Stephen Barber's Profile

Lettuce Bot! Really interesting thinking about this article in relation to Heili’s on Oracle and the bee population. As food scarcity becomes a mounting issue in the world, preventing waste and herbicide through machines like Lettuce Bot increase the value of this innovation. I wonder if they will deploy the same kind of technology for seed planting and harvesting and how it will adjust to variations around soil and classification. Really fascinating to think about how technology adapt to understand the slight changes in coloration in the same hybrid of corn and in the same area.

Loved this read. Youtube’s algorithm that generates content based on the candidate information and the network information has been an area of interest in my work with students. More than half the computers in the K–12 market in the U.S. are Google Chromebooks that usually come preloaded with YouTube. Understanding that engagement is a core part of the Youtube business model, the dark side of the issue is that users often receive recommendations for noxious material because it is considered engaging and it is borderline content but it unfortunately misinforms and causes harm. Although Youtube is using AI to remove harmful videos, it still has so much work to do and I wonder if the mounting pressure from the public will actually force Youtube to open their algorithm to external scrutiny.

This was such an interesting read. The first thought upon reading this was how Oracle’s technology could help efforts for critical and endangered plants/species that are important for the health/livelihood of communities, form a key element in the food chain and help the regeneration of habitats. I’m also wondering how governments can use this data around patterns, anomalies and predictive regional problems to inform other industries, like agriculture, forestry, energy and improve the way we care for our world.

Similar to Heili, I too am a big Shazam user and never quite understood how it works. I do wonder how they balance the qualitative data with quantitative data. How does the company discriminate between a “shazam” of a song and whether or not the listener had a positive/negative review of it? I wonder if they track how long a user listens to the song or where in the song the user is most interested in listening and how this helps inform the future of music?

This is super cool! Thanks for sharing!

Really great post. Interesting to see how Starbucks has managed to stay competitive and relevant especially as Millennials and Gen Z move more towards brands that align with their social purposes, making positive social and environmental change.

I know that with a lot of loyalty programs, once you reach a certain status you are secure. Is the same true for Starbucks? If not, I wonder if this also helps fuels the purchasing practices of their customers.

Thanks for the post!

The marketing campaign definitely made me hungry for a Sunday evening pizza order. In connection with some of our classes, how does the scanning of pizza toppings strike a balance with workplace surveillance? I’m assuming the Dominoes is using the tool to identify stores with poor performance and customer outcomes. Is this technology incorporated into an employee or stores evaluation process? Also thinking about how this tool could be incorporated into developing medicine. This is super interesting stuff. Thanks for sharing 🙂

Really fascinating article, Heili. Interesting to hear how their filters and algorithms detect abuse and gaming. Now that Glassdoor has all this data around employee satisfaction, retention and demographics, what would be the best way to transmit this data to companies to help them facilitate their growth? also wonder how Glassdoor is changing the cultural landscape around salary and benefits and if they have a way to assess their global impact?

HomeAdvisor sounds like a LinkedIn for contractors where they advertise their “jack-of-all-trades” skillsets. The support contractors receive with pricing sounds a lot like the ZBJ case and the challenges with disintermediation. Have you learned if HomeAdvisor has struggled with disintermediation? If they haven’t, do you think it’s because the jobs are smaller and less likely to require the same skill?

Fascinating read, Serrino. Really interesting to see how they tapped into the massive networks of WeChat and GQ to gain users and then to keep those users they capitalized on emotionally compelling narratives within the game, competitive tournaments to keep users active. It seems that is also harnessed the introverted social culture that was amplified during Covid while also drawing in a large amount of female players – an underrepresented demographic in the gaming industry. With it’s massive popularity developing during a time when social and emotional health are becoming less taboo to discuss, I wonder how they plan to confront the growing challenge around addiction to video games – balancing profitability and the health of their user base.

I wonder how Tik Tok’s algorithm is also a marketing strategy and entrance for users to promote a brand and make a viable living. how is Tik Tok also redefining other social media giants?

Seems like they were really primed to respond to the holistic needs of the real estate market. Interested to see how the data points they’e gathered over the last 2 years are furthering their their business model and redefining other big/small real estate companies

love how you brought out the strategic move on Zoom’s end to offer a freemium version, make it accessible in a time when nobody needed another stress and then use that data from their users to provide insight on how to improve their product. really insightful