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Scribes vs. technology: How Minerva would run HBS
CX
Posted on November 22, 2015 at 2:51 am
At HBS, scribes sit in on many classes to record student comments. What if this data can be automatically captured and captured in real-time with software? Welcome to Minerva.
The Medium to challenge all mediums
CX
Last modified on October 31, 2015 at 11:01 pm
Medium has become the place to self-publish online, crowdsourcing content from you and I to Bono and Melinda Gates, disrupting the news and publishing industry.
Handy: Turning Product Into Platform
CX
Last modified on October 5, 2015 at 5:29 pm
Busy “yuppies” with messy apartments used to be stuck with two unappealing options: either go for an expensive cleaning firm that often caters to commercially managed buildings or the gray market where immigrants with questionable legal statuses work for below [...]
Minerva Schools – Reimaging Higher Education
CX
Last modified on September 11, 2015 at 1:59 pm
Imagine a college experience where you would have the opportunity to live in seven different countries in their campuses across the world, learn with interactive seminars designed to keep you actively learning, and only pay a third of the cost [...]

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On November 23, 2015, CX commented on Scribes vs. technology: How Minerva would run HBS :

To your questions:
1) You’re right that rankings will not be cross-school. They’re hoping it’ll happen like this: once their students graduate and go on to do wonderful things and their pedagogy becomes recognized, then their method of grading would gain credence
2) The other part about Minerva’s pedagogy is that while their freshman year curriculum is focused on skills, their curriculum later teaches content using the foundation of skills

Does that make sense?

On November 22, 2015, CX commented on Starbucks: Coffeehouse or Tech Company? :

Interesting. Is there room for a startup that can do just that for retail chains? ie tweak a range of parameters and it will tell you where you should open your next location? The startup can probably also analyze your historical data to understand what your success criteria are and what that range of parameters should be. Is there reason that this capability must be kept in-house?

On November 22, 2015, CX commented on Capital Float: Leveraging Data for Loans to Small Businesses :

Really interesting! SMB financing need to be solved with a technology solution that can vastly decrease the cost and increase the speed of doing due diligence, so I totally see how Capital Float makes sense. That said, there is a more general need for better SMB financing even in the US, do you think their model could work in the US? What adjustments would it need?

On November 22, 2015, CX commented on Automation at The Associated Press: Could a robot have written this blog post? :

Super interesting! On your “coming up” point, if news agencies are trying to personalize news based on reader data with automated news writing algorithms, how will it be able to sustain a competitive advantage against user-generated, highly personalized content such as Twitter?

On November 2, 2015, CX commented on Yelp is Failing its Customers – Rating Systems and the Challenge of Discovery :

Very interesting analysis! I like your observation that Yelp has so much data that they could be deriving a lot more value out of. Going along your idea of personalized recommendations, what if the data from Yelp can power the voice assistants Siri, Cortana, or Google Now? It’s always a mystery to me how the voice assistants can answer the question: “what’s a good restaurant around here?” If Yelp can harness the power in their data, they can make a really powerful assistant.

On November 1, 2015, CX commented on Crowdsourcing Entertainment: has Amazon found the Magic Bullet for Content Creation? :

Very interesting! You bring up good points about things Amazon Studios should watch out for. It seems like the Hand of God was not the success they wanted it to be, do you think Amazon could have done more to leverage the power of crowdsourcing as marketing for the show? Is this more a strategic or executional error?

On November 1, 2015, CX commented on Goodbye Cable: One Snap at at Time :

I had no idea that Snapchat commands such high fees for brands to “advertise” through them.

Two questions that I’ve been thinking about:

1) As Snapchat’s audience is the younger crowd, do you feel that Snapchat will be able to attract the channels for whom that’ll be their target demographic? I find Tastemade or Yahoo! to be interesting choices.

2) As Snapchat’s value proposition is ephemeral communications, do you think they can effectively curate those private messages into digestible media for everyone? Is there an inherent conflict between the content creator and consumer if Snapchat choose to become a publishing platform?

On October 5, 2015, Chang commented on Zuckerberg’s Big Bet on a New Set of Network Benefits :

I like your points about VR being a network bet. To me, the dynamics of the VR market is similar to that of 3D printing, do you agree? I wonder if the “winner” in this market is whomever that enables more developers to build on top of their platform, in order to get over the early adopter hump for the product to be attractive to the early majority.

On October 5, 2015, Chang commented on Twitch.tv: Amazon’s Billion-Dollar Bet on Network Effects in Streaming Video :

I’m curious for your thoughts on why Amazon acquired Twitch.tv. It would seem that Twitch would be more synergistic with YouTube or even one of the major gaming players. Is Amazon trying to get into the gaming market? Is acquiring Twitch the best way to do so?

On October 5, 2015, Chang commented on How clever is Clever? :

Clever, indeed. Puns aside, I believe that they are currently moving into the data play, as Jenny proposed.

As for risks, I’m not sure if app developers banding together to create a cheaper platform is a credible threat (a la BSSE’s sustaining vs. disruptive innovation framing). I feel that the incumbent SIS players are too varied and too antiquated to solve this problem. However, I do agree with you that their main concern should be staying in the districts’ good graces to continue to receive their support. Currently they are saying that they are beloved by districts, whereas Google is apparently not. Let’s keep an eye out here.

On September 13, 2015, Chang commented on Not so Frozen in Time – National Geographic :

I’m saddened by the news that Fox/Murdoch now has majority stake in NatGeo. That aside, I’m a subscriber to NatGeo’s Instagram account (highly recommended, by the way) and I love the daily dose of beautiful photography accompanied by a short story. I think a huge contributor to their digital success is the fact that they are willing to “give” their content away for free while figuring out other monetization models such as royalties, which allows their brand to stay fresh and relevant in their audiences minds.

On September 13, 2015, Chang commented on Slack, a Digital Open Office :

I had a similar experience as you at the company I interned at this summer. After switching to Slack (from Hipchat, actually, which we didn’t effectively use), I noticed the email volume going down and that I could aggressively manage the email volume down even further. I wonder if this means that if the companies that make the dominant email products (Microsoft Exchange, Gmail) will become “losers” if they don’t actively compete, either by improving their current “chat” products (Office Communicator, Google Chat/Hangouts) or creating something new.

On September 13, 2015, Chang commented on Connectivity and Coffee :

Another interesting note: recently in San Francisco at a Starbucks location, I’ve noticed that they had these wireless charging pads built into the tables so that customers can charge their smart devices as they drink their latte.