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Does 'Amazon Go' Mean Goodbye to Jobs?

1/27/2018

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by David Hagenbuch, founder of Mindful Marketing & author of Honorable Influence

Imagine walking into a store, taking whatever you want, and walking out.  What sounds like a shoplifter’s fantasy, Amazon has made a reality, of sorts, in its one-of-a-kind Seattle store.  Customers still need to pay, but the entire process is automated electronically, which may lead some to ask, ‘Is Amazon’s cashier-less concept endangering employment?’
 
It may seem strange that the king of ecommerce is bothering at all with old-school, brick-and-mortar retail, let alone a self-checkout store.  Many online retailers, however, have found that the secret to long-term success involves a combination of “bricks and clicks,” i.e., both a traditional and a virtual market presence.

Of course, this is not Amazon’s first foray into physical retail.  The company already has a handful of retail stores.  A main reason for these tangible outlets is that, as convenient as ecommerce may be, there are certain things that people want NOW, and they’re not willing to wait overnight or even a few hours, if same-day delivery happens to be possible.  In sum, Amazon doesn’t want to miss out on the market for immediacy.

With its new “Amazon Go” store the company has taken ‘fast’ a big step further by eliminating the checkout line.  Here’s how the “Just Walk Out Technology” works.  Amazon account holders download the free Amazon Go app and scan their smartphones when entering the store.  Every item they choose from store shelves, then, is automatically placed in their virtual shopping cart by means of “the same types of technologies used in self-driving cars: computer vision, sensor fusion, and deep learning.”  When customers exit the store, the system charges their Amazon accounts and sends them receipts for their purchases, all without them ever entering a checkout line.

What can people buy at this one-of-a-kind store that claims “The world’s most advanced shopping technology”?  At this point, the options are mainly grocery items, including Amazon Meal Kits.  It makes sense for Amazon Go to focus on food because edibles are what people most often want to get quickly; they certainly don’t want to wait the days or weeks it takes to receive some goods from Amazon.com. 
 
But, a cashier-less store is a potential cause for concern, for at least a few reasons.  First and foremost, it seems like the technology could be taking workers’ jobs.  People get paid to run cash registers and otherwise help check others out of stores.  Granted, Amazon isn’t a big brick-and-mortar retailer now, but that seems to be changing.  After opening its first Amazon Books store in Seattle in November 2015, the company now operates in a dozen more locations scattered throughout the U.S., with plans to open several more soon.

Even if Amazon doesn’t implement cashier-less checkout in its Books stores, or it fails to make its Go stores as ubiquitous as McDonald’s restaurants, the employment impact of the technology will still spread.  It’s likely that other retailers and technology companies are already working on their own versions of Just Walk Out Technology that one or more of them will pilot in the near future.  Then, after fixing the flaws, the technology will likely penetrate more and more retail sectors, just like self-checkout spread from grocery stores to big box retailers and beyond.

So, there’s potential that not just a few dozen, but thousands, tens of thousands, or more cashiers could be displaced.  For instance, there are over 154,000 convenience stores in the United States.  If just 10% of those stores adopted something akin to Amazon’s Just Walk Out Technology, and each store employed four cashiers, there would be over 61,000 people out of work.
 
Such projections make cashier-less shopping or any technology that replaces human labor sound bad, but is it really?  Just a century or so ago, many people were employed in basic manual tasks, like digging holes, ditches, etc.  If you’ve ever dug a hole of a significant size in solid ground, you know it’s a very strenuous task.

Thankfully, ingenious individuals invented machines like the bulldozer and backhoe that dig far more effectively than even a hoard of humans with shovels.  Did that technology take jobs away from people who could dig?  Yes.  But that displacement was ultimately for their own good, as well as the good of society.  Few people want to make a living digging holes by hand.  It’s much less strenuous and more stimulating to operate the machinery that does the digging, or to plan where the digging should be done, or to build the homes, highways, etc. that use the holes and help drive the economy.
 
Of course, being a cashier demands a broader range of skills than digging a hole; yet, most cashiers probably would welcome the opportunity to do work with more variety or challenge, maybe after receiving some additional training or education.  Regardless, we all must recognize that technological advancements have changed the way people have worked for millennia, and they will continue to do so.  What’s more, that rate of change may be increasing when one considers recent innovations in areas such as robotics, virtual reality, and artificial intelligence.
 
Someone who knows something about technology and job creation is Microsoft founder and philanthropist, Bill Gates.  The software that Gates developed decades ago and the advancements it supported, inevitably led to the displacement of workers whose job skills were passé. 
 
However, that technology also created thousands upon thousands of new and more engaging employment opportunities for individuals who learned to leverage that technology.  In an interview with Fox Business, Gates suggested that the same cycle of economic growth and job reassignment will continue in the wake of the latest applications of new tech.

Amazon Go is a ‘prime’ example of technological advance sparking job skill evolution and likely economic growth.  Although the store doesn’t have cashiers, it employs a variety of other individuals in meaningful work that includes making the retailer’s ready-to-eat food and offering customers product recommendations.  What's more, people are needed to build, install, and maintain the Just Walk Out systems.

Amazon isn’t guilty of eliminating jobs; rather it’s created new and more interesting opportunities for individuals, particularly for ones who embrace technology and invest in their own professional development.  In sum, Amazon Go checks out as “Mindful Marketing.” 


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No Dignity for the Living or the Dead

1/12/2018

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by David Hagenbuch, founder of Mindful Marketing & author of Honorable Influence

If you weren’t aware of Logan Paul before, you may have heard of him over the past week or so, after the extremely popular vlogger committed a major, international indiscretion.  Public outrage led the 22-year-old YouTube star to apologize for his one-time disrespect of the dead, but shouldn’t we also be conflicted about his ongoing treatment of the living?     
 
Paul started posting videos to YouTube at age ten and became famous through the internet video sharing service Vine.  By 2014, he had more than 3.1 million social media followers, which led him to leave Ohio State University and pursue an entertainment career in Los Angeles.  His ‘edgy’ YouTube channel now has over 15 million subscribers, including many teens, who Paul refers to as his “Logang.”
 
Paul is more than just a hugely popular YouTube star, however.  He has appeared in TV shows including Law & Order and Weird Loners, starred in The Thinning, a YouTube Red movie, and written a screenplay for an adult comedy called Airplane Mode.  He also has a clothing line called “Maverick,” the name of which closely captures Paul’s brand of irreverent humor and moral indifference.
 
A few weeks ago, Paul was in Japan, trying to stir up some interesting content for his vlog.  One day he and his companions hiked into Aokigahara, a 12-square mile tract of woods near Mt. Fuji that is commonly known as “Japan’s suicide forest,” as it unfortunately has become one of the most popular places in the world for people to go to take their own life.  Signs in the forest even urge those contemplating suicide to consider their families and to seek professional counsel.
 
Given that Paul’s vlogs typically involve human interaction with unsuspecting participants, it’s odd that the group would film in an uninhabited forest, but the encounter that ensued probably explains the choice:  Paul and his companions came across the body of a man who had hanged himself from a tree.
 
It’s difficult for most of us to know how we would respond to such a discovery; however, Paul’s reaction was not one that most people found acceptable.  With little appreciation for the situation’s gravity, the crew filmed the victim close-up, only blurring his face.  What’s more, “Paul is even seen laughing and cracking jokes about the deceased man."  For instance, when one of the crew members acted squeamish, Paul quipped: “You never stand next to a dead guy?" 
 
On December 31, he posted the video to YouTube and titled it “We found a dead body in the Japanese Suicide Forest.”  Public criticism was swift and severe.  Paul’s initial response to the backlash was to claim he was trying to help:  “I intended to raise awareness for suicide and suicide prevention.”
 
Most people, however, didn’t buy his defense.  So, less than 24 hours after posting the “suicide” video, Paul took it down.  He has since offered a 1:45 minute apology titled “So Sorry” in which he appears much more contrite.  After expressing special remorse for the victim and his family, he offers:

“I’ve made a huge mistake.  I don’t expect to be forgiven.  I’m just here to apologize.  I’m ashamed of myself.  I’m disappointed in myself, and I promise to be better.  I will be better.”
 

Despite the ‘mea culpa,’ Paul has continued to experience backlash for his actions, including severe media criticism and a threatened lawsuit from Maverick Apparel, which claims mistaken consumer associations with Paul’s ‘Maverick’ brand have already cost the company $4 million.  Even more devastating, YouTube has dropped Paul from its Google Preferred Program, meaning that while he can still post to the platform, his videos will no longer be marked for advertisers as high-quality content.
 
Popular opinion is that Paul has gotten what he deserves for making light of a problem as serious as suicide, for disrespecting an individual who took his own life, and for adding to the hurt of the victim’s family.  While that public censure is good, it begs the question: Why aren’t people equally offended by Paul’s continual abuse of the living?
 
If you’re familiar with the vlogger’s work, you probably already know what I mean.  If not, just peruse his YouTube channel.  Or, the rest of Paul’s visit in Japan provides many specific examples.  For instance, when he first arrived in Tokyo, he stuck his head out the window of a black limousine and shouted to anyone who might hear, “Hello, everybody.  I’m just a blond white boy from Ohio here to cause trouble in your country.”
 
Paul then proceeded to buy a dead fish and a squid tentacle at a fish market, which he waived in the faces of by-passers and plastered against the outside of a restaurant window.  He eventual abandoned the foul items atop the trunk of a taxi as it drove away.

Or, to see a broader sample of Paul’s irreverent acts, checkout his 2017 year-in-review video.  In this retrospective, Paul cites many of his most notable ‘accomplishments’ of the past year, for instance:
  • Shipped roommate Evan to Paris in a bag
  • Officiated a wedding (Does he have credentials for doing so?)
  • Faked his own death
  • Had the Secret Service arrest his brother Jake
  • Filled his brother’s pool with slime
  • Got arrested by Italian police
  • Use a crane to take a ride down his new street
  • Surfed down the street on a Christmas tree

In addition, Paul is no stranger to sexually explicit content.  One of his video posts titled “Stole My Brother’s Girlfriend” begins with him getting kicked out of a retail store because he “got naked” in one of the aisles and ends with a young female companion sporting a scarf made of condom packs.  Paul also produced and starred in a music video called “No Handlebars” that featured the lyrics “I’ve been cyclin’ on your chick” and the refrain “I can ride your girl with no handlebars."
 
Logan Paul has said his goal is to become “the biggest entertainer on the planet.”  It’s unfortunate that he’s chosen to pursue that goal at the expense of others’ dignity.  Yes, deriding a suicide victim was abhorrent, but so are many of the other things he does like objectifying women and crudely treating people as means to more YouTube views.  Paul is a talented young man with considerable potential, but unless he completely recreates his ‘product’ and treats both the dead and the living with respect, he will always be guilty of “Single-Minded Marketing.”


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    David Hagenbuch,
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    Mindful Marketing    & author of Honorable Influence

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