Majken's Profile

Thanks for your post Nicole! I agree with a lot of the comments above and the points you made in your post regarding the lack of connection between knowing how fans are reacting to the matches or who they are rooting for and generating higher revenues for Wimbledon and improving the viewer experience. I could see a lot of value in other sports, such as baseball, where there is a lot more time in between innings and there are a lot more opportunities for the event organizers to intervene to entertain viewers if they feel like attention and energy is lacking in the stadium. There are not those same opportunities at tennis matches, particularly at Wimbledon, where fans are expected to maintain a certain decorum and can only cheer (or even make any noise) at certain parts of the match. The only potential use I could see would be for tournament organizers to be able to adjust which courts matches are played on, depending on if a rising star emerges that the crowd has taken a sudden and unexpected liking to. If they can use this technology to determine that the crowd clearly favors an unranked, underdog player who would normally play on one of the smaller courts, they could theoretically move his or her next match to a slightly larger court to allow more people to watch. This could help develop new talent and raise the profiles of lower ranked players, who otherwise would never have the chance to play on a larger stage, as the main courts are reserved for the seeded players at the tournament.

Thanks Brian! Your assessment of the strengths of Instacart compared to Webvan make a lot of sense. One question that I have regarding the future viability of Instacart is how existing grocery stores view Instacart – as a collaborator or a competitor? It seems like Instacart has been able to partner with grocery stores to date; however, I’m surprised that some grocery stores have not tried to prevent Instacart from shopping for groceries in their stores and then charging a premium to customers that the grocery store then doesn’t get any part of, when it seems like they are bearing most, if not all, of the costs in this scenario. Additionally, even if grocery stores do not see Instacart as detracting from their revenues if it still brings somebody into their grocery store to buy goods, have they tried to prevent Instacart from partnering with other grocery stores? It would seem to be in the grocery store partner’s best interest to only have Instacart shopping for goods from their store, and not allowing Instacart customers to shop at a rival grocery chain.

Thanks for your post Jodie, it was really interesting! One additional concern that I had regarding Disney’s purchase of Maker Studios is also the move into a space where they are not owning creating of content – they are managing a platform that relies on content created by other Youtube celebrities with large followings. While this could be a good thing from a cost perspective, as they do not have to pay for the expensive creation process of new content, it also means that they give up a certain level of control over that content. I would think that lack of control of content could be an issue for a company such as Disney, which bills itself as primarily for kids and families and as a wholesome business. What would happen if one of the Youtube videos posted on this channel was offensive or controversial? How much blowback would there be onto Disney in the case this happens and does Disney have controls in place to try to protect against this possibility?

Great post! It was really interesting to read how digitization is impacting so many different aspects of the game, down to individual players statistics and safety, as I had previously only thought about digitization relating to the NFL in terms of how it changes the NFL’s relationships with its fans and viewers. While I understand Zach’s concern above that gathering more data on what is actually happening to the players on the field could be too exposing for the NFL, I think that this technology will end up being a net positive for the NFL. The league needs to show that they are taking these safety concerns seriously and has started to make more of a show in caring about safety (new, stricter concussion protocols etc.) and I think that tracking more data and being able to share this with medical staff and trainers can only help players, coaches, and officials make the game safer. It could also help equipment manufacturers design better helmets or pads that will protect players in ways that we are currently not able to measure.

Thanks for a really interesting post! I would echo some of the concerns that you and other commentators pointed out above with the shift from in person to virtual fittings, in particular given that you noted the target market for peach currently are middle-aged, middle income women, who are not as comfortable using technology as millennials might be. Is peach trying to target a different segment of the population with this move into Virtual peach, or do they think that they can change their current target customer behavior to move into online fitting? I would be curious to know if they think of it as a way to serve a new target population and will offer both in person and online fittings going forward, or if the move into online fittings eventually takes over and they no longer use the local network of experts for in person fittings. If so, how will they be able to keep the local and personal feel of the brand that women previously associated with the in-home expert fittings? These are some additional issues they might want to consider (or perhaps already have) when thinking about how to promote Virtual peach.

Thanks for the interesting post! I agree with you that there is a ton of opportunity for electric car manufacturers such as Tesla with climate change. There does need to be significant government support however, not only to take on the traditional car manufacturers, but also to prod consumers into adopting the electric cars. If there are not sufficient electric charge stations and the cars do not have a long enough range to match consumer needs, then consumers will not buy them. Government can play a significant role in not only supporting the electric car manufacturers but also trying to support and help develop the other industries that are necessary to support electric cars.

Thanks for the interesting post! I agree with a lot of the solutions that you proposed with regard to changing their operations to try to increase utilization in combination with actions to increase the sustainability of their operations to limit their contribution to climate change. Another issue that the company faces is the fact that enforcement of the anchovy quotas put in place by the government seems lax and there are many ways for companies to get around the regulations (see article here: https://forcechange.com/148569/protect-anchovy-population-from-overfishing/). If Pesquera Exalmer’s competitors are not abiding by these quotas, then all of the efforts of the company to try to protect the anchovy population will only lead to them to lose out to their competitors.

This was a really interesting post and I would echo the comments above in that I was surprised that British Airways was one of the least fuel efficient airlines out there. However, I was encouraged that even the airline industry is putting resources towards addressing climate change, particularly given how the industry has struggled financially. I wonder if the metric of emissions/passenger should be altered or supplemented with additional metrics, so that airlines that have offer more premium seats on flights are not penalized and made to seem like they are polluting more, when other airlines could be operating planes that are less fuel efficient overall, but have more passengers on each flight, making them appear better. I think one other important tension that the airline industry will need to navigate is customer demand: how to balance the demand for increased services, larger seats etc on flights with the goal to be more fuel-efficient. The airline industry could likely benefit from increased education of the consumer, so that consumers also realize that when they opt to buy the first class seat, they are also opting to buy the least environmentally friendly way to travel.

Really interesting post about the importance to so many Caribbean nations of reducing the impact of climate change as it represents an existential threat to their country and population. It is easy for people in larger nations, even those who live near the coast, to forget that climate change does not merely mean that people might have to move inland but that entire populations could be forced to move from their homelands as a result. I agree with you that these countries need to invest in preventative measures to make sure that the effects of climate change are mitigated and further changes are prevented to the extent possible. However, one of the tough decisions facing the governments of each of these countries is the decision to put capital and resources towards long-term goals versus facing the needs of their citizens today who are facing repercussions from natural disasters. How can governments make sure that there is enough money to put towards restoring coral reefs and protecting the ecosystem when they also potentially have to deal with a population that is now 60% homeless due to a hurricane that has just occurred, as was the case with Hurricane Ivan. These short-term versus long-term tradeoffs are issues faced by every government in trying to serve its people, but become even more stark when the tradeoffs could result in the country ceasing to exist.

This is a really interesting article and great to hear about how oyster companies can contribute to increasing the sustainable food sources in the world at a time when food scarcity is a growing concern. One aspect of the oyster industry that concerns me with regard to climate change is the transportation costs as oysters need to be transported alive from the oyster farms to the end user (restaurants and supermarkets) where customers can purchase them. Island Creek Oyster is a local company in the Boston market, but restaurants here do often offer oysters from locations farther away such as Maine, Virginia and the West Coast. I’d be interested to learn more about the climate impacts of transporting oysters from the West Coast to the East Coast and for Island Creek to sell their oysters on the West Coast. This would also need to be taken into consideration when deciding if Island Creek should expand their growing locations outside of Duxbury – will they now be causing increased pollution in an attempt to react to the acidification of the water as a result of climate change?