New Pied Pipers

Excerpt from an article by Niklas Magnusson in bloomberg(.)com dated 30 January 2019:

“H&M has hired Christopher Wylie, the whisteblower who exposed the Cambridge Analytica scandal, to help as the Swedish fashion retailer turns to data analytics and artificial intelligence to better understand what its customers want. Wylie’s main focus will be to help H&M get better insights on customers, products and markets, as well as support work on ‘sustainable and ethical’ artificial intelligence.”

My interpretation: H&M will collect our data available on social platforms to devise systems and applications to make us visit their shops more often to buy more of their goods.

It is like in The Pied Piper of Hamelin. In that children’s tale the town Hamelin was freed by the Pied Piper from the rats that followed his special tune. But the town later lost its children to the Piper’s tune since the governor did not hold his promise to him. Today, thanks to new “pipers” who use data analytics and artificial intelligence, we have the technology to make people “follow us”.

As an entrepreneur you may use similar methodologies to those that H&M and others practice, to “better understand what your customers want.”

But whatever you do, declare your intentions openly from the beginning like H&M so that people you address know it when they hear your “tune”. ☺

Song of the blog: André Rieu & Gheorghe Zamfir – The Lonely Shepherd