Amazon: Engagement

Software engineers are in great demand, especially those pioneering new work in AI and natural language programming. Amazon in Seattle wants to continue to attract the best and brightest to work in its Customer Engagement Technologies (CET).

We created a fast-paced 5-minute video based on extensive conversations with the Amazon team. These are scientists, researchers, and customer-obsessed team members looking for ways to perpetually improve the Amazon customer experience. These most esoteric of modern disciplines, known collectively as machine learning, are put to work enhancing the most basic of transactions, the browsing and buying on Amazon’s vast network. How do thousands of customer interactions help program a “chat bot?” That’s what we learned producing this program.

They say Amazon has the best data anywhere, and CET claims there’s is the best in the company. Who wouldn’t want to help them succeed?

Our Shared Future

In the booming town of Silverdale, on Washington’s pristine Kitsap Peninsula, they take their water seriously. As a result, they’ve been far ahead of their time planning and perfecting a sophisticated system of water recycling that’s downright revolutionary.

Because it relies on on aquifers and rainfall, with no natural glaciation or river systems, the Kitsap Peninsula is a “zero sum” water user. They can only use what they have, in perpetuity, despite a thirsty population growing relentlessly. Hence, recycling.

In our film for Silverdale Water District, we learn from thought leaders helping lay the “purple pipe’ that will carry recycled water when the entire system comes on line in a few years. By putting in the piping now, during other building projects and improvements, the District spares taxpayers the burden of digging it all up and installing it again later.

From the massive new Franciscan Medical Center to the soccer fields of North Kitsap High, recycled water is the name of the game in Kitsap. Saving money, saving water, and doing its bit in saving the planet.

Imagining Tomorrow

This pioneering film sets the stage for the movement now called “career-connected learning,” putting students in touch with real skills, real mentors and teachers, and real jobs.

Thanks to collaboration with Washington State University and especially with Spokane’s Itron Corporation, we spent six months profiling innovative programs across the region that are introducing high school students to the skill sets (and even the ability to fail constructively) needed for success in the 21st Century.

• How do you fill the skills gap between what businesses need and schools provide?
• How do you teach students the secrets of success at careers, not just filling jobs?
• How do you make academic work relevant in a time of relentless change?

“Imagining Tomorrow’ helps answer these questions, focusing on school districts, educators, and innovators creating the pipelines for the next generation of truly successful learners and doers. Along the way we witness an extraordinary competition for young learners well on their way to Nobel Prizes. Or at least the careers of their dreams!