Rias Johann Van Wyk

Rias J Van Wyk

Author of a book on technology conversant management

Prof. Rias J van Wyk
Director: Technoscan Centre
P.O. Box 390516
Edina
MN 55439, USA
Telephone (952) 941-2550

Rias Johann van Wyk is a graduate of the Universities of Pretoria and Stellenbosch and holds a master's degree from Harvard focusing on science, technology and public policy. He is an authority on strategic technology analysis (STA) and has some thirty years of experience as executive educator, corporate director, corporate consultant and public speaker.
He is a former Director of the Management of Technology Program, Center for the Development of Technological Leadership (CDTL), University of Minnesota. This University has recognized his work by naming a Fellowship after him.

Books:
Technology: A Unifying Code, Stage Media Group, 2004
Description:
This book is intended for technology conversant individuals, managers and policy makers. It should appeal to technological cognoscenti and afficionados as well.
We need simpler words and clearer concepts to understand technology better, it has become too complex to grasp spontaneously. This book offers mind tools to master technology.
The distinguishing feature of the book is the way in which it views the technologcial landscape. It sees a technological totality - a discernible whole that can be delineated, categorised and analysed. A whole with an elegant and simple basic structure. This is in stark contrast to the conventional view which regards the technological landscape as a vast, unpatterned, agglomeration of different entities; almost infinite in scope and variety and extremely difficult to bring to mind.
The book uses the M,E,I distinction, i.e., the notion that all of physical reality can be expressed in terms of three fundamental subsystems. The three that handle matter (M), energy (E) and information (I) respectively.
Although the book is used in academic settings, and has already been prescribed as a text, it has a wider use. For individuals interested in technology it provides a calming methodology in the face of bewilderingly rapid developments. For financial analysts it provides frameworks for improving their evaluation of high-tech companies. And for policy makers it provides novel concepts to help link science, technology and economic development.
In its own subtle way "Technology: A Unifying Code" contributes directly to the global mastery of technology, a most worthy social and economic goal.

Comments by Reviewers:
"Technological advances, such as the Internet, are often sudden and unpredictable, and therefore scary. A better fundamental understanding of technology might make it less so. Rias van Wyk parses the concept into many angles, including its anatomy, taxonomy and evolution" Prof. David Clarke, Editor, Knowledge Technology and Policy, USA.
"Every thoughtful person managing or dealing with technology will appreciate the work Rias van Wyk has done to develop a codified view of what it means to manage in today's technology-intensive environment". Prof. Robert Mason, Sprint Professor of Business Administration, Florida State University.
"In this age of complexity and rapid technological development, Rias van Wyk's Unifying Code offers a strikingly straightforward evaluation tool which strips back every kind of technological innovation to its bare essentials. A must for the toolbox of every technology commercialisation developer or innovation suppport intermediary. The book reads like a detective novel." Dr. Christine Robinson, Director General, European Association for Technological Innovation and Industrial Information (TII), Luxembourg.

TECH 8000: Technological Knowledge - A Fundamental Structure. Tutorials (in preparation)