The Fall of Kodak

Greetings to all,

Kodak’s Good Plan that went Wrong

For years since its founding, the Kodak organization had dominated the business of photography. It was at the dawn of the digital age, according to DiSalvo (2011), when Kodak’s good plan of business began to go wrong due to circumstances outside of its control. According to DiSalvo (2011), the city of Rochester NY, where Kodak headquarters is stationed, was a center of the highly successful business where employees were known to stay with the company for years and even up to retirement. When the digital age of the 1990’s began to develop and computers began to take root, Kodak did not change its plan of action or way of business; and in turn, over the years as digital cameras began to come onto the scene, Kodak’s profits began to dwindle and the organization began to lose relevancy in the modern economy. The outside circumstance beyond Kodak’s control was the technological development of the digital age when Kodak was still focused on the old good plan that had now lost its relevancy (DiSalvo, 2011).

A Potential Impact for my Sociotechnical Plan

For the collaboration of human beings and technology, you need not look any further than the rising trend of the smart home phenomenon. A smart home is a home or building run, controlled or interacted with using artificial intelligence or digital technology. The potential impact of this combination of human interaction with technology has the potential to impact those living with a disability or the elderly, as this technology can assist with their ability to control their home with limited interaction or centralized interaction from a mobile device (Dreyfus, 2009). Additionally, there is the potential for the remote access and control of home security systems that in turn can have a financial impact on homeowners and their insurance costs (Smith, 2014).

This is a relevant social technology due to the simple fact that as our society gains more technology in our everyday lives and integrate it into how we live, it will in turn shape our social norms and how we interact with our surroundings. The invention of a technology that changes how we live our lives or interact with one another will, in turn, change our lives in ways we can only imagine and potentially how we see the world or our society itself.

Two forces that will affect this innovation idea is that of the public’s trust and concern for privacy as well as the demand for more home oriented technology. After the revelations made by Edward Snowden regarding the National Security Agency’s surveillance program on the American people, the American public has become concerned about digital privacy. This force of public opinion can cause a delay in home integrated digital technology, as a person’s house is where they wish to feel safe the most (Munger, 2015). The second factor is the consumer culture of the United States, with the latest and greatest technology available on the market. The force of digital consumers based on demand can very easily impact this innovation and change the way people live in a modernized society (Lang, Shang, & Vragov, 2015).

References

DiSalvo, D. (2011, October 02). The fall of Kodak: A tale of disruptive technology and bad business . Retrieved from Forbes : http://www.forbes.com/sites/daviddisalvo/2011/10/02/what-i-saw-as-kodak-crumbled/#1d9426f320f5

Dreyfus, D. (2009). Smart-home technology for persons with disabilities. American Family Physician , 80(3), 233.

Lang, K., Shang, R., & Vragov, R. (2015). Consumer co-creation of digital culture products: Business threat or new opportunity . Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 16(9), 766-798.

Munger, M. (2015). No place to hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. surveillance state. Independent Review, 19(4), 605-609.

Smith, K. (2014). Home smart home. Best's Review, 115(7), 16-22.