Even more popular among Germans than chocolate Santa Clauses and Santa Clauses are Easter bunnies: More than 130 million chocolate bunnies were sold domestically this year, according to the German Confectionery Association.

The market leader is the Swiss company Lindt&Sprüngli, which has been offering its Easter bunny dressed in gold foil in Germany since 1952 - and is fighting for species protection in court. On the instructions of the Federal Court of Justice, the Munich Higher Regional Court is hearing the case again on Thursday at 2 pm.

The 29th Civil Senate must examine whether a competitor sued by Lindt - Allgäuer Confiserie Heilemann, which belongs to the Thuringian company Viba Sweets - has infringed the trademark rights of the "Lindt Gold Bunny". Specifically, the case concerns the gold tone of the two foils used and the possible likelihood of confusion. The BGH has already ruled that the gold tone used by Lindt enjoys trademark protection - contrary to a previous ruling.

Lindt claims damages

Heilemann also distributed a sitting chocolate bunny in a gold-colored foil during the 2018 Easter season. The traditional Swiss company is demanding that the competitor stop selling its gold bunny and provide information about its business with it with a view to damages.

The Munich Regional Court had ruled in favor of Lindt in 2019: The gold hue of the chocolate bunny had become a color trademark through long use and intensive advertising. In 2020, however, the Higher Regional Court dismissed the claim as unfounded. Unlike "Nivea Blue," "Telekom Magenta" or "Milka Purple," the gold hue did not unmistakably belong to Lindt. The chocolate manufacturer also had other colored products in its range.

In contrast, the BGH ruled in the last instance that the color of the "Gold Bunny" was so well known that it enjoyed trademark protection. The color is associated with the Swiss chocolatier by 70 percent of consumers. It had established itself on the market as a trademark through its long and intensive use and had "acquired a reputation in the trade.

The fact that Lindt does not use the gold for all its products and that the "Gold Bunny" has other characteristic features, such as the red collar with little bells, is irrelevant. The Karlsruhe judges thus referred the case back to the Munich Higher Regional Court for a new hearing and decision.

Lindt says it now produces around 150 million "Gold Bunnies" a year in more than 50 countries. Lindt has been defending itself against overly similar competitor products for years. The golden chocolate bunnies of the Franconian chocolate producer Riegelein were allowed to remain after two BGH rulings. Four weeks ago, the Swiss Federal Court in Lausanne ruled that discounter Lidl could no longer sell its Gold Bunnies in Switzerland because of the risk of confusion with Lindt's Gold Bunnies. (SDA)

The Swiss Chamber of Estate Agents is one of five professional chambers of the Swiss Association of the Real Estate Industry (SVIT), the SVIT five. It unites professional, independent brokers who are convinced of the importance of quality in consulting, of the importance of training and further education in the specialist areas and of fairness in the salary model. Admission to the SMK is subject to strict quality criteria. Only those who meet and recurrently confirm these criteria can become members and receive the SMK quality label.

Strict quality management for brokers

"Our members guarantee their customers quality, competence, trust, transparency and consistently rule out conflicts of interest," says Ruedi Tanner, President of SMK. "In a market where a wide variety of sales intermediaries vie for the favor of sellers, we create orientation with our quality claim as market leader." Over 120 members make SMK clearly the largest real estate broker network in Switzerland. "The continuous increase in membership confirms that the strict quality criteria associated with our label are recognized by Switzerland's leading real estate agents as a clear added value in the market," says Tanner.

The Board of the Swiss Chamber of Estate Agents (SMK) is chaired by Ruedi Tanner (Wirz Tanner Immobilien AG) and is further composed of Dieter Mader (Vice President; Früh Immobilien & Partner AG), Kurt Bosshard (Bosshard Immobilien AG), Christian Häle (Sonnenbau Group), Carlos Garcia (Markstein AG) and Marc Wyss (Immobilien Wyss Schweiz AG).

Broker Convention: Successfully Navigating Change

Following the General Meeting, the SMK invited to the Broker Convention 2022. At this important networking event with renowned speakers, the motto "No Time To Lose - Mission Business Transformation" was the focus with the question: How can changes in the real estate industry lead to new successes? Eva Wannenmacher, life coach, André Lüthi, Chairman of the Board of Directors and co-owner of Globetrotter Group AG, and Roman Timm, CEO of newhome.ch, showed in their presentations ways how to successfully navigate through changes personally and professionally.

According to its own presentation, the SMK has successfully established an important information and exchange platform for real estate marketing with the Real Estate Agents Convention. The large number of participants has also shown the importance of the event this year, as the association says.

Source: www.maklerkammer.ch

This article originally appeared on m-q.ch - https://www.m-q.ch/de/strenges-qualitaetsmanagement-ueberzeugt-als-mehrwert/

The greatest challenges in implementing the requirements of the environmental management standard ISO 14001 are found in Chapter 6 "Planning" and Chapter 8 "Operation". 62.5 percent of companies have findings with regard to Chapter 6 and as many as 65 percent with regard to Chapter 8. Around 25 percent of companies have non-conformities. Particular attention should also be paid to chapters 7 "Support" and 9 "Evaluation of performance". For Chapter 9, a total of 55.4 percent (23 percent deviations) of the companies received findings. For Chapter 7, the total figure is 42.3 percent (around 11 percent deviations). These are - in summary - the results of an audit analysis by DNV, a global and independent provider of certification, safety and risk management. The analysis is the second part of a mini-series for which DNV evaluated the audit data of the ISO 9001 quality management standard in the first part and the audit data of the ISO 14001 environmental management standard for the second part. This was based on 50,000 audit findings from 2021 from more than 10,000 customers worldwide. All data comes from the Lumina toola digital service that allows customers to analyze and compare audit data themselves.

Chapter 6 "Planning"

In Chapter 6 "Planning", it is subchapter 6.1 "Measures for dealing with risks and opportunities" that causes the most challenges, accounting for almost 56 percent of the registered findings, as the analysis goes on to show. This is significantly more than in the ISO 9001 (Quality). The results of an earlier analysis of ISO 9001 audit data showed that only about 24 percent of the findings are attributable to this chapter. This difference is mainly due to the specific requirements of ISO 14001: 32 percent are attributable to subchapter 6.1.2 "Environmental aspects" and about 28 percent of the findings to chapter 6.1.3 "Binding commitments".

Chapter 8 "Operation"

In Chapter 8 "Operations", the core implementation section of ISO 14001, companies record the highest number of findings overall. No less than 65 percent end the audit with at least one finding of non-conformity. For Chapter 8.1 "Operational planning and control" and 8.2 "Emergency preparedness and response", almost 54 percent and 33 percent respectively receive findings that require improvements.

"The results of the analysis are in line with my experience from audits and trainings," says Beatrice Maier, auditor and trainer at DNV. "It is tremendously important that all requirements are implemented already in the planning phase (Chapter 6). Because if this is not done, weaknesses will automatically arise in the implementation phase (Chapter 8) and the monitoring phase (Chapter 9). An example of this is the requirement in Chapter 6.1 that potential emergency situations must be identified, which must then also be assessed in terms of their risks. Chapter 8.2 requires that for the identified emergency situations, measures to avoid and control the emergency situation must be defined and trained," she explains further.

 

More information

The complete Earnings Report can be downloaded free of charge from the website www.dnv.de/assurance can be downloaded. The report presents the findings and deviations per chapter. This gives users an indication of how their own performance compares with that of other companies and where special attention is required. Users can find out how a conscious approach to audit findings can contribute to the ongoing improvement process in a free Whitepaper "10 tips for dealing with audit results".

 

This article originally appeared on m-q.ch - https://www.m-q.ch/de/herausforderungen-bei-der-umsetzung-der-iso-14001/

Everything is getting more expensive - so shopping events such as Singles Day or Black Friday are just what people need. A new survey by the brochure app Profital and the Swiss Retail Federation shows: Inflation is changing purchasing behavior, and more consumers want to take advantage of discounts on Singles Day and Black Friday in November.

For around 40 percent of consumers, Black Friday (Nov. 25, 2022) and Singles Day (Nov. 11, 2022) are of greater importance this year than in previous years. A full 89 percent of those surveyed want to benefit from the discounts in November. The main reason for this development is likely to be inflation, Profital estimates. More than half said they would be paying more attention to promotions because of rising prices. In the case of food, the figure is as high as 74 percent. Between 35 and 40 percent are already limiting their consumption of non-food products.

Higher expenses planned nonetheless

Nevertheless, consumers are planning to spend more on Black Friday and Singles Day than last year. Shoppers plan to spend an average of CHF 427 on Black Friday and CHF 343 on Singles Day. The propensity to spend is more than a third higher among men than among women. The Swiss prepare specifically for the shopping promotions by informing themselves about offers. This applies to around three quarters of all respondents. 30 percent set themselves a maximum budget, 23 percent draw up a shopping list, while only 13 percent make no shopping preparations at all.

Fashion items such as clothing, shoes and accessories are in particular demand (68 percent), followed by electrical appliances (53 percent). Furniture and home furnishings came in third at around 37 percent. Around half of those surveyed said they store both online and in stores. Around 30 percent intend to shop only in stores, while around 20 percent intend to shop only online.

 

Werbewoche.ch spoke with Profital founder Raphael Tommen about the results:

Werbewoche.ch: Mr. Thommen, Profital is constantly working its way up to the position of thought leader in the retail and (e-)commerce sector. Does the day-to-day business run so independently that you are looking for other fields of activity? "need"?

Raphael Tommen: More than 450,000 consumers per month use the Profital app to find out what Swiss retailers have to offer. In addition to our core business, we use this proximity to consumers to provide the retail industry with important insights into the accelerated changes in consumer behavior caused by the crisis.

 

Joking aside: In your new survey, one of the things you wanted to know was what impact Black Friday, Singles Day and inflation have on buying behavior. How important are these "imported" Retail holidays meanwhile for Switzerland?

We have been analyzing consumer behavior on these shopping days for a few years now and have noticed that awareness and popularity are steadily increasing - and this year is no exception: for almost 40 percent of those surveyed, Singles Day and Black Friday have once again gained in importance. Around 90 percent intend to take advantage of the offers this year.

 

Have these days now reached the consciousness of the general public - or is it a phenomenon that is mainly known and used by younger sections of the population?

Our survey results show that a majority in all age groups express interest in the shopping days. In fact, the younger the age group, the greater the interest: among those under 35, over 90 percent want to store on Shopping Days, while among those over 55, the figure is 70 percent.

 

What surprised you about the results of the study?

I was surprised by the seemingly unbroken and growing popularity of the shopping days. Only 11 percent of those surveyed expressed no interest whatsoever in the offers on Singles Day or Black Friday - and that despite counter-movements like the "Green Friday".

 

To what extent is inflation - and the generally gloomy consumer climate - having an impact on the Swiss population's actual willingness to spend? Are we seeing more pro-cyclical or more counter-cyclical developments here?

Planned spending on Singles Day and Black Friday is higher on average this year than last. However, on the basis of this, only limited conclusions can be drawn about the general consumer climate. The survey also shows that in the non-food sector, more than 30 percent of respondents plan to buy less due to inflation. At the same time, almost 40 percent of respondents in the food sector are switching to cheaper products. What is particularly evident from the study is that purchasing planning is becoming more relevant as a result of rising prices.

Do you think that Black Friday & Co. occasions might even gain in importance in times of economic difficulties?

Inflation is increasing price sensitivity and consumers are changing their buying behavior by limiting or optimizing their consumption. Price reductions in the form of promotions are increasingly popular, and shopping days are becoming more important in these economically strained times.

Reconciling data privacy and personalized marketing is an exceedingly big challenge that affects advertisers and individuals at the same time. Either data protection is in the way for advertising companies to present their services and products to the relevant target group, or private individuals complain about loss of control of their personal data.

This dilemma not only affects Swiss companies and the Swiss population, but is rather a global problem. And the hankering for a good solution is becoming increasingly urgent. Stricter data protection guidelines place enormous restrictions on companies in their advertising activities, which can have a massive impact depending on the companies' products and offerings. For example, with Apple's restrictive data protection as of 2021, Meta's revenue has plummeted by several million.

At the same time, various surveys reveal the increasing insecurity of end users. A study by the German Society for Online Research DGOF shows that three quarters of Germans feel they have less control over their personal data than they did ten years ago.

The end of personalized advertising?

Three developments underlie the challenges of personalized advertising. First, privacy is assigned a greatly increased relevance. As a result, data-related laws and regulations such as the GDPR or the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) are currently being massively tightened. Companies, for example from the healthcare or banking sectors, have their hands tied when it comes to using their data externally. This affects the sensitive data of banks, doctors and health insurance companies. In addition, third-party cookies will be abolished by 2024. Google is thus meeting the needs of private individuals - and at the same time turning the advertising market for companies upside down. The advertising industry is dependent on new technologies for personalized and at the same time privacy-compliant advertising.

At the same time, new companies are entering the advertising platform market. For example, Apple has already banned cookies for iPhone users in 2021, thus stealing a large part of the clientele from existing advertising platforms. The company is currently reported to be in the Financial Times work to grow their own ad business and follow in the footsteps of Meta, Amazon and Google.

Recently, opinions have been divided on the side of private individuals. While some see personalized advertising as added value, others feel it is a nuisance. But regardless of whether they appreciate it or not, what unites private individuals to a large extent is a lack of data awareness - an awareness of when and where personal data is passed on. Among other things, this also stems from a lack of transparency on communication platforms.

According to a report by Bakom from 2021, there is a great lack of transparency on communication platforms with regard to data handling. The platforms hardly provide any information about how data is collected from users and why certain ads are played to specific users. The lack of information about the data situation is not only problematic for research and politics, but also for private users: Without sufficient information about data collection and data use, no education can take place in this area.

Regardless of which party you belong to, personalized advertising is becoming increasingly difficult and requires new approaches that function in compliance with data protection laws.

Confidential computing solves the problem

What can combine the best of data protection and advertising is "Confidential Computing", i.e. the creation of an isolated environment in which data can be processed protected from unauthorized access or manipulation. So-called data clean rooms run on a cloud computing platform and allow advertisers to synchronize and gain insights from their encrypted first-party data with also encrypted first-party data from third parties. This is intended to allow companies to serve ads targeted to clusters of people despite the lack of third-party data. Since this data synchronization is done in the data clean rooms, no party can decrypt the data at any time, which is compliant even with particularly strict data protection regulations and does not affect the privacy of private individuals in any way.

The data of the users or the target group does not have to be given out of hand for this purpose and no party - not even technology providers or cloud services - have access to the raw data. Advertising can be targeted to aggregated target group segments and not to individuals, as is the case with first party data. However, online campaigns can still be implemented in a targeted manner and, at the same time, in compliance with data protection laws and optimized on an ongoing basis.

Data Clean Rooms as the center of a first-party data strategy

Goldbach, for example, uses this technology together with several partners. Data clean rooms enable advertisers to define target groups on the basis of existing information such as e-mail addresses and to match them with the corresponding data pools of the marketers by means of data onboarding. Marketers can thus activate these target groups on their inventories independently of third-party cookies, across devices, and in compliance with data protection laws. Furthermore, applications such as lookalike modeling or exclusion targeting can be implemented in this way.

Goldbach's case shows that the combination of advanced analytics, supported by privacy-friendly technologies like Data Clean Rooms, can be a central pillar of a future-proof first-party data strategy in the media sector. As Jochen Witte, CTO of Goldbach, puts it, "It's a win-win situation for companies and user privacy."

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* Maximilian Groth is co-founder and CEO of Decentriq. The enterprise SaaS platform provides secure and compliant data clean rooms and specifically targets the advertising dilemma. With DCR, companies can match encrypted data and draw conclusions that matter to business while maintaining data privacy.

Tom Capital was founded in Zurich in 2011 and is fully owned by the team. Its systematic approach to active investment management relies on science and machine learning. Based on scientifically proven concepts, the firm's algorithms identify patterns from macroeconomic, fundamental and price data, construct the portfolio and provide trading inputs within a strict risk management framework.
After ten years on the market, the management decided to develop a contemporary redesign. KSP developed the new appearance for Tom Capital, from the logo to the claim to all appearances, especially the new website. Tomcapital.ch.

The new "Fingerprint Tree" was created from the existing walnut tree in the logo, which was intended to symbolize solidity and consistent yield over three years. The new logo combine the original symbolism with individuality and digital attitude.

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Responsible at Tom CapitalSabrina Herold (Partner, Sales & Client Relations), Dr. Christian Gloor (Partner, Research & Portfolio), Steven Van Winkel (Partner, Research & Models), Dr. Artem Chakirov (Partner, Research & Data), Thomas Stämpfli (Founder, Board of Directors), Dr. Urban Müller (Partner, Board of Directors). Responsible at KSP: Céline Goldschmid, Jelena German (design), Barbara Sarras (text), Manuela Pasanen (DTP), Melanie Hanimann (consulting), Simon Kaserer (website implementation), Uwe Schlupp, Daniel Krieg (strategy and creative direction).

The shortage of skilled workers is currently a major problem, especially in the IT industry. The use of cloud services and IT services can provide companies with crucial support here. The complex management of data infrastructures and database technologies in particular is an ideal application scenario for this. Managed platforms offer users the following advantages:

1. fast deployment

Setting up and maintaining a consistent data infrastructure with databases are time-consuming processes. In particular, setting up the software and configuring all components usually involves a great deal of effort. With Managed Platform models, these tasks are taken over by the provider - as is the implementation and integration of the platform into the company's IT infrastructure.

2. high flexibility

Managed Platform models with a cloud-agnostic approach offer high flexibility and support different operating models. This means they are available in the various deployment options of public, multi-, hybrid or private cloud. Users can thus use the platform with providers such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google and IBM or in hosting in their own on-premises environment.

3. high degree of automation

Managed Platforms are fully automated. This means that users can scale their resources at the push of a button and also add further services offered by the platform to their data infrastructure. For example, customers can quickly and easily set up and deactivate clusters or change node types and sizes.

4. easy management with central user interface

Managed platform concepts include several managed services that are seamlessly linked by the provider. A uniform, web-based user interface serves as the control center for the customer, enabling him to control all services without any major administrative effort. A central, uniform user interface is of considerable benefit to the user, especially when operating hybrid environments.

5. up-to-dateness of the software

Managed platforms offer the advantage that the software used is always up to date. The provider installs available updates and also takes care of patching and bug fixing.

6. comprehensive monitoring

The monitoring of the services is fully automated, as is the alerting in the event of errors. If a fault occurs in the data infrastructure, the platform fixes it independently. Only in the case of major problems does an expert from the provider have to intervene manually.

Leverage the advantages of Managed Platforms

"The use of a database technology is associated with a high level of complexity. Consequently, it makes sense for many companies to evaluate a Managed Platforms offering as an alternative," emphasizes Ralph Völter, Manager District Sales EMEA at Instaclustr, a provider that helps companies deploy applications on a large scale using its platform for open source technologies such as Apache Cassandra, Apache Kafka, Apache Spark, Redis, OpenSearch, Apache ZooKeeper and PostgreSQL. "Managed Platforms and the provider's associated services offer a decisive advantage: the company's own employees in development and operations are relieved of activities related to administration, so that they can focus more on productive, value-creating and innovative tasks."

Source: Instaclustr

This article originally appeared on m-q.ch - https://www.m-q.ch/de/wie-managed-platforms-it-teams-entlasten/

Cybercriminals often take the path of least resistance and exploit vulnerabilities within IT systems. Hackers look for the weakest link through which they can gain access to corporate data. The often neglected scanning and printing systems are therefore an easy target and offer criminals a gateway to the corporate network.

A constant danger

The Quocirca report "Print Security Landscape, 2022" paints an alarming picture: more than two-thirds of the IT decision-makers surveyed have suffered a data loss in the past year due to an inadequately protected print infrastructure.

Help from specialist:inside

Today, a large part of the work of an IT department consists of ensuring the security of the systems. To do this as efficiently as possible, close cooperation with manufacturers and service providers is necessary. In this way, vulnerabilities can be identified at an early stage and a technological ecosystem can be built up that protects against security risks. Canon offers comprehensive options to help companies ensure greater security within their print infrastructure:

• Security by Design: Canon focuses on security not only after delivery, but also during the design and development phase. The hardware is tested by independent security consultants at various stages of the development process to eliminate potential vulnerabilities before production.
• Security Services: Canon Security Services helps customers maintain a secure working environment and protect data throughout its lifecycle - from securely configuring new and existing systems, to monitoring established settings and policies - to permanently removing digital and physical data from legacy devices.
• McAfee - Embedded Control: Through its alliance with security vendor McAfee, Canon can provide customers with far-reaching protection by preserving the integrity of printer firmware, blocking unauthorized applications in the system through intelligent whitelisting.
• In-house software: Thanks to in-house software solutions, the security aspects of software and hardware can be optimally coordinated with one another can be optimally coordinated. User authentication at the devices and IRM (Information Rights Management) security protocols are ways to secure the infrastructure.

Canon's hardware products combined with its software solutions make businesses much less attractive to data thieves. That's because the security aspect is always in focus - from the built-in protection against cyber risks in our hardware and software to the way we design, implement and deliver solutions. That's part of the reason Quocirca has recognized Canon as an industry leader in print and document security. Author: Samuel Brehmer, Strategic Business Developer, Canon (Switzerland) AG. Contact details: Canon (Switzerland) AG Richtistrasse 9 8304 Wallisellen T 0848 833 835 info@canon.ch www.canon.ch

This article originally appeared on m-q.ch - https://www.m-q.ch/de/vernachlaessigte-druckinfrastruktur-sichern-sie-ihr-digitales-gold/

The Graubünden DIY store Do It is getting a new look. The focus is on positioning itself as a sustainability pioneer - to this end, the Martin et Karczinski agency has completely overhauled the brand identity. A prototype of this has already been implemented in the Punt Muragl/Samedan branch.

Green tones for quality and regional roots

The guiding idea of the new appearance: to show the DIY store as a living workshop. This is also reflected in the logo: letters in a free construction brought together in two shades of green, which are intended to express both quality and the regional roots between Arve and Moos.

The new concept is also reflected at the POS: the design of the salesroom is characterized by local wood, the corporate color green and a manifesto-like communication that is intended to express the claim to have set out on the path to exemplary sustainability.

The branches in Zernez, Küblis and Chur are also to be rebranded in the coming months, and major renovations are planned for the headquarters in Chur, with sustainable energy concepts. The rebranding is scheduled to take place in the spring. By then, the cross-site communication tools such as the website will also be redesigned.

Decision-makers in companies across all industries are increasingly relying on AI to remain competitive today and in the future. But there is still mistrust of a "black box" AI whose models and solution paths are often no longer comprehensible to us humans. This becomes a challenge when engineers have to explain how their models work - for example, when the model is subject to certain regulations or when potential buyers have to be convinced. 

What is explainability of AI? 

This is where explainable AI comes into play. This is a set of tools and methods that can help understand AI model decisions and detect and address any problems with black-box models, such as bias or susceptibility to manipulation attempts. Explainability is essential when engineers need to prove that a model meets certain standards or ISO norms. But it is also about increasing confidence in AI models in general.  

Explainability can help AI users understand how machine learning models arrive at predictions. To do this, they can, for example, track which parameters influence the decision of an AI model and what the influence looks like. But this is not easy, especially with complex models. 

Complexity vs. explainability 

Therefore, the question arises: Why don't we use simpler AI models? Models have not always been complex. A simple example is a thermostat that controls the temperature in a room. If the temperature in the room drops below a certain predetermined value, the heating turns on; if it rises above that value, the heating turns off again. But what about parameters such as time of day, office usage, electricity prices or the weather forecast? How high should the heating be set to be truly efficient and sustainable? Just as modern temperature control in buildings takes many more parameters into account, models have become established in many areas that are many times more detailed and thus more complex.  

These complex models have the advantage that they usually make more accurate predictions. This means that more accurate analyses can be carried out, which in certain cases also provide a faster answer to questions posed. In addition, engineers are working with increasingly complex data, such as streamed signals and images, which can be processed directly by AI models. This can save valuable time during model creation.  

Even though complexity brings all these positive changes, it is increasingly becoming a challenge that models are no longer understood. Engineers must therefore develop new approaches in order to better understand even complex models again and to be able to comprehend calculations.  

Methods for explainable AI 

Using explainable models can provide valuable insights without adding additional steps to the workflow. For example, in the case of decision trees or linear models, decision making is immediately understandable in terms of which properties influence a model and how. 

In order to understand the influence of certain characteristics on the decision, there are certain methods. Through the "Feature Ranking"In this way, it becomes clear which characteristics have the greatest influence on a decision. Subsequently, it must be checked whether the influence of a characteristic changes when it takes on different values. 

Another method is LIME (Local Interpretable Model-Agnostic Explanations). Here, an attempt is made to approximate a complex, unexplainable system in the vicinity of a particular data point by creating a less complex, explainable sibling model that produces similar results. In this way, it is possible to find out which predictors influence the decision the most. 

But how do you detect nonlinear dependencies among the input data? Engineers can use "Shapley Values" for this purpose. They can be used to estimate how the input data of a machine learning model influence the results. 

When creating models for image processing or computer vision applications, visualizations are among the best ways to assess the explainability of models. For example, methods such as degree CAM and "occlusion sensitivity" can identify those locations in images and text that most influence the model's decision. 

AI beyond explainability 

To successfully use explainable AI, engineers and scientists must also be aware of the challenges that come with it. Finding a balance between explainability, complexity, influence of input data and trust in models is not easy. In addition, it must be clear that explaining a black box and thus gaining the trust of decision-makers or control authorities is only one step on the journey to the safe use of AI.  

The use of AI in practice requires models that can be understood. They must have been created according to a comprehensible process and be able to operate at a level that is necessary for safety-critical and sensitive applications. At this point, experts rely on verification and validation. In this way, they can ensure that a model used in safety-critical applications meets minimum standards. Or they define safety certifications for areas such as automotive or aerospace. Engineers have many tools and options at their fingertips to increase confidence in AI. They shouldn't stop at explainability. 

Conclusion: Explainable AI as a cog in an overall system 

Without question, AI will have a strong focus on explainability in the future. The more AI is integrated into safety-critical and everyday applications, the more explainability will be considered an indispensable attribute of AI models. And everyone benefits: engineers have better information about their models and can find and fix bugs faster. They can explain in a comprehensible way how the models meet certain standards, and this greater transparency gives confidence to both decision makers and potential customers.  

Nevertheless, engineers, subject matter experts, and business decision makers should not forget that explainability is just one cog in a big clockwork and must be used hand in hand - tooth in tooth - with other important methods, tools, and regulations. 

Source and further information: https://ch.mathworks.com/de/

This article originally appeared on m-q.ch - https://www.m-q.ch/de/kommentar-warum-ingenieure-erklaerbare-ki-benoetigen/

Past, present and future are linguistically fixed tenses. In life and especially in the professional life of our industry, however, these seem to be fluid. Therefore, it is understandable that words describing time periods are used differently here, but they still seem strange. For example, when students of communication and marketing talk about "earlier" while scrolling through social media on the way to college or university, but actually mean "yesterday," or when advertisers call something "legendary" just because it is "recurring.

At the moment, the word "epochal" is doing the rounds. It's not just futurologists who use the adjective when they want to describe what they see in the crystal ball. Sounds good and promising. After all, something that is described as epochal is significant beyond the moment and has an impact on the future. And that's what we all want to achieve somehow with our work. It is therefore understandable that we strive to make things not only ubiquitous, but also as epochal as possible.

Only useful in the world of yesterday

In view of the current world situation, such words are popular but should be used with great caution. Corona was epochal, as was the introduction of the iPod - which recently passed away. Whether it will be the coming winter or the blocking of third-party cookies, we can only guess, we just don't know yet. Because whether something is epochal can only be recognized with absolute certainty in retrospect.

But there are exceptions. For example, Stefan Zweig's work "The World of Yesterday," which is currently highly topical again. Not only is it epochal, but it describes epochal events from a perspective of the present day. The author's memoirs convey the attitude to life of a citizen of the world in the first half of the 20th century, and much in it is frighteningly reminiscent of today. Zweig lived from 1882 to 1942 and experienced two world wars. He was a child from a good family, which is what all of us living in Switzerland today are. Our society here has never been as well off as it is today, despite the war in Ukraine, inflation and the electricity crisis. Okay, the golden years of advertising are long gone and the descendants of the generation of Gredingers, Gislers, Strittmatters, Aebis, Suters and Co. still suffer from the reputation of being wasteful, but hand on heart. The industry is still doing well compared to others. Or would anyone like to switch to the healthcare sector, the airline industry or an electricity company? Exactly.

And if you look at the current campaigns, we all seem to have assets that we are supposed to invest somehow and with someone instead of saving. The losses or gains may be epoch-making, but neither the advertisers nor the financial advisors know it. So please use the word only in retrospect, if we don't want to make fools of ourselves one day. Thank you.

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* Benno Maggi is co-founder and CEO of Partner & Partner. He has been eavesdropping on the industry for over 30 years, discovering words and terms for us that can either be used for small talk, pomposity, excitement, playing Scrabble, or just because.

"Our logo reflects the soul of La Prairie," comments Greg Prodromides, chief marketing officer of La Prairie. "It embodies the values and heritage of the company and expresses its unique identity to the world. It represents who we are and who we will be tomorrow."

Now, he says, it was time to redesign the logo: "This new logo, unchanged for almost 50 years, represents an important milestone in the history of our brand. It's a way for us to celebrate our past while looking to our future," Prodromides concludes.

La Prairie's new logo was inspired by the very first visual identity of Clinique La Prairie in the 1930s and reinterpreted as elegant, architectural typography.

In the 1970s, La Prairie's best-known logo was designed using the Helvetica font - now Helvetica Neue - created by type designer Max Miedinger in Zurich. The typeface was a symbol of simple, modern Swiss design.

The new, refreshed logo features a sharper, contemporary version of Helvetica that moves the logo from lowercase to uppercase. It will be accompanied by a new signature seal and will be applied to all La Prairie products in the coming months.

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Responsible at La Prairie: Greg Prodromides (Chief Marketing Officer), David Naouri (Global Creative Director), David Conte (Global Senior Art Director). Responsible at Base Design: Anthony Franklin (Creative Director), Vincent Sauvaire (Design Lead), Thomas Marsch (Account Lead).