Colin E Ryan

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Boston Red Sox, Beacon, and Buy-In
Colin E Ryan
Last modified on November 15, 2018 at 4:15 pm
The Boston Red Sox upgraded their machine learning capabilities to provide user-friendly data to management and players. Management and players bought-in to the system, and many wins ensued.

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On November 15, 2018, Colin E Ryan commented on Open Innovation Startup Quirky Couldn’t Crowdsource Its Way to Success. :

The Quirky idea sounds quite intriguing, but to respond to our first question, yes, I think too much funding and ultra high expectations contributed to its bankruptcy. Rather than refining the business model to optimize the benefits of open innovation, Quirky tried to grow too quickly without a strong blueprint. Open innovation can bring significant benefits, but only if you set-up your business to take advantage of them.

On November 15, 2018, Colin E Ryan commented on 3D Printing Straighter Smiles :

As a former Invisalign customer, I see another great potential value in this technology. Once customers has completed using Invisalign, they still need to use the last mode periodically to keep their teeth straight. I’ve had my last mold for years now and still wear them to bed several times a week. At this point, I have to wash my mold habitually to keep it sanitary. I wish that every year or so I could get a new copy of the mold to replace my current one. 3D printing could allow Invisalign to keep a model of my mold and produce a new annually at a low cost. I definitely would be willing to pay a little to get a new mold annually!

On November 14, 2018, Colin E Ryan commented on Two Sigma Investments: Will Machines Take Over the Stock Market? :

I’ll take a stab at the second question you pose (If all hedge funds migrate to employ machine learning algorithms to trade, will there be any inefficiencies left and any alpha to extract in the market?). Not every hedge fund will have the same algorithm, therefore, funds that can put the best algorithms into their systems will, in theory, perform better. Also, humans still need to interpret the data the machines churn out, so a firm can gain an advantage in that aspect.

Very interesting post!

On November 14, 2018, Colin E Ryan commented on Will you marry me (if I ask with a 3D-printed ring)? :

Anecdotally, I think my wife would have loved this when we got engaged. She, and I assume many other women, had a general design in mind and scoured jewelry shops for hours looking for exactly the “type” she wanted. With this technology, she could’ve told me generalities of what she wanted in terms of design, and I could’ve told a jeweler that design and my willingness-to-pay so that we could’ve gotten a near-perfect ring for the money.

I agree that mid-tier jewelers would be most interested, but I think even high-end stores may get on-board since a customer could ask for general characteristics of a ring and then give a designer an artistic license to craft something beautiful as long as it met the customer’s general criteria.

On November 14, 2018, Colin E Ryan commented on Open Research: Advancing Innovation in Public Health :

Very interesting! And, sadly, heartbreaking, too.

To your first question, everyone should profit, but disagreements inevitably will arise as to what the fair proportion of profit to which innovator is fair. Perhaps well-endowed charitable organizations, such as the Gates Foundation, could offer financial compensation to original innovators to allow others to improve the work further or face fewer barriers to using it for crucial missions.

As for your second question, I’m not sure I know enough about he tenure process to answer confidently, but maybe if a school advertised that the research came from one of its researchers it would make publishing articles in a more open forum more appealing.

On November 14, 2018, Colin E Ryan commented on A Needle in an Underwater Haystack: Machine Learning and the U.S. Navy’s Hunt for Submarines :

I know that I’m biased, but I’ve told you several times personally that I think submarines pose the greatest asymmetric threat to national security, so I’m glad that the DoD has amped up the game in combating the threat. I like your idea of having shored-based control stations for the program, but I worry that said stations will feed information to the warfighters inefficiently, I.E. instead of sending a ship or P-8 in the Pacific information only about subs in its theater, sending a one-size-fits-all report that isn’t as user friendly. It will be interesting to see how this goes.

On November 14, 2018, Colin E Ryan commented on Open your open innovation to suppliers :

Interesting strategy by Dell. You’re right; most companies think of open innovation as it pertains to customers, but not really suppliers. There could be something to be gained by going Dell’s unique route!

To your question (how can we continuously incentivize suppliers to share innovation ideas with us ahead of our competitors?), I would say that the answer comes down to simple economics. If the innovation the supplier shares with us brings value to customers, and therefore customers have a higher willing to pay or buy the product at a higher volume, you could share some of the extra revenue earned with your supplier. If the supplier benefits from working with you than with your competitors, it will choose to work with and share information with you instead of them!