Microsoftie's Profile

Thank you for your comment! To respond to your proposal/question: Microsoft is actually doing more and more in this space and hiring folks who are living with a disability full time to both help with this effort but also be part of the design and development process as a whole. I think a key area that still needs to be worked on is to make it clear for everyone involved in the development process just how critical it is to follow an inclusive design process from the start and seek feedback throughout. One pitfall I’ve witnessed is that accessibility can sometimes be overlooked when projects are time or resource constraints or management on a particular team has not sent a clear message about the importance of making products accessible and inclusive.

Really great article! Following the trend of open innovation that is outlined in this article, I wonder if more and more space missions will be driven as a collaboration between thought leaders and innovators across the globe as opposed to any one country or organization. With SpaceX and other private companies entering this field, it seems like times are changing for space exploration and becoming more accessible to people in general, not just top-scientists with years and years of training in a particular field. I think this is especially valuable in an area like space exploration, where people rally around a common goal, independently of boundaries.
I wonder if NASA can further incentivize inventors by acquiring talent through these 3rd party platforms and thus hiring people with a collaborative, innovative mindset and progressively changing their internal culture over the years.

Fascinating article about an application of 3D printing I had never thought about! I am very curious to see whether this type of technology ever gets adopted as a mainstream production mechanism by pastry chefs. I agree with the point made in the article that it can be a quirky way to attract the modern consumer and show off new technology in an unexpected context. However, I wonder if it will grow bigger than that and become a tool used by pastry chefs worldwide. As the article points out, I’d imagine that most chefs are not necessarily early adopters of technology and may lack the time to re-train themselves in a completely new way to develop chocolates and pastries. I liked the point about embedding this new technology in the education of the next wave of young chefs.

Really enjoyed reading your piece about open innovation! I wonder how sustainable this type of retail model will be over the years. You touch on a lot of great points and concerns in the article. I am similarly skeptical about how they will be able to maintain an engaged community of co-creators while staying trendy and continuing to appeal to a younger generation. I wonder if they could (or maybe already do) recognize the aspiring designers that come up with the ideas so that they can use it as part of their portfolios or even do some of their talent acquisition based on serial aspiring designers that have contributed to the brand.

Very interesting article! Reading through all the technological advances in Machine Learning and predictive modeling that Netflix is leveraging to produce its own content and cater to a large audience, I am curious to see where this trend will take entertainment in the 10 to 50 year timeframe. One potential issue that I see with companies like Netflix, Amazon and probably soon Disney leveraging data more and more, is that original content gets produced more or less as a direct aggregation of user preferences. As companies seek to cut their costs and appeal to as broad of an audience as possible, will we be left with mind-numbing, crowd-pleasing entertainment? Looking at the type of movies and shows that appeal to the widest audience, I am worried that we will stop producing independent, thought-provoking content that does not correspond to the vast majority of user preferences. Another risk we run is to re-create the Facebook “echo chamber” in the entertainment space. If I am only ever exposed to content that I am naturally inclined to watch, how can I get a more complete view of reality and learn about people, ideas, and societal events that may not be “pleasing” for me to watch?

Very instructive article! One thought regarding the LIDAR decision: I believe Tesla’s original refusal to use LIDAR technology was because it would hurt the design of the car as it would require mounting a bulky camera onto it. Without using LIDAR technology, Tesla seems to be making a ton of progress in terms of accuracy already, for example releasing a Model 3 update these past few weeks to do automatic lane changing on highways. Whether they are able to get to level 4-5 autonomous driving is a question that is left to be determined. However, I do think they have to be very cautious about these types of design decisions as they are competing against traditional luxury car manufacturers like Mercedes, BMW etc… Winning over potential customers is dependent on having a sleek, luxurious car design. Only then are most mainstream customers willing to switch over from gas to electric and from traditional driving to the car of the future.

Super interesting article! It will be very interesting to see how the high fashion industry moves forward and integrates more and more additive manufacturing in their production processes, not just in a one-off way to showcase the technology but really applying it to their core product lines. The article also brings up France’s strict rules around what constitutes ‘Haute Couture’ and what doesn’t. “Hand-made” being a key factor in that denomination. With more and more machine-aided processes infiltrating industries that today rely heavily on manual labor, I am curious to see how policies and labels will change with evolving standards. Will France’s policies around Luxury and High Fashion adapt to an increasingly tech-heavy world?