Tyler

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Hi Afaf,

The approach seems to be additive as evidenced by the team’s performance this year and last – they are among the top few teams in the league. They have achieved this level of performance by implementing a strategy that data helped them create and understand. I would personally question whether the use of data in basketball and sports in general can be the one thing to propel a team to being the best in the league, but I think it certainly has been additive. Good question about timing – many times are utilizing data now following the Rockets’ example, but I would guess it’ll take at least a few years and potentially strong performance from teams using data to make decisions in order to achieve widespread adoption and mastery.

On April 28, 2017, Tyler commented on Feeling Virtual Reality :

Neat post Gil, thanks. The technology sounds neat and I would definitely be interested in trying it out, but I think it could have serious demand issues upon release. I can think of a couple of simple issues that I think would profoundly affect adoption. First, the hardware looks large and that it will take up a lot of space – who would want to put this in their home? I don’t pretend to know anything about fashion/interior design, but I don’t think this would be considered a good look for most. Second, in order to feel things properly, I would imagine the suit will need to hug the user quite tightly, which means most articles of clothing will need to be removed before putting on the suit. This will eat up a lot of time in a person’s day, especially when you can’t outsource putting a new suit on to anyone.

I do, however, think this could have military applications. Being able to feel an environment would be important.

Great post Damian! Thank you. Really interesting to think about the reasons behind the failure – definitely remember the buzz around the product announcement and the much anticipated release. I like the idea that you bring up with an example to focus on a simpler application before making a high-end product with lots of features. Additionally, I agree with the B2B idea and think a great candidate for a first customer could have been the Department of Defense. It seems there would be a lot of military applications to this and locking in a government contract near the start would have been significant. Will be interested to see how other players try to approach this problem and how it becomes solved.

Great post Christy! Thank you for sharing. A couple of things come to mind when thinking about the successful implementation of VR in the NBA. I think you were speaking to this when writing about the technological improvements that need to happen, but I would also be concerned about simple things too such as how comfortable the headset is to wear for a 2-3 hour game. I haven’t put on a VR headset, but my guess is that it’s probably really difficult to make one that doesn’t bother in some way after wearing it for hours.
Also, most people watching tv nowadays prefer to multi-task, using their smartphone as they watch. I would imagine that someone wanting to multi-task while watching probably wouldn’t go with the VR option since it would require putting the headset on and taking it off many times over. I think this will continue to gain in popularity, but wonder how widespread it will grow considering these drawbacks and the ones that you mentioned above.

On April 6, 2017, Tyler commented on Self-Driving Ships? :

Really neat post Seanna, thanks! Given that commercial airplanes can essentially be controlled without incident during entire flights as well as all of the UAV technology already existing, this seems doable. I wonder why it hasn’t been focused on earlier? (Or it has and I just didn’t know:) I think Rolls-Royce should potentially work with a government/national navies as their first customer to develop this technology to leverage the many seaborne platforms from which they can collect and use data.

On April 6, 2017, Tyler commented on Legendary Pictures: Using Data to Make and Market Movies :

Very interesting post, thank you! I enjoyed learning how Legendary has been able to use analytics in a culture that has traditionally not accepted it at all – locating the team in a new location. We’ve talked about this tension between art and science in a few classes now and how it is beneficial to find a way to leverage both capabilities. I wonder if it is possible in this industry and others to really develop both sides of the same people – the art and the science, rather than having a constant battle between one-type and the other? Perhaps it will take quite a bit of time, but eventually, I think we’ll likely move to that — towards people who can understand/appreciate both aspects – the art and the science.

On April 6, 2017, Tyler commented on The City of Chicago and its Array of Things Project :

Thanks for the post Yezi – really interesting application. I wonder if you read/heard about the possibility of connecting Chicago’s new infrastructure with the devices of its citizens (smartphones, fitbits, etc.) to further enhance the depth and quality of data? Security as you pointed out would be a huge concern but maybe they could incentivize some to it with free Wifi throughout the city or something else? Seems like there would be a lot of potential connecting the individual devices with this system.

Great post, thank you. I like Andrew idea’s above about potentially connecting with parking meters/physical sensors to know about the availability of spaces/rules rather than relying on human sources. When I think about experiences that I’ve had looking for and then finally parking in urban areas, I usually get out of my car, pay for parking, and then start heading to my destination ASAP. Maybe it’s just my personality, but it seems like it would be a hard sell to get people to take pictures/report data after finally finding a parking space.

Scott,

Thank you for the post and for the in-class presentation. It seems like this is a very beneficial and effective way to leverage crowds to increase customer loyalty and gain solid new ideas. My thought while hearing your presentation concerns the marketing of this contest. I have a few nephews and I bet they would love to participate in this contest (they’re big lego fans), but they’re not aware of it. Maybe this would become more popular and appeal to more lego consumers if they marketed it in stores or on lego boxes? Or, if marketing is not the issue, then maybe increase the value sharing with consumers beyond the 1% mark would bring more people in…college tuition, semester abroad, or the financing of some other programs geared toward the younger population come to mind.

On April 5, 2017, Tyler commented on 99Designs of Logos on the Wall… :

Interesting idea and post here Gil, thanks. It seems to me that there are some parallels here between their model and what Tongal does. From our in class discussion of Tongal, we noted that the crowd-sourced approach could require the customers to be much more involved than they used to (stages of selection, feedback, etc.). I wonder if this would be any different for a graphic design crowd-sourced company than it would be for a digital marketing company…

On April 5, 2017, Tyler commented on The Travel Industry Should Be More “Crowded” :

Julia –

Very neat, thank you for sharing about Lola. Just checked it out a bit – seems to be in line with what Megan was writing about above – trend towards travel agents. It will be very interesting to see how technology/AI is used to solve these problems.

On April 5, 2017, Tyler commented on The Travel Industry Should Be More “Crowded” :

Megan,

This is a really interesting idea – that travel agents could be the answer to this. I could definitely see that happening for non-budget travelers, but for those looking for value, it seems like it would be harder to talk a company (hostel/value hotel) or budget-conscious consumer into paying a travel-agent fee.

You bring up another great point about the benefit of doing your own research even when it’s time consuming – you get to know the place well and will therefore likely have a better travel experience there/appreciate it more. For a consumer looking to do it themselves no matter what, perhaps enabling in the easiest way is the answer.

thanks again for the thoughts!

On April 5, 2017, Tyler commented on The Travel Industry Should Be More “Crowded” :

I agree, I think it could really enhance some of the offerings.

On March 20, 2017, Tyler commented on Coursera: The Past and Future of Online Learning Platforms :

Thank you for the post I really liked your analysis of the way forward for coursera. I agree that the enterprise business route could be dangerous. Specifically, I think it could be very difficult to scale all of the individually-tailored courses. I’ve read and heard that in other industries, going B2B with enterprise clients can be very demanding from a manpower standpoint as each company will require something very specific and demanding that’s not necessarily usable for other clients. Perhaps they can find certain courses to offer to enterprise customers that are more easily scalable and that will be profitable until they can figure out the monetization of the consumer model.

On March 20, 2017, Tyler commented on Making Higher Education Accessible – Coursera :

Great post, Gil, thanks. It seems to me that success for coursera and other MOOCs will be determined over a reasonably long time frame – very much a marathon game and not a sprint. The reason I say this is because it takes time for businesses, institutions, and people to get used to the idea and accept education credentials from an online source. I would suspect this is going to take a while, but coursera has some great university partners and course offerings with a I believe a low-cost model, so it appears pretty positive for them in my view…as long as they can be patient…

On March 20, 2017, Tyler commented on Uber: Revolutionizing transport – one ride at a time!! :

Sidharth,

This is great, thank you for posting this. It’s helped me to continue to think about the ride-sharing discussion that we started in class with the Fasten case. It was interesting for me to speak with the Fasten founders after class and they reiterated that investors were losing confidence that Uber would be the overall winner in this transportation game of the future. His logic was that if Fasten can grow using levers of value sharing and a more driver/rider-friendly experience, then they could potentially partner with an automotive company to take on Uber in the driverless car race. I definitely agree that Uber is way ahead now, but do to fast-changing industry, I wouldn’t be surprised if there are other big winners that successfully challenge them.

On February 25, 2017, Tyler commented on Social Robot Stuck in Traffic :

Gil, this is a really interesting product and history so far, thank you for posting. It seems like this is a case where being the “first-mover” did not only not help Jibo, but potentially hurt it, by providing competitors with information and ideas. I wonder how much better off they would have been in terms of competition if they would have postponed the product announcements/sought to sell the technology before Amazon/Google built a series of products with network effects. Given what’s happened, I wonder what direction will be best for Jibo to take in the future — premium differentiated product, simple/easy to use, or something else. It seems they definitely need to pivot their already delayed plans to take into account Amazon/Google products already released.

On February 25, 2017, Tyler commented on The Death Of A Broker :

Interesting post James, thank you. Due to employment circumstances prior to business school, I was required to move a few times over a few years and go through the process of finding a new place (not selling). From the buy side, I saw real estate agents as parallel workers that I could use to help me throughout the search process and to leverage their local knowledge applied to my specific circumstances. This was really helpful for me in saving time. While the data and information that I wanted about certain areas is available online, it seems like it’s available in pieces…leading me to believe there could still be a solid place for real estate brokers in the future. Undoubtedly technology will continue to dramatically change this industry though.

On February 25, 2017, Tyler commented on The Hottest Sporting Goods Company You’ve Never Heard Of :

Thanks for the post Cameron. Very interesting idea. I would imagine BSN’s scale moving forward will provide a significant advantage over any new competition that arises in terms of power with manufacturers to command lower prices (assuming they have a solid head start). I would imagine going forward they will need to essentially treat the local distributors whom they have been buying as their “customers,” in the sense that their continued success and growth will rely upon a solid, mutually-beneficial relationship between BSN and its roll-ups. I could see this as a potential lever for competition to play with if they mess it up.