Chapter: Future Fruit (or: Past Vegetables)

Based on an exercise outlined in the book "Thinkertoys"

I don't actually have a business just yet, though I suppose you could consider me in the business of learning stuff about things. Or, in layman's terms, college.

One problem to investigate in my particular field is: "How can the college stay on the cutting edge of technology?"

The main decision regarding this is the school's budget.

The budget is influenced, so far as I know, mostly by the school's intake from students (the money Drexel makes is, as far as I know, funneled back into improving the school in some way); and the percentage of the budget allocated to my program is probably based on the recognition it achieves.

So, five scenarios based on these forces are:

1. Nothing changes. We get new computers every few years as they filter down from the graduate labs.

2. Drexel sees a sharp rise in the amount of new students and has a massive budget increase.

3. Computer technologies become so cheap that upgrades can happen much more frequently.

4. Moore's law fails and computer hardware stops improving by leaps and bounds, making upgrading less needful.

5. Drexel goes bankrupt

Obviously, the best opportunity lies in computer technologies becoming much cheaper; if only because theoretically this decrease would apply to the consumer market as well, and students such as myself could afford to augment their personal technologies and not be beholden to the school's.

Closing thoughts on this exercise:

This one was a little difficult to adapt, since it is clearly meant for an employee or owner of some actual business, but I think I found a pretty good analogue to apply it to.

A short note about my creative environment:

I actually went home for the weekend, so I wrote this at my desk at home, sitting in my nice well-lit room at my comfortable wooden desk next to my bed. It's a little over-warm in my room, but I have a glass of milk and a cookie and am thus content.