Kaitlyn's Profile

What a great, alternative application of additive manufacturing! To your question, I think that the only way local villages will be incentivized to use 3D-printing over alternative low-tech solutions is through education and capital investment with the help of outside organization like Oxfam. These local villages need to see its benefits, how it can work in their villages, and also receive financing assistance to invest in the technology themselves. I would recommend that Oxfam seek a for-profit partner specializing in 3D printing to help them roll this out.

Hi Nancy, great read! In response to your last question, I think the key to San Jose managing these crowd-sourcing programs in the long-term is commitment from local government. Political priorities change with new administrations, but if investors can trust that these projects have long lifetimes, there will be a greater appetite to front capital and commit to the city’s vision. This can only be done if all the cities’ stakeholders are similarly committed to the program and will thus, push politicians to keep focus.

Nice post! In regards to your last question, NIVEA needs to be very careful as they filter through the noise, only adopting crowdsourced ideas that meet stringent requirements set by the NIVEA brand identity/positioning. It can be very tempting to get caught up in the latest trends or innovative solutions, but without taking caution, NIVEA may find it starts confusing customers with diverging products and messages. I like your idea about incorporating supplier feedback as well, but again, NIVEA needs to ensure it has processes in place that help the brand management navigate its increasing number of data points.

As a former Volkswagen of America employee, I agree with your recommendation that Volkswagen AG should extend its Autoeuropa capabilities to its Wolfsburg, and would go further to recommend that they expand to some of their North American and Chinese production facilities as well. Product variety and speed to market are the keys to success in the automotive space, particularly among volume brands like VW. Product life-cycles are longer than most – averaging 5 years, with a refresh in between- therefore, anything an OEM can do to shorten this life-cycle offers a competitive advantage. If 3D printing tools allows VW to be adaptive and nimble in its production, reduce costs, and increase volume, the technology is well-worth the investment.

Great insight Sada! Though slightly different, your post reminds me of our GAP case where we explored the role of “big data” replacing a traditional creative director in product development. Although I believe there is a role that AI and big data play in informing marketing insights, I do not think AI can ever replace the human touch in creative development. Marketing works its magic by creating human connection. It’s not enough to know how people behave – you have to be able to anticipate how they want to behave, and most importantly how they feel. I don’t know how lines of code could replicate that connection when offering creative recommendations. Perhaps AI can help in the execution, using testing to inform which variations of creative resonate best, but I firmly believe it can never replace the initial creative process. Hopefully this means you have job security!

Bernie, this is so interesting! Through 3D-bioprinting, Organovo is offering an opportunity for the medical community to transform the process by which we bring new drug therapies (and potentially organs) to patients. Although currently, animal and human testing are required to get a drug approved, advancements in 3D-bioprinting may change this standard, saving time bringing drugs to market (and saving animal lives along the way) Therefore, I believe companies have both a financial incentive and moral obligation to invest in this technology’s future. If they don’t buy-in, it will be harder for Organovo to continue investing in R&D to improve the technology’s efficacy and help it reach its potential.

Great post Courtney! I’ve been thinking about whether physical identification documents will become obsolete in 10 years, and I’m leaning towards no. Despite the advances that machine learning has offered identity verification companies, like Jumio, I don’t yet know how if the global economy is ready for it. In a world without paper identification, foreign countries would have to share data to allow facial recognition (or whatever identity verification used) to allow cross-country travel. How else will UK customs know who I am when I visit London? Perhaps this may work within the EU, since people form various countries are using the same passport, but I imagine there are security risks with this data sharing. This may be another example of regulation being the bottleneck to technological advancement.

Love your post about this extremely relevant, millennial-driven brand. You bring up a valid concern about the risks of automation, but I think so long as the automation relates to the aggregation of data (comments left on articles, social media, user-generated content posts and product pages) and does not impact interaction with the customer, Glossier should be able to maintain their personal touch, while improving efficiency. Moving forward, they should make sure that machine learning is only used to inform product decisions, but does not serve as a replacement for their consumer-brand dialogue.