Commitment and approach to values into action
So know we know Respect, Integrity and Accountability are Microsoft's company values which they embody in every interaction with customers and employees. Now in this module I looked at Microsoft's Values in Action, that is, the values that employees try to apply around different areas inside and outside of the organisation. So this involved doing a bit of research on their website by reading employee stories of times where Microsoft's values were demonstrated.
For reference, Microsoft's core values are:
Innovation
Diversity & Inclusion
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Trustworthy Computing
Innovation
Innovation as a value means that Microsoft brings forward the belief that technology can and should be used for good; empowering people to change lives. This means that with meaningful innovation, technology can have a positive impact and contribute to making the world a better place. So Microsoft's push for innovation ultimately is to not only make technology accessible, but to also continually push it past its boundaries for the greater good of humanity.
Diversity & Inclusion
Diversity & Inclusion at Microsoft fosters the understanding that people from all different places are sparsely different, and contribute to the company in their own unique ways. Its the people who make up the organisation who shape the culture of the company and what it does to change. This means that diversity and inclusion within Microsoft fundamentally helps contribute to innovation - by bringing together the voices of diverse groups of individuals under the umbrella of Microsoft. In order to achieve such a thing, Microsoft's acts on diversity and inclusion by always engaging with employees and customers to use their voices to innovate on what the company does and stands for.
Microsoft has built this value of diversity and inclusion in their company, starting from their mission. To empower every person and every organisation on the planet to achieve more - Microsoft is empowering all individuals regardless of background or who they are in their actions; like democratising technology such as AI and Mixed Reality. This value is instilled in employees across the orgnisation such that no matter what level, role or function they have at Microsoft, everyone plays a role to creating an inclusive environment so that people can do their best work (achieve more).
Corporate Social Responsibility
With CSR, Microsoft takes the position to address problems the world is facing and considers how technology can be utilised for good. In order to create a sustainable future, Microsoft acts in accordance with their values to provide equal benefits and opportunities to all through technology. The issues that they tackle range from:
Cybersecurity problems
Providing information on how people can become employable
Environment sustainability
Technology for non-profits
Accessibility
and many more. This has given rise to different initiatives which used technology to solve problems that people across the world are facing. Things like designing AI to become accessible and funding projects which help make a difference in the world as well as making technology more accessible for those with disabilities - all these things fall under what Microsoft fights for.
Artificial Intelligence
Along with the new wave of AI, Microsoft sees the value and opportunity AI provides and has tried to distribute this technology into the hands of people around the world. Again, this follows their mission of empowerment by using the potential of AI to extend the capabilities of individuals to be able to be more creative and strategic in order to achieve more.
Trustworthy Computing
Microsoft who started as a "computer company" has always had its roots in shaping a unique computing experience in Windows. To this day Microsoft continues to do just that, evolving their software as a leading OS and developing its security, privacy and reliability.
A story of innovation
Solutions for sign-language communities
With the democratization of Artificial Intelligence, many researchers in computer science have turned to look at how they can use AI to build solutions that will impact hundreds of millions or even billions of people across the world. In this story, Dr. Danielle Bragg has look at the population of 70 million people worldwide who rely on sign language for communication and see how AI can empower them.
With this endeavour, Dr. Bragg researched how she might expand access to information that met the needs of the deaf and the wider sign-language community. Standing at the intersection point of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Accessibility and Artificial Intelligence, her work focuses on building systems to provide access to information for people with disabilities.
Located in Cambridge, her team is tackling the unique technical challenges that ASL (American Sign Language) brings. For ASL, which is the primary mode of communication for the deaf community in the United States, there are specific linguistic features which differentiate it from other types of sign languages. These include the hand shape, location, movement, facial expressions, etc that make up the natural language.
Just like other languages, a whole culture has developed around regional sign language – where different sub-populations form more specific nuances like slang, idioms, etc. This takes form just like any other spoken language, where there are things like deaf poetry, rich storytelling and unique genres that come about due to the highly visual nature of sign language.
Dr. Bragg’s work therefore tries to preserve this culture and support people’s interactions with technology by developing applications that contribute and provide benefit to the deaf community. This allows her to actively collect data that she can use to research further and build data-driven applications, without having to hassle individuals or harass the community for data which would raise privacy concerns. This solution to data scarcity due to the small population of deaf minorities has made it easier to collect data, incentivized through assistance.
Eventually, the end-goal would be to develop an application that provides end-to-end bi-directional translation (for example: between sign language and English). With advances in Deep Learning and Convolutional Neural Nets, this ideal has begun to look more promising.
A story of trustworthy computing
Privacy
While this is not exactly a story, the above link outlines the privacy policies and values that Microsoft holds on security at a user level. Considering the frightening pace at which technology evolves alongside growing concerns of the public about the collection of their information, Microsoft has strived to maintain a strong position on privacy on data, whilst providing adequate control for its users.
Hence, to avoid limiting business processes using the intelligent cloud, Microsoft begins addressing privacy from the start – with how data is collected and used. This means that users are provided the essential information about their data (how it is collected and used) to make informed decisions on what happens to their data across Microsoft’s products and services.
To build trust within and without Microsoft, the organization has placed a focus on six key privacy principles: being control, transparency, security, legal protection, no content-based targeting and personalised benefits.
Privacy principle | Meaning |
Control | Microsoft will always give you control over the privacy of your data |
Transparency | Microsoft will be transparent about what data they collect so you may make an informed decision about what data to share |
Security | Microsoft ensures the data you provide is kept private and secure through encryption |
Legal protection | Microsoft will adhere to local privacy laws of your area and moreover fight for your basic privacy rights as a human |
No content targeting | With the data that you provide through private Microsoft services (such as email or chat; Microsoft Live and Teams/Yammer e.g.), Microsoft ensures that this data will not be used to better target advertisements toward you |
Benefits for you | Microsoft will use the data it collects to better your experiences with its products, services and devices. This could be through smarter personalisation or intelligence suggestions based on your patterns. |
These principles form the foundation for how Microsoft approaches privacy and shapes how Microsoft builds and develops its products and services. Moreover, Microsoft provides all this information to the public available on their website for users to understand how data is collected and used. For enterprise business customers especially, Microsoft’s Trust Center details how Microsoft works to protect customer data in Microsoft Cloud (from Azure being Cloud Computing to storage in SharePoint).
Across Microsoft’s products and services, the data it collects is fed back into the system to help improve the user experience across devices, products, and services. This is all so that Microsoft can deliver a personalized experience for each user while also keeping you safe (protecting you and your data from attacks).
As such, the data they collect is associated with their products including web browsing and online search history, places you visit, contextual reminders (such as traffic checkups or anniversary highlights), interests for advertising, sign-in and payment for syncing data and diagnostic system data across devices and online experiences.
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