Monthly Archives: April 2018

by | Monday, April 23, 2018 · 6:54 am

Kitty Hawk’s Air Taxi

It seems that a number of companies are taking to the air and working on new transportation methods. A significant new entry vying for a place in the sky is Kitty Hawk, a company financed by Google co-founder and Alphabet CEO, Larry Page. (Kitty Hawk is run by Sebastian Thrun who started Google’s autonomous car unit as director of Google X.) The company has been working somewhat stealthily in New Zealand, testing a new type of fully electric, self-piloting flying taxis.

New Zealand’s prime minister recently announced that it will test Kitty Hawk’s autonomous planes as part of an official certification process. The goal is to have a commercial network of flying taxis in New Zealand in three years. Things will be somewhat different in the U.S. though; the FAA allows test flights of autonomous vehicles, but there is no path to commercialize at this point in time.

Kitty Hawk’s first plane is Cora, a personal air taxi for everyday use. The plane can take off and land like a helicopter, thus eliminating the need for a runway. It has the potential to land on spaces such as rooftops and parking lots. Cora combines self-flying software with expert human supervision. The all-electric vehicle is a pollution-free way to reduce commute time, and stress. Cora has a flight range of 100 kilometers and can fly 150 km/hour.

Look… up in the air… it’s a bird…. it’s a plan…. It’s Cora!

Group Activities and Discussion Questions:

  1. Discuss the future of transportation. Will it be on the ground?
  2. Show Kitty Hawk’s Web site: https://kittyhawk.aero/
  3. A video of the plane is available at: https://cora.aero/
  4. Discuss the components of an environmental scan: social, technology, economics, competition, and legal.
  5. Ask students what data they would want in order to make a marketing decision for Kitty Hawk.
  6. Divide students into teams. Have each team use laptops to do general for one of the five components of the environmental scan.
  7. Debrief the exercise by compiling information on the white board. Does this give a good picture of the situation faced by Kitty Hawk?

Source:  Sorkin, A. (12 March, 2018). Larry Page’s flying taxis, now exiting stealth mode. New York Times.

 

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by | Saturday, April 21, 2018 · 7:45 am

Uber in the Air

Urban mobility. What is it, and how can we achieve it? Consider what would happen by taking transportation off the road – and moving it into the air. Several companies, including Uber, are working on new initiatives for flight-based transportation. Using electric vertical take-off and landing vehicles (VTOL), Uber’s goal is to develop transportation that makes lives easier, commutes shorter, and cities cleaner.

Working with a number of different companies and governments, Uber is developing a long-term strategy and infrastructure for drone-based air transportation. In a partnership with Brazilian aerospace conglomerate Embraer, Uber announced a joint venture called Uber Elevate to develop small VTOLs. On-demand aviation would change commuting considerably. A network of VTOLs could provide rapid transportation between, and within, cities.

Instead of driving hours on the ground, a commute becomes only minutes in the air. For example, the average San Francisco resident spends roughly 230 hours/year commuting between work and home! In Sydney, Australia, and Los Angeles, California, residents spend an entire seven working works each year commuting! In other countries, the estimated commute time is even longer – Mumbai has an average commute time of 90 minutes. Long commutes raise stress levels, absorb valuable resources, and cut short our free time.

Want a ride?

Group Activities and Discussion Questions:

  1. Poll students: How much time do they spend commuting each work to work and school?
  2. Show the Uber Elevate concept video: https://youtu.be/JuWOUEFB_IQ
  3. A longer video explanation can be found at: https://youtu.be/nuFSh7N0Nhw
  4. What are the students’ opinions of this new service? Would they use it?
  5. Discuss the importance of clearly defining a target market.
  6. For Uber Elevate, who is the target market?
  7. Divide students into teams and have each team develop a profile of a target market. Include demographics, psychographics, behaviors, values, attitudes, etc.
  8. Based on the target market profile, what makes this product unique for these customers?

Source:  Brandchannel.com, Reuters News Service

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by | Thursday, April 19, 2018 · 7:00 am

Consumers’ Favorite Brands

Brand reputation is critical to organizations. And, while brand value and reputation can be measured in various ways, The Harris Poll Reputation Quotient (RQ) has evaluated the public’s perception of companies’ reputations since 1999. The study starts by surveying the consumers’ top of mind awareness of companies that have excelled, or failed. Then, the most visible companies are evaluated on six dimensions of attributes to determine a ranking. The six dimensions of corporate ranking are:

  1. Social responsibility
  2. Product and services
  3. Vision and leadership
  4. Emotional appeal
  5. Financial performance
  6. Workplace environment

The annual study began with a nomination phase where 4,244 U.S. adults were asked:

  1. Of all the companies that you’re familiar with or that you might have heard about, which TWO – in your opinion – stand out as having the BEST reputations overall?
  2. Of all the companies that you’re familiar with or that you might have heard about, which TWO – in your opinion – stand out as having the WORST reputations overall?

In the ratings phase, an online survey asked 25,800 U.S. adults to rate two of the companies with which they were “very” or “somewhat” familiar. Approximately 300 ratings were collected per company.

The results are interesting.

Top 10 – BEST Bottom 10 – WORST
1.      Amazon

2.      Wegmans

3.      Tesla Motors

4.      Chick-fil-A

5.      Walt Disney Company

6.      HEB Grocery

7.      UPS

8.      Publix Super Markets

9.      Patagonia

10.  Aldi

 90. United Airlines

91. Halliburton

92. Goldman Sachs

93. Experian

94. BP

95. Monsanto

96. The Trump Organization

97. Wells Fargo & Company

98. Weinstein Company

100. Takata

What is your opinion?

Group Activities and Discussion Questions:

  1. Discuss the importance of branding.
  2. Poll students with the same two questions that Harris used: What two companies have the BEST reputation, and what two companies have the WORST reputation.
  3. Tally the results on the board and ask students to rate the top best and worst on the six attributes, using just their opinions and current knowledge.
  4. What are the results?
  5. Show the Harris Poll report: https://theharrispoll.com/reputation-quotient/#rq
  6. A video is available: https://tdameritradenetwork.com/video/77694950-7dfc-4ae3-bd25-86ab04d63406

Source:  The Harris Poll, USA Today, other news sources

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