Chapter 7 of Surfing the Tsunami focuses on diving into the AI field and learning a little bit about some of the industry leaders.
The first individual highlighted is Andrew Ng, he was based out of Stanford, and helped to launch the "MOOC" revolution, through co-founding Coursera. He offers courses at Stanford on machine learning that are very popular. He used to work in China at Baidu as the chief scientist,but he recently came back to the United States. Below is one of his recent videos where he discusses AI.
The second individual is Geoffrey Hinton, a British cognitive psychologist and computer scientist. He was one of the first researchers who demonstrated the use of generalized back propagation algorithm for training multi-layer neural nets. Blow is an interview Geoffrey recently had with New York Times.
Pedro Domingos was also sited as having a strong influence in the AI field. He wrote the book Master Algorithm, and teaches at University of Washington. His youtube videos for his online machine learning class, as well as several TEDx talks show just how knowledgeable on AI he is.
These are just three of the top individuals in the AI field. They are great sources to help further grasp your understanding of AI. Check out these videos, as well as other videos and books written by these influential individuals!
Growing up in a small town the food options in
my school district were very slim. There was one lunch offered a day, no
alternatives for students with allergies, intolerances, and no healthy options.
Without fail, year after year, the highlight of my day was chicken nuggets,
Bosco sticks, and pizza. Once we got to middle school, our school offered what
I thought was tons of options. The problem was the food they offered was pizza,
chicken nuggets, cheese fries, and hamburgers. I had no concept of the junk I was
putting in my body to fuel it.
In the link below, What’s
Wrong with School Lunches, Cooper states, “We're seeing sick kids get
sicker and sicker. And the reason this is happening, by and large, is because
of our food system and the way the government commodifies food, the way the
government oversees our food, the way the USDA puts food on kids' plates that's
unhealthy, and allows unhealthy food into schools. And by -- tacitly, all of us
send our kids, or grandchildren, or nieces, or nephews, to school and tell them
to learn, you know, learn what's in those schools. And when you feed these kids
bad food, that's what they're learning. So that's really what this is all
about” (Cooper, 2007). Cooper agrees that school lunches are not only
unhealthy, but they are, teaching students that eating those foods is good for
them. She says that the only way to fix this growing problem is for everyone to
step up and help stop it. Whether it’s petitioning for healthier schools in
your district or simply packing lunch for your child, anything will help.
When
thinking about the effects of eating unhealthy foods most people just think
about weight gain, but have you ever thought about the other effects these
children have? Think about the children who do not have consistent meals, the
only food they receive is food they get from school. They come to school, their
brains are foggy, and all they can think of is their next meal. These students
need nutritious, filling meals that will keep their mind and bodies fueled. In
his TED Talk, Kass talks about how he instituted a program for all schools who
had a forty percent more low-income kids. Every student in this school would
receive not only a free lunch, but also a free breakfast. These kids would come
to school and not have to sit and wait for their first meal of the day, instead
they would start off with a meal. Kass stated that, “The schools that have
implemented this program saw an increase in math and reading scores by 17.5
percent. 17.5 percent. And research shows that when kids have a consistent,
nutritious breakfast, their chances of graduating increase by 20 percent. 20
percent. When we give our kids the nourishment they need, we give them the
chance to thrive, both in the classroom and beyond” (Kass, 2015). When we think
about school lunches, we need to think about the effects that they have on
every child. Most importantly, the children who do not receive consistent meals
at home. They are the ones lacking the nutrients they need to grow and
function, they are the ones we need to make sure are receiving nutritious
meals.
I
believe that schools are starting to take the right steps towards improving
school lunches. If I were to look back at the school lunches I was fed as a
child, and now look at the one my brother receives, there have been vast
improvements. At my brother’s school there are four lunches served a day. The
normal lunch special, a vegetarian option, a gluten free option, and a salad.
They can choose their sides and can opt for healthier options. His school even
offers breakfast to students and healthy snacks for students who do not have
one, or who forgot theirs at home. With the option of these healthy meals, the
real question is, are these students picking the healthier option? Thanks to
the Obama administration, school lunches are starting to become healthier with
less options of junk food. “The amounts of fat, sugar and salt were drastically
reduced. Portion sizes shrank. Lunch trays had to hold more fruits and
vegetables. Snacks and food sold for fund-raising had to be healthier”
(Severson). If we want children to live longer, grow up healthy, and perform
well in school, we need to make sure they are receiving proper nutrition to
fuel their bodies. While I believe that school lunches are not perfect, I
believe there have been steps made towards a healthier future of school
lunches.
References
Cooper, A. (2007, December). What's wrong with
school lunches Retrieved February 12, 2018, from https://www.ted.com/talks/ann_cooper_talks_school_lunches/transcript?
Kass,
S. (2015, November). Want kids to learn well? Feed them well. Retrieved
February 12,
Hubspot lesson one focuses on the essentials of an effective inbound strategy. An inbound strategy is less interuptive than traditional marketing, focusing on SEO, blogging, and the attraction of customers. Instead of creating commercials, they create videos to attract customers. It is much more customer focused, and inbound marketing wants you to find them, not the customers to find you.
The first step in inbound marketing is attract. You take strangers and turn them into visitors. This can be done through a blog, keywords, or social publishing. Next you convert them from visitors to leads. This is done through forms, calls-to-action, and landing pages. The last step is to close, this takes the leads and turns them into actual customers. This is done through CRM, email, and workflows.
The buyers journey consists of three stages: the awareness, consideration, and decision stages. This is the active research process someone goes through leading up to a purchase. Buyer persona stories should contain information about their background, their demographics, and their goals and challenges. These are all topics that were touched on in lesson one. It is important to have these concepts memorized because they are essential in inbound marketing.
Hubspot is a developer and marketer of software products for inbound marketing and sales. Inbound marketing is drawing customers to products and services using content marketing, social media marketing, search engine optomization and branding. Hubspot offers a certification that will be a great resume builder. It consists of 12 video sections that give you information on ways to help improve your knowledge of Hubspot. The first section talks about the essentials of an effective inbound strategy. Section Two talks about optimizing your website for search engines.
Hubspot helps you with SEO, the process of improving your website so it attracts more visitors to increase the clicks on your webpage. Having a solid SEO your page will get ranked higher and higher on a page. The use of keywords is first and most important step in SEO. In order to find more keywords for you to use is type one of your current keywords into the internet. This will help you find what keywords lead you to and help you find more leads. It is important to have keywords that optimize the amount of clicks, you should research your keywords and only use words that will get you lots of clicks. Try general words as well as more specific keywords to help target broad and specific audiences. One things that a lot of people forget to do is to optimize your website for mobile phones. Pages that are not mobile friendly lose lots of traffic. Hubspot is a great tool that will help you optimize your website. Look into getting Hubspot certified not just for your resume, but to help yourself grow your business.
In the book Food Justice by Gottlieb and Joshi,
they talk about multiple issues within the food system that have affected the
world. On pages 59-73 and 87-91 they specifically talk about the issues of
standardization of food, cooking becoming a lost skill, the increase of
obesity, fast food companies targeting children, and school lunches. These
issues are still issues today and these authors want to point out the problems
they have noticed in hopes of changing the way food is looked at.
Fast food over the
centuries has led to a standardization of food. There are many critics who say
that fast food is changing the way food is viewed. The growth in the fast food
industry has led to the loss of home cooked meals. School lunches sped up the
decrease of home-prepared meals because children now had a readily accessible
meal waiting for them at home (Gottlieb, 2013).
Post-World War II
cooking started to become a lost skill. This is largely due to an increase in
products such as microwaves and instant cookers that were made to speed up the
cooking process. During World War II women were not only homemakers, but they
worked jobs while their kids were at school. These convenient foods helped
women save time and energy. There was also an increase in the number of
convenient foods and fast food options. Foods such as dried soup mixes and
canned soups were emphasized over homemade soups with fresh ingredients
(Gottlieb, 2013).
The increase in fast
foods and convenient food options lead to a major increase in obesity. There
was an emphasis on fast and convenient with little to no emphasis on the
nutritional value. Fast food companies have specifically targeted two
vulnerable groups- children and low income residents. With the huge portion
sizes and the low prices low income residents are drawn to fast food to fill
their stomachs. "According to the County Public Health Department, the
area in South Los Angles with the highest rate of poverty and food insecurity
in the county also had the highest rates of obesity among adults (68)."
A major problem is the
targeting of fast food restaurants to children. These kids see these delicious
foods advertised and get hooked on the brands. Companies like McDonalds build
product loyalty and establish effective viral marketing to draw in children.
These parents like the convenience and ease of these restaurants as well as
making their children happy (Gottlieb, 2013).
School food politics:
During World War I school lunches became under scrutiny when a third of those
called to serve the country were considered malnourished. President Truman
signed the National School Lunch Act in 1946 saying that the welfare of farmers
directly correlated with the health of children. While programs like these
helped feed our youth, they did nothing to ensure the quality of the meals they
are being fed. The meals were focused on providing the right number of
calories, not the proper nutritional value. In 2009 Obama and his agriculture
secretary pushed to make changes in the broader food system, and help increase
the nutritional value of school lunches (Gottlieb, 2013).
Gottlieb and Joshi make
many valid points that should be analyzed even closer. The only way to increase
the longevity of life is to ensure that we are fueling our body with the proper
nutrients. I think the first step in fixing this is looking at the way
companies target young children, as well as the addressing the nutritional
value of school lunches.
References
Gottlieb, R., &
Joshi, A. (2013). Food justice. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Tracking ROI is a very important skill because it helps businesses make huge profits. This week we will be talking about Shopify, which is one of the easiest ways to set up an e-commerce system to learn about tracking ROI with analytics. Shopify costs $29.95/month and is the best and easiest way to track ROI. Conversion tracking is important because it helps ensure that you are actually making a profit, and if you can confidently increase or decrease your budget to help grow sales.
Lets get started by going to shopify.com and click get started. There is a free 14-day trial available so make a login and hit "create your store now." Pick your name, click the online store checkbox and proceed by click next. Enter in your current address, answer the questions displayed on the next page, and last enter your product. You can add images to make your product pop even more.
The next step is to customize your navigation. Go to the menu on the side of the screen and click navigation, you can now edit your page. Another feature that is important is adding your product to the front page. Go to Collections, then click front page collection, select the product you added, and then hit save. After you have added your product to the front page go to your dashboard. You can add your business address and bank information, remember Shopify is not free. Click through the different tabs and you can discover dozens of ways you can customize your page. The more time you spend customizing it, the better it will look!
Last week we talked about the second step in responding to AI, adopt. This week we will be discussing the last, and best step, adept. Adept means getting directly involved with developing AI, by learning coding and how to work with related data. While you may not think getting involved in AI is easy, it will get easier with the use of assistive tools that make the technology more accessible. Theses assistive skills are ways to help you, not a way to replace learning the core skills. The more knowledge you can gain the better.
DataRobot is an advanced automated machine learning platform that can be used to help you learn about AI and machine learning. Machine learning is a core part of AI. It is not the only form of artificial intelligence, but it is the one that is having a huge impact now.
AI and machine learning relate very closely to data science. Coursera, DataCamp, and Khan Academy are all great tools to help learn about machine learning. Some books offered are Machine Learning for Dummies and Data Science for Dummies. These are all great sources to help you move from adopting AI to becoming adept. Hopefully you are starting to take AI More and more seriously and will look into these resources provided above!
