Unlocking the Future: How Alexa's Cough Detection Could Transform Home Healthcare
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Complete interview transcript & analysis below
Enhanced transcript with interviewer insights
INTERVIEWER
Cool. So, thinking about your prep for this interview, what is the most surprising thing you have learned about I'll say it, Alexa customers or use cases.
CANDIDATE
So, I'm gonna write this down. What is the most surprising thing? That
INTERVIEWER
I have, and focused on your prep for your upcoming interview loop.
CANDIDATE
Well, I mean, while I was researching Alexa's capabilities, it's a ubiquitous computing machine um that, um, and the vision of Alexa is to help customers when and where they need it the most, um, but, um. One of the things that I saw was that Amazon has just recently patented um a capability that lets Alexa. Understand if you have a cough based on your sneeze. And so, which makes sense because, um, you know, Alexa has about 7 microphones and it can understand, um. And, and, and, um, breakdown, um, the, you know, a cough or a sneeze, and, and then it can compare that with, um, several other recordings that it may have, and, um, and it can be integrated with Amazon Care. Um, and then eventually, Amazon Care, when it scales, it can just, it can ask the um the person if you, if they need any attention at home and they can dispatch. Someone. So essentially the question was, what's the most surprising thing? It's really the scale at which Amazon thinks, um. As to how Alexa will evolve, um, and, um, and, and its capabilities. And this is just one example of, um, of Alexa surprising me.
Interviewer Insight
note during interview: not sure how much Think Bik is on display here. The question was tied to learning something about the customers, and not learning something about the company.
INTERVIEWER
So, let me, let me poke on that a little bit. What is it that you found about that thing specifically so interesting?
CANDIDATE
It's the use cases. Um, Of Alexa. That, um, I found interesting. So it's not just for home, you know, um, create a reminder or play a song, but the vision of Amazon and the scale at which they, they, they think, um, and the use cases they plan to tackle with Alexa. It was the most interesting thing. Um, I also researched about how Alexa will be integrated or is being integrated with smart homes. Um, that's another. Example, but they all point to the to the scale at which Amazon. Uh, believes Alexa will operate at in the future.
Interviewer Insight
note: while this was the interviewer taking a pass on pointing out the miss of tying the answer to the question, it's important for the candidate to understand this.
INTERVIEWER
Well, so let me, let me, I wanna keep poking on that, the one that you've highlighted, uh, specifically the coughing and sneezing. Um, I, I Trying to think I, I normally pre-script all of my questions to make it easier for me to take notes, but I adjust as I go, and, and so you haven't really sold me on why you find it compelling other than, you know, gee whiz, wow. So let's poke at it from a different angle, which is, you know, if I think about myself as a, as a, as a sovereign individual who has a household where I've got 3 kids and a wife, um. You know, there is undoubtedly a, you're probably too young, uh, to know what the clapper was, but, uh, there was this stupid commercial, uh, with a device where you could clap on and clap off, you know, your, your, uh, stuff. That's, that was the vision of the future when I was a kid, which then transitioned to this like weird thing where an old lady fell down and she'd be able to push a button and say I've fallen and I can't get up. There's me. I've fallen and I can't get up. You can go look that up on YouTube, but, um. The, the, the, the sale has always been to protect the elderly in the home from falls and spills and being sick and, and I get that. But I don't know, and now I'm speaking as a customer, not an interviewer, but, but trying to give you that lens, and then we'll we'll tack the question on it. As a customer, how do I feel about the notion of Any company, right, not my registered care provider, but any company. Tracking coughs in my home, tracking noises in my home, such that it's, you know, I, I think the, the, the disease, I'm not sure that's the right word, but we'll go with it, of, of how people feel about data collection, about their, their personal goings-ons, you know, while Amazon has a broad vision here. Big vision here. How would you validate that use case, right? It's interesting, right? Let's say that they've patented it because, you know, why not, right? An engineer patented it. They just figured out how to do it, but they haven't figured out how to commercialize it. So now I'm gonna turn to you. We've hired you. I want you to go figure out how to. Validate this as a viable use case. What can we do with the data and how will customers, you know, more specifically how are customers gonna feel about it? How would you, how would you attack that problem because it's, it's a very I don't want to use the word scary, but it is definitely a thing that is likely to cause. Immediate Emotional reactions from people. So that was a lot of words, but the core question is, OK, cool. You find this interesting. Nobody's working on it. How are you gonna go validate that?
CANDIDATE
Yeah, so, um, if we're talking about people at homes, for sure it would be, uh, it would, it would bring out that emotional reaction of it's kind of scary. Um, I would probably divide the customers into customer segments, um, you know, so one customer segment is, um, folks in the hospital.
INTERVIEWER
Uh, customer segments or customer personas?
CANDIDATE
Um, customer customer personas, um, uh, so, so, um, patients in the hospital for patients in, um, like I guess we can club them like urgent care and things like that, that, that's just 11 persona, um, where they, um, are essentially lying on the, um, on the bed and, um, we can have Alexa. Uh, well, so right now Alexa doesn't listen until you say the weak word, so. If the patient is Comfortable with Alexa listening and immediately Communicating the situation to the nurse or the or the on call um nurse. Then that's, uh, then there's more chances that the, the patient will be more comfortable with Alexa listening, um, in, uh, constantly and then turning it off as and when they have, uh, friends and family to visit them. Um, so I would kind of do some research around um this particular use case where the value added most and the customer friction is. At least to my knowledge, is lower than.
Interviewer Insight
note: there is no process here for validating the use case.
INTERVIEWER
OK, so that's one cohort is patients in a hospital, OK.
CANDIDATE
And so Yeah, and so and so based on that um analysis, um, I could, uh, you know, once, once we see how well Alexa is performing and Um, then we can kind of open it up
INTERVIEWER
and what do you mean how well it's performing? You kind of, it feels like you jumped ahead a few steps.
CANDIDATE
Um, yeah, so. when Alexa detects, um, a patient has a cough or has a cold, it, you know, is, is that really correct? Like if the, if the nurse diagnoses and they do find, uh, or if they, if they don't find the patient with cough or cold, then, then that means, uh, you know, the algorithm didn't work correctly or the speech recognition, there's something wrong with it. Um. But since the, but, but the, the, the cost of failure is fairly low because the patient is already in the hospital and the nurse is on standby. The cost is much higher when, uh, when somebody at home asks Alexa, hey, do I have a cough and sneezes, or, well, I guess it's difficult to just sneeze. Um, so I, I would have to think through how this would even work in homes. Hold
INTERVIEWER
on, hold on, I wanna, I wanna, I'm gonna challenge you pretty hard here because let's talk about the, let's talk about the hospital use case, right? It's a low cost. False positive, basically is what you're saying, right? Risk of false positive, and I would challenge you because one, I don't know if you've been maybe off the news for the last 18 months, but we seem to have a bit of a nurse shortage going on right now. So, the idea of false positive rates of nurses running around a hospital because someone coughed, feels like not a great outcome for most hospitals, given that most of them are now paying traveling day nurses absurd rates for them to come to the hospitals. It's issue number one. Uh, but issue number 2 is, I, you know, I think, you know, my kids got the flu or something this past week. We got them COVID tested and they were negative, but they had something, right? Great, cool. Maybe they had a common cold, which is also coronavirus, I get it, or the flu, who cares? It doesn't matter if they were sick. What they had forgotten was what it was like to be sick. It has literally been 20 months since these two kids were sick and They were coughing and they were sneezing, and like, oh man, I feel terrible. It was the worst thing ever, of course. But the reality is, is like, no, it really wasn't. They have very short memories and they don't remember what it was like to be sick. So, I don't know when the last time you were in a hospital was something that was bronchial related or, you know, some other kind of congestion, uh, expectorant in the chest or anything like that, but patients in the hospital tend to cough a lot when they're sick. So, again, I'm trying to understand how you would not, don't define the use case for me. I'm asking you to walk me through how you would validate. Case, because you haven't sold me on something that makes sense in a hospital setting yet. So how are you gonna validate it?
CANDIDATE
So, there are other use cases, not just um figuring out if patients are, are sick, but there are other use cases where I want to call a nurse and I can use a voice enabled device to call a nurse. And I can even communicate. With the nurse, uh, over the, you know, over Alexa. Um, today in the hospital, in most hospitals, we have like a button that they press and the nurse comes in.
INTERVIEWER
Sure, they already, they have a pretty easy solve, which is I push a button and I talk. So, again, I'm asking you to validate the use case that would warrant deploying new technology that needs to be maintained and cost money versus the Come to my room Give me drugs, it's a fairly simple solution that's been in place for a long time, so how are you making it better? That's the underlying question, but that, that question gets answered by, how are you validating the use case?
CANDIDATE
Yeah, so, the, the, you know, speaking to the nurse, and then let's say the nurse wants to order the drug, um, or the nurse comes in and checks on the patient and then orders the drug, the, the nurse can essentially ask Alexa to order the drug. And instead of opening up, uh, you know, her computer and putting in some patient information and then then ordering it. Um, So, it, it enables automation and continuation of workflows um that traditionally kind of have been performed in, in chunks and pieces. So that's one example where having Alexa would would benefit the patient and the hospital.
INTERVIEWER
OK, uh, I, I think, I think we're, we're, we're,
CANDIDATE
we're not,
INTERVIEWER
you're not quite understanding what I'm asking in terms of, you know, the, the core question, which is validating the use case, and I don't wanna wallow, um, I don't wanna wallow on this, so I'm just gonna change, go to the next question. I, I think that, that again, what, what I'm trying, and I'm just gonna, this is where I kind of hit pause and say, OK, but, but what I'm asking here is validating the use case, and you're, you're telling me about use cases. As opposed to telling me how you validate these cases. So, I, I am trying to be very specific in the word choices. To get at specific things. So just be aware of that as we progress through this.
CANDIDATE
Makes sense. OK,
INTERVIEWER
yes,
CANDIDATE
so how would I, yeah, OK, well,
INTERVIEWER
I, I'm just gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna act as if I was a normal interviewer and I'd be like, OK, not the answer I was looking for. I'm gonna switch gears and go to another question.
Expert Assessment
Interviewer assessment - would be used in a hiring meeting
The answer from the candidate did not address the target of the question. There is some lenience in that the candidate was able to focus on a product centric innovation coming from the target company, but there was little discussion around what the innovation was relative to customer need or demand. Beyond that, when pressed the candidate did not present any sort of framework that gives confidence that they consistently validate their observations and conclusions about customer needs.