Juan's Profile

Fascinating article! It is very interesting how Blizzard has positioned itself through the years as a leader in the gaming industry with a tremendous focus on product quality and design, while not undermining the user’s immersive experience. Therefore, for me it makes perfect sense that they’re not getting into VR just yet, the technology is not ready to support the hyper-realistic graphics that their games require and may not be ready for a couple of years still. It is also very innovative the way they have been maximizing revenue and adapting to the new growing categories of gaming, such as mobile. Nevertheless, the future in mobile and VR may bring these two platforms together at some point, so it is a risky move to be unapologetically uninterested in VR today.

I found your article very interesting, and one the closest to achieving science fiction in real life, which I think is fascinating. This is a very promising technology that I think it’s potential should be reflected in their funding and stock price, therefore as it has been having some troubles to perform on expectations of their investors, the company must adjust its approach. Furthermore, it is unclear how they’re leveraging the digitalization trend we see nowadays to reach far more consumers and stakeholders. I agree on your recommendations for the next steps of the business but I would try a far more aggressive approach on adoption mainly because there’s such a high barrier, both based on scientific facts and risks, but also on biased fear of using new technologies that may potentially endanger human beings. This is solved by more robust processes, material applications, testing and public communication campaigns.

Thanks for the article, I agree with Andrew and Zach, quite an efficient summary! I do believe that Bitcoin / Blockchain are the future in terms of how we’re going to do all our business transactions. Nevertheless, I do incline towards the threat side for big banks of today’s financial services industry, mainly because it is such a disruptive technology and usually this type of innovation comes from new players in the industry that believe and execute such an incredible vision. It is a huge opportunity for innovating our economy though completely unattainable for big banks in my opinion primarily due to all the different business interests they would need to balance, their incredibly complex network of transactions and partners, and the highly dependable economy on today’s status quo (think regulation). They would have to eventually adopt this technology, but I don’t think they would be the protagonist of this transition. More of this point of view is explained thoroughly in the following article from the Financial Times: https://www.ft.com/content/8fc96cbc-8ed9-11e6-a72e-b428cb934b78

Thanks for the article Caroline. I was really surprised that this company has been trying to do this since 2002, one would think there must have been a significant progress in 14 years in terms of implementation and reach, but apparently they’re still struggling with governmental regulation. Furthermore, I do think it is a behemoth of a challenge, given the fact of how hospitals work (like workshops) because of all the different possibilities of complications and diseases. Nevertheless, I agree that there’s a significant part of the health care visits that can be done through video or phone, dropping the overall cost of care. Plus, taking into consideration the upcoming Virtual / Augmented Reality technologies in the short term, the setbacks that we see in accuracy today, may not be present in the future if one of these technologies are used to provide care.

Thank you for the article, it was quite interesting. Although I agree that pharmaceutical companies must do far more than what they’re doing today to address nowaday’s consumer trends considering digitalization and knowledge proliferation, it is unclear how AbbVie is doing exceptionally more than the big pharma companies. I did a quick search in one of the big pharma companies (Merck) and they have as well the pipeline of upcoming research, detailed prescription and contraception in all of their drugs, etc. Whether if this is because they caught up with AbbVie, still leaves the question of what they’re going to do next to maintain their so-called transparency advantage. What I would like to see from AbbVie and the other pharma companies to address today’s opportunity is to be more focused on their approach with mobile and devices, perhaps developing apps that communicate their products and their benefits, partnering with social media companies to create awareness and communities impacted by certain diseases, and motivating real debate between patients and doctors.

Hi Austin, I found your article very interesting and well written with full of details from Delta and the airline industry. It is quite interesting to see how Delta is using its resources to combat their emissions and reduce their footprint on the environment. Nevertheless, I do think that there is still tremendous room for improvement and involvement to move towards a more sustainable industry. This goes beyond Delta and into even science fiction, but it is a necessary shift from such a highly dependent fossil fuel industry to one based more on renewable energy. There isn’t any significant effort or investment from Delta to explore these paths so this may be another option to focus on in the future towards sustainability.

It was very interesting and eye-opening to read your post; I really wasn’t aware of the scale of which the denim industry consumes water. Even though I don’t agree that some of their practices are the solution to this problem (i.e. not washing your jeans and putting them in the freezer) it is quite effective to bring social media buzz to the issue and educate our population.
On the other hand, I agree with your 4 proposals on other ways to tackle this challenge though I must say that one low hanging fruit of this is to bring even more buzz to the issue. I browsed through their website and there’s no easy way to get to know about their great work in water consumption reduction unless you go deep into the different links. This topic is becoming more relevant by the minute so it should be promoted more freely and openly across their organization.

I enjoyed your post, I’ve actually been exposed to this topic a couple of years ago. I agree that Unilever has done tremendous progress to achieve these levels that you mention, nevertheless it is quite noticeable that it has been thanks to the immense pressure Greenpeace and social media have put on to them, see the following links for a sample of this:
https://youtu.be/odI7pQFyjso
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ql_QSDUbb8U

Therefore I strongly disagree they’re doing this in a proactive way, I think they’re answering to these pressures across different landscapes, but there’s still room to communicate their involvement and proposals to the consumers and the media. It is a good progress but one would think that after 8 years from that incident they would have more than 19% of their palm oil to come from physically certified sources (this is stated on their website, link: https://www.unilever.com/sustainable-living/the-sustainable-living-plan/reducing-environmental-impact/sustainable-sourcing/transforming-the-palm-oil-industry/).

This was a very interesting post and the thing that surprised me the most was that none of the top cruise lines in the world that go through the Mediterranean have on their websites any section regarding corporate responsibility or sustainability. This only underscores the accuracy of your post and your arguments that there is a significant problem, not only in Venice but in the entire industry. I agree that having a city which basically continues to thrive economically due to the Tourism industry will have a hard time to promote policies that reduce the intensity of the touristic activities. Nevertheless, I think that the only way the Tourism industry’s interests and the environment’s priorities can ever coexist is if there was still a scenario where Venice wouldn’t be doomed to disappear by rising sea levels. This would be the only way the Tourism industry will be interested in investing for its sustainability, otherwise, it would just continue to do what is doing today, increasing prices and extracting as much revenue as possible while it still can.

I found your post very interesting, particularly because it is very noticeable that H&M is leading the industry towards sustainable practices and I share your skepticism of the ample room left to improve. Nevertheless, I remain far more critical on H&M and the entire Fast Fashion industry because how are you going to reconcile a mission of selling more and more product every year, reducing the time a consumer takes to purchase new clothes (increasing frequency), but at the same time, trying to remain sustainable? It appears completely contradictory, especially with the volume and scale that H&M manages. The effort that H&M is putting into recycling used clothes is key to achieve their sustainability mission, nevertheless, if H&M wants to significantly reduce their overall footprint in the environment they should reduce the volume they’re managing. Of course, to ensure profitability levels are maintained this has to be done in a smart way, but my point is, is this a sustainable business model? Right now, it appears that it isn’t.

Please see links below for articles supporting this point of view:
http://qz.com/380055/hms-sustainability-report-hides-the-unsustainable-reality-of-fast-fashion/
http://sweden.closettour.com/ideas/bartlett.html