|
The Morning Download: JetBlue's Digital Chief Takes Customer Tech to New Heights
|
|
|
|
|
|
Good morning, CIOs. For an airline, the most important hub isn't JFK or LAX or SIN, but its customer-service platform. With the physics of flight long mastered, airlines hope to solve the physics of customer satisfaction. It's proving to be almost as challenging.
"The contact center can be an incredibly powerful relationship-building place or it can be the most frustrating place on the planet, Eash Sundaram, JetBlue Airways' chief digital and technology officer, tells CIO Journal's Sara Castellanos.
For its part, JetBlue plans to take its own customer-service platform, developed by startup Gladly Inc., to the sky. Soon cabin crew will have a bird’s-eye view of information about passengers onboard.
|
|
|
|
|
“The challenge is to keep up with the pace of change," said Mr. Sundaram. "Every consumer expects you to be another Facebook, Google, Apple—not an airline.”
|
|
|
|
|
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai at a hearing in Washington in June. PHOTO: STEFANI REYNOLDS/CNP/ZUMA PRESS
|
|
|
Court partly upholds Net Neutrality rollback. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled Tuesday that much of the Republican rollback of Obama-era rules governing how ISP's treat traffic was lawful. But the court left the door open for state regulation.
What's Net Neutrality again? In 2015 a Democratic FCC introduced regulations governing so-called net neutrality, prohibiting internet-service providers like AT&T, Comcast and Verizon from blocking or slowing traffic or from offering priority service where companies could pay for their content to reach internet users at faster speeds. Those guidelines were wiped out by the Federal Communications Commission's Republican Chairman Ajit Pai. (WSJ)
Expect more state action. "The ruling bolsters existing state efforts to restore net neutrality, and gives a greenlight for other states to join those efforts,” said the ACLU in a statement.
|
|
|
|
Not working for the masses. Of the 14 notable tech IPOs so far this year, only four—Zoom Video, Pinterest, Fastly and Cloudflare—are currently above their first-day opens, based on Monday’s closing prices. (WSJ)
|
|
|
|
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg walks to a meeting on Capitol Hill, Sept. 19. 2019. PHOTO: ZACH GIBSON/GETTY IMAGES
|
|
|
Mark Zuckerberg imagined an Elizabeth Warren presidency. In leaked audio recordings of employee meetings from this summer Facebook's CEO is heard speculating on a Sen. Elizabeth Warren presidency, saying he would take the government to court if it ever followed up on her plans to break up the tech giants. “Does that still suck for us? Yeah. I mean, I don’t want to have a major lawsuit against our own government," he said.
After the recordings were reported by the Verge Tuesday, Sen. Warren tweeted a response: "What would really 'suck' is if we don’t fix a corrupt system that lets giant companies like Facebook engage in illegal anticompetitive practices, stomp on consumer privacy rights, and repeatedly fumble their responsibility to protect our democracy."
|
|
|
|
This March 2019 image released by United Parcel Service shows a Matternet Drone loaded with a UPS sample box. PHOTO: HO/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
|
|
|
UPS gets FAA nod for drone deliveries. In a regulatory boost for expanded commercial drone services, UPS said it received federal approval to start setting up a fleet of unmanned delivery aircraft. The company’s Flight Forward unit obtained an immediate green light to ship medical products and specimens in North Carolina across various hospital campuses. (WSJ)
Aviation company victim of cyberattack. Security firm CrowdStrike Holdings Inc. said an unidentified aviation company was the victim of a monthslong cyber intrusion aimed at collecting data. The hacker had a “high level of administrative access,” and was able to move across the company's networks said the report. (CNBC)
Hackers hit U.S. schools. Security firms are detecting a spike in ransomware attacks against schools. Just in the past two weeks, 15 U.S. school districts, have been hit, according to a new study by Armor. (ZDNet)
A 'golden age of banking efficiency.' A Wells Fargo analyst report places the number of banking jobs lost in the next decade as the result of technology at more than 200,000. Cuts would fall particularly hard on branches, call centers and back offices. (FT)
Amazon expands its brick and mortar business. The company is planning to operate dozens of grocery stores in cities across the country. The new grocery chain isn’t intended to compete directly with the company’s upscale Whole Foods Market chain. (WSJ)
Microsoft, Novartis team up. As part of the five-year agreement, the companies will use deep learning for drug discovery. Microsoft will also develop tools to help Novartis apply AI to all areas of it business. (FT)
|
|
|
Everything Else You Need to Know
|
|
|
House leaders set plans to question two key State Department witnesses after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo sought to block the effort, in the first clash between congressional Democrats and the Trump administration of the newly minted impeachment inquiry. (WSJ)
Johnson & Johnson agreed to a $20.4 million deal to avoid a trial accusing the company of helping spark an opioid-addiction crisis in two Ohio counties. (WSJ)
Stocks fell, led by drops in banks and industrial companies, with investors increasingly fearful of a world economic slowdown. (WSJ)
A federal judge has determined that Harvard’s policy doesn’t intentionally discriminate against Asian-American applicants, a victory for the university that is expected to be appealed as high as the Supreme Court. (WSJ)
|
|
|
|
|