Case Studies

Brief Summary

Overview of GROW: Developed by Masahiro Fukuhara (founder and CEO of Tokyo-based startup Institution for a Global Society), GROW is a gamified mobile app designed to evaluate job candidates objectively.

Core Components:

• Competency Assessment: Utilizes peer feedback to evaluate candidates across 25 specific social science-based competencies.

• Personality Assessment: Employs a gamified, mobile version of the Implicit-Association Test (IAT) to measure personality traits and uncover hidden biases.

How the AI Works: 

GROW uses artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms to analyze core data and metadata (such as response times, clicking behaviors, and swiping patterns) from both candidates and evaluators. This helps weight the reliability of peer evaluators and build a highly calibrated candidate profile.

Client Use Cases: 

Prominent Japanese firms use GROW in unique ways to streamline recruitment:

• Septeni Holdings replaced labor-intensive, in-person group interviews with GROW data to source talent outside Tokyo, cutting administrative processing efforts by 90%.

• All Nippon Airways (ANA) used GROW to screen "in" highly capable candidates who traditionally would have been prematurely filtered out by initial resume screenings.

• Mitsubishi Corporation leveraged candidate social graphs within GROW to identify and recruit highly talented peers of their "ideal" candidates.

Future Outlook:

As GROW collects more performance data of hired candidates, the tool is poised to shift toward "reinforcement machine learning". This would allow the AI to automatically adjust and potentially overrule human-defined recruitment criteria based on actual job performance.

Brief Summary:

• The Incident: In March 2008, professional musician Dave Carroll witnessed United Airlines baggage handlers roughly handling and damaging his $3,500 Taylor guitar during a flight connection at Chicago's O'Hare airport.

• The Bureaucratic Impasse: Over the course of 15 months, Carroll attempted to seek compensation from United Airlines. His efforts were met with systemic customer service runarounds, ultimately ending in India where a representative officially denied his claim because he failed to report the damage within the airline's strict 24-hour window. Frustrated, Carroll informed the representative that he would write and release three songs about his experience on YouTube.

• Going Viral: On July 6, 2009, Carroll posted his first music video, "United Breaks Guitars". Promoted heavily by friends via Twitter and digital news aggregate sites, the video rapidly exploded, gaining three million views within its first week and reaching the top spot on YouTube's music video charts.

• The Aftermath and Brand Fallout: The massive public relations crisis coincided with a 10% drop in United Airlines' stock price, costing shareholders an estimated $180 million.

  • United rushed to make things right, offering Carroll $1,200 in cash and $1,200 in flight vouchers, which he rejected, requesting they donate the funds to charity instead. United ultimately donated $3,000 to the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz.

  • The airline publicly committed to using the viral video as an internal training tool to teach employees and customer service representatives to use discretion when applying rigid policies.

  • The incident completely transformed Carroll’s career, opening up global opportunities for speaking engagements, music distribution, and business partnerships.