The big potential of Recommender Systems

Can you think of more applications for software recommender algorithms?

When you read a blog post or digital news item, it sometimes gives you a selection of related news items, designed to keep you enjoying the service on that site.  Amazon famously designed the "you may also like" marketing feature that in part contributed to making their site so useful and 'sticky'.  It's not like recommending is anything new: the other day I ordered snacks or food and the check-out staff asked if I would like a drink to go with it - human recommender :) 

Reading today about related work in progress, this time to assist doctors in caring for patients:

“I thought about how the Amazon product-recommender algorithm works and thought, `Can we do this for medical decision-making?’” said the 34-year-old Chen, a VA Medical Informatics Fellow at Stanford Health Policy.

So instead of, other people who bought this book also liked this book, how about: Other doctors who ordered this CT scan also ordered this medication.

“What if there was that kind of algorithm available to me at the point of care?” he asked. “It doesn’t tell me the right or wrong answer, but I bet this would be really informative and help me make better decisions for my patients.”

 Again, can you think of more opportunities?  In education, in training?  In hiring, in business?  In events, in design, in government?  Anything? 

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#LifeIsEazi - musicmaker Mr Eazi has a business side

length: 52 minutes

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Where do you want to go today?

Taking time in. A few old university friends and I touched base recently and told me, "You're doing what you said you wanted to do." Now, I don't recall having much clarity on life during my university days but I was pretty steadfast in wanting to travel. Had no plan/idea on how to but I kept that goal in mind. 5 years ago, I said I'll never work a regular 9-5 again and would clock in 20 hour weekends just to beat that and have free days during the week lol. About 3 years ago, I told myself that I needed to travel to a new country at least once year, which I did and now I've found myself in 5 countries since January. Then I told myself I needed to live long-term in at least two different countries before I'm 30 (one down). It does take action to move with life, but no, it doesn't have to be meticulously planned out all the time so don't worry, you're the only one who doesn't have everything mapped out. The urge to be on the move is so ingrained that it's almost second nature to navigate and find opportunities towards just that. Does that make sense? There's no plan B to not finding accomplishments for the goals I set myself. #noforreal #ilegitdonthaveaplan #abudhabi #uae #travelnoire

A post shared by Yagazie Emezi (@yagazieemezi) on Apr 12, 2017 at 11:24am PDT

Yalla!  Let's Go.  

  You too can travel. 
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