RT's Profile

Thanks for a great post Jon! I completely agree with you that Nest should focus on providing superior core performance versus competitors in order to better differentiate and come out ahead in this increasingly crowded IoT @ home space. I think your idea of automatically alerting neighbors of a fire is a great one, but maybe that could be an optional setting. There’s a lot that Nest and its machine learning capabilities can detect and suggest, but I would be cautious around decision-making just because false positives can be costly as well.

+1 to Fabian’s concern that maybe customers don’t take the courses/certifications seriously because the external environment doesn’t take them seriously. Perhaps a better partnership with these institutions would improve the impact the certifications can have.

Separately, as an additional monetization model, what about using some of the ideas we learned from stickk? Leverage behavioral economics and earn revenue when customers fail to finish a course.

I’m loving the heart behind this post Phil – thanks for bringing this company to light, since I may be looking for a solution in the future for my parents. I completely agree that there are flaws to the wearables model, but I also think there are risks with Emerald’s idea. Having radio waves emanating from a device in your home detect things as small and internal as breathing and heart rate sounds invasive. Even if it’s 100% safe (is it??), can you imagine what an older population thinks about it? Maybe another step they can take is manage the message around what guarantees it offers around safety.

What an interesting application of blockchain technology! Thanks for writing about this Ting.

To respond to Haibo, apparently there is a physical serial number etched into a diamond if it’s graded by a reputable agency such as the Gemological Institute of America (GIA) – http://guide.diamondpriceguru.com/diamond-and-ring-basics/certified-diamonds/gia-ags-egl-and-other-diamond-grading-certificates/

However, I’m not sure what measures there are to ensure the information about origin and other attributes about a particular diamond prior to this identification isn’t fraudulent. So I also agree that issue that Akanksha brought up is very troubling. If the diamond supply chain is vertically integrated, what’s to stop them from inserting bad data to begin with if it benefits them?

Thanks for highlighting Fitbit Will! I have a Fitbit device and use it daily. If I’m representative of a regular power user of Fitbit, my concern is about the company’s investment in its software. Fitbit already has the majority market share, so I think they need to do more to ensure they keep those users happy with the products they currently have, of which the software/app is a non-trivial part, in addition to developing newer products that the company foresees its users wanting to have with the medical diagnostic capabilities, etc.

I completely agree with your advice to Mars. A lot of companies, like Mars, are only addressing climate change with half measures such as making their buildings and infrastructure more eco-friendly and energy-efficient. In particular, I’m really concerned about the water scarcity issue that climate change presents, which would severely impact cocoa plants (http://www.fao.org/docrep/006/ad220e/ad220e03.htm), and which energy-efficient buildings can’t even begin to address. That’s why I like your idea of innovating the cocoa agricultural process and trying to preserve the water/soil levels.

Huge +1 to joining the public call for increased palm oil standards. I think Nutella could even up its volume in this dialogue, reaching out to more consumers with this POV a la Dove’s natural beauty campaign, which not only supports a worthy cause and much needed change in palm oil agriculture, but also can help bolster their public image and be a point of differentiation in its product vs substitute products.

While I can see that the costly measures to bolster Verizon’s infrastructure may be able to be passed on to some degree to consumers and the government, I think Verizon should still bear the majority of this cost. Verizon’s customer promise is fast, reliable service at competitive prices, and whatever Verizon needs to do to continue to provide that promise, they should do it. Can you imagine – they air ads claiming:

biggest, baddest, most reliable 4G LTE
+ fine print: except when it rains, snows, gets hot outside
+ fine fine print: except when you pay 2x more

I’m not sure that will fly with consumers, who may turn to competitors if they lose trust in Verizon’s value prop.

P.S. Great title 🙂

Thank you for writing such an engaging post Nicole – what a fun read 🙂

While I agree that information sharing and data monitoring are critical for staying on top of climate changes as they progress, they are still quite reactive. I would consider other solutions as well that are more proactive and allow the NVVA to prevent / mitigate further impact climate change has on the wine business. +1 to Levi and Becca’s points about innovation and water – are there growing techniques that NVVA can investigate that are more resilient to water scarcity and climate variation? Can they invest in marketing to push new blends and varieties that they predict will flourish given future weather patterns?

+1 to Kelly’s sentiment: no mo’ nemo would be a tragedy 🙁

I agree with the rationale behind your recommended action plan of raising awareness and educating visitors, but I wonder if this company more urgently needs to do more to generate awareness and drive interest in order to bring visitors in in the first place. For example, could this company invite a popular travel blog or magazine to profile them and discuss how climate change is impacting the reefs and what they as a company are doing to respond. Would generating / capitalizing on some coral reef FOMO be effective? For example, when I climbed Kilimanjaro, I learned that the snow on top of the mountain would likely melt within 5 years (also referenced here: http://www.cctv-america.com/2014/07/25/climate-change-famous-mount-kilimanjaro-snow-disappearing), which some of the travelers I talked to cited as a reason they decided to make the trip when they did.