. Describe the benefit/need (benefit to the customer for which the customer sees a need or desire) of the product you selected.
   3. Finally, also, describe from your reading and research, what you believe is the science which supports the process technology that is employed to produce the product you selected.
2. If product innovation is defined as the manner by which the attributes of a product (a good not a service in this case) provide customer benefits and process innovation is defined as the methods by which important product attributes are incorporated into products, describe the product and process innovations associated with the product you chose and explain how they relate to one another.
3. This assignment provides you with the opportunity to research/understand what the components (product innovation) of a product (good) are and how those components are put together (process innovation) to form a product (good).
4. Return to Week #1 (during week #1, I had selected the Natural Hazard Disclosure report from Property ID) and attempt to identify the enabling technology associated with the production of products in the product category that you selected for this week, and explain why this technology should be classified as an enabling technology as we have described it earlier in this course.

Please ask 2 questions in regards to anything above to continue discussion with group members.