Business Skills for Engineers

Technopreneurs and Technopreneurship

August 2018
Language, Thinking and the Brain +
Thinking techniques Part 1
Felicia Wong Yen Myan
Business Skills for Engineers - August
2018 at Taylor’s University

Tutorials will be conducted this week! Please be aware of the

schedule for your own tutorial session
 Outline
• Recap
• The Brain
– Old brain, Middle Brain and New Brain
– The neuron network
– Myelination
• Success Formula
• Thinking – Mental model
– Thinking Exercise
• Language – The P word vs. Opportunities and Challenges
• Brainstorming + random entry
• Trimming
• Brain Rewiring
 Recap
• Introduction to Technopreneurs and
Techopreneurship
• 6Ds of Exponential Technology
– Digitilisation, Deception, Disruption, Demonetisation,
Dematerialisation and Democratisation
• Customer Value Proposition
– Why do we need to consider this?
– Novelty, performance, price, design, brand, risk
reduction
 The Brain
Cerebral
Corpus
cortex
callosum

Thalamus
Chill… you
hypothalamus
don’t need to Cerebellum
remember
this.  midbrain

Medulla
pons
 Old brain, Middle Brain and New Brain
Middle brain
Old brain (the reptilian Emotions, Feelings, New brain
brain) decision making, finding Higher, analytical
– Survival, primal the meaning of things thinking
instincts
– Bodily functions that
Logical, rational
happen without you thought
noticing Math, sciences,
• Swallowing, Theories,
digestion,
breathing, blinking, Principals, etc.
heartbeat Learning
• reflexes
The Neuron Network
 Myelination
• Myelination of axons improves and speeds up
transmission of signals between neurons.
• Takes place when you repeat an action often enough and
changes the structure of your brain. (i.e. practice makes
perfect!) - (Neuroplasticity).
• The thicker the myelination, the faster the transmission.
Myelination
 Myelination
• Similar to riding a bike, learning anything new takes time.
• Technopreneurship can be learnt.. Just be consistent and
persistent.
• Myelination is programming for success
CDIO
Return on Failure

Technique
Commitment Success
Interest + + + =
Practice Mindset
Self Awareness Coaching Self Management
Why do you exist? Pushing the limit
Your inner calling
Thinking – Mental Model
 Thinking – Mental Model

Naming A baby gives something a name

Classifying Tries to understand it or classify it

(good, bad, hot, cold, soft, hard)
Template Decision on what to do with it (hug it,
Rewiring press it, throw it away, cry, flinch)
Thinking – Mental Model
• When you were a child,
What did you feel when you
hear of vampires, ghosts,
werewolves?
 Thinking – Mental Model
• Then these came
out….
• Suddenly, they
don’t seem so
bad..
• Suddenly there
were teams!
• What is this now?
Football? :P
• And this?!?!?!
COME ON!!!
Remember this?
Thinking Exercise
 Language – The P word vs.
Opportunities and Challenges
• Language can be used to rewire the brain and build alternative
thinking templates. Words are powerful!
 Language – The P word vs.
Opportunities and Challenges
• Like the cockroach, Ps are often accompanied
with negative connotations.
• That negativity can get stuck making us
overlook opportunities for us to be better or
to improve.
• Realising opportunities and addressing
challenges is a journey.
• Do you think you’d be able to replace the P-
word?
 Thinking Exercise – Again
Let us repeat the same exercise
without using any negative terms
• What is this?
– Blattella Asahinai
• What do you think of it?
– Flyer, resilient, brown, antenna, six legged,
winged, protein
• What can we do with it?
Thinking Exercise
 Intermission… 

NEXT: Thinking techniques

And Crowdfunding
 Is it easy to generate ideas?
In an ideal world, we would all like to be like
this:
 Is it easy to generate ideas?
But in reality,
You might not know
where to start?

People say : Draw

inspiration from
your surroundings…
Is it that easy?
HOW?
 1. Brainstorming
• We have all heard of brainstorming
 1. Brain Storming
• This technique was first described by Alex Osborn
• Rules
– Warmup session (brain networking)
– Stay focused on topic
– 1 conversation at a time
– Quantity over quality
– Encourage wild ideas
– Defer judgment- do not criticize people’s ideas
– Build on the ideas of others
 1. Brainstorming – Brain networking
(Warmup session)
• In a team of 6-12
• Start with a word, an item or a picture
• A team member mentions the first thing comes
to mind
• Hearing this, another team member mentions
what comes to mind
• And so on
• Go on for few rounds until the process is smooth
1. Brainstorming – Brain networking
(Warmup session)
 1. Brain Storming
Focus: Introduce a product to market
1. Brainstorming – Post-session
Each member then votes and the idea(s) that
gets the highest number of votes progresses.
 2. Random Entry
• Edward De Bono – lateral thinking
guru
• Use unconnected input to open new
lines of thinking
• Steps in random entry:
– Choose a focus
– Choose a random object, picture or a
word
– List its attributes and link them back to
the focus
 2. Random Entry - Focus
You want to design a new shoe collection

Snow
Now describe Winter
the attributes of wonderland
Elsa.. 
Blue
 2. Random Entry - Focus
Improve the ambience/mood of this living room
Your item
 3. Trimming
• Given a process, a product or a system
• Break it into its individual components
• Trim by removing an important component
but don’t affect functionality
• Next ask “How now do I make it work?!”
3. Trimming - Example
Glasses
Frame

Lenses

Nose pads
 3. Trimming - Examples
Hooks on curtains

Hooks built into the

curtains themselves
 3. Trimming - Example
Bookstore
Store
Books
Ebook
readers
 Crowdfunding
• Where to start?
• On TIMES, look for CROWDFUNDING ACTIVITY
• Use it as a guide to draft and create your
crowdfunding campaign.
• There are 6 items to get you started
1. Idea of campaign
2. Background story
3. Target customer(s)
4. What strategy are you applying? (social media, videos,
images, etc.)
5. How much to raise and what are the funds for?
6. What rewards are you offering?
 What to do next?
• There are tutorial classes this week. Please
take note of your tutorial sessions
• Remember to send me group members for
crowdfunding project
• Please do the CROWDFUNDING ACTIVITY on
TIMES.
Brain Rewiring
 Recap
• The Brain
• Old brain, Middle Brain and New Brain
• The neuron network
• Myelination
• Success Formula
• Thinking – Mental model
• Thinking Exercise
• Language – The P word vs. Opportunities and Challenges
• Brainstorming + random entry
• Trimming
• Brain Rewiring