trend

Trends that make me go hmm.

2015 predictions thus far…

So how am I doing thus far on my 2015 predictions?  Am I close?  Way off?  2015 feels pretty much done for me.  Fall is here and then winter and then like hello 2016.

So lets look at what I said and where we are now…

  1. We Believe.
    There is a aura of belief unfolding on campus today.  Its safe to say that commercialization has taken root in the university.  More people believe in the potential of what they’re working on.  We’ll seen even more positive energy toward “we can do it” in terms of ideas to market hustle.  Its across the board from the highest pillars of senior leadership to the deans, chairs and faculty and staff.  And of course the students, always the first to believe I think, they will continue to impress.

    As of August 30th?  – I think this is fairly on target.  I’ve noticed alot more press on campus on innovation to market aspects.  The fact that colleges are thinking in startup weekend and hackathon like events at the leadership level is a big sign.  Also the community is on board.  Plus the university added some nice measures to fuel the fire, Accelerator Awards, etc, all helping.

  2. Medical / IT led innovation will continue to dominate.
    Startup health is just getting up to speed.  2014 was a big year for mindfulness, wearables, software, data analytics, and more when it comes to health care.  2015 will continue to be very loud on the innovation around health.  Between the new Neuromodulation Center to the new James cancer center spinning up, a sea of innovation, opened doors and possibility will follow.  Plus digital health is beginning to cross the threshold in adoption in both practice and common placement with medical centers and in administrative and doc acceptance.  Add the applicability in terms of next generation compliance/adherence and you find a sea of opportunities.  Note many solutions will be more “risk mitigation” orientated.

    As of August 30th?  – Portfolio, plus what press around campus is covering, this is still very much true.  Startups and overall “deals” we’re working on at TCO easily slide over 60% focused on health care technologies and concepts.  This isn’t to say its the total pipeline of ideas in from the colleges/centers etc, its more that the buyers, intersection of interest tends to be leaning in this direction.  And theres multiple initiatives across the state and the region to support this push.  Disrupting health is still and continue to be game on.

  3. In the Groove on Process.
    2014 was an epic year for commercialization and startup process.  The team jelled under new leadership and really pressed into often difficult territory and laid down many processes and norms and procedures on how to do things, how to make things GO.  2015 will see these efforts streamline and get in the groove.  Process is a big part of success when it comes to starting, when it comes to doing, when it comes to alignment and more.  I see us all in the groove for next, let’s do this!  The new Acceleration Award will help many fill in the gap from clinical trials to prototyping, this will compliment general areas of hustle across campus to make, validate, realize and net traction.

    As of August 30th? – Yes but always need more.  Commercialization is more and more like playing a game of “Civilization”, meaning its not enough just to intake IP, evaluate IP, and stage IP for consumption, you also have to show how that consumption could work, then guide those new to consumption what consumption and or the opportunity in that consumption is or could be.  You can’t be a vending machine, it doesn’t work. The region needs more players and you have to help create and educate the players and the could be players at the table to take advantage of the now, the moment, the next.  Thats alot of work.  Thats well beyond the initial charter of the TCO office.  Yet we’re seemingly responsible for the total outcome of success often projected from a range of sources, though its not like we all have exterior commentors.  However, do not be dismayed, this the job you signed up for- and we wouldn’t want it any less.  Being at the cross roads of invention and opportunity is one of the greastest places on campus to be.  Its yours to crave into next.

  4. Collaboration Frontier.
    Bigger and better collaborations are afoot.  Thats not always a good thing as they tend to be well, involved… but I see more incubators, more collaborative partners, more groups unifying for what could be, more and more thinking, more people coming to the table, especially as more believe in the effort, and the end game.

    As of August 30th? – Subtle moves and kinda goes back to #3.  Hasn’t happened on a large level yet.

  5. New IP Frontiers.
    I believe Athletics, Sports Medicine and Arts & Sciences will be new pools of IP frontier.  Not to say its where the big deals will be but these areas will not be “unknown” any more in terms of IP.  Data Analytics will continue to be in the crosshairs as well but it needs time to nurture.  While the demand for Internet of Things is apparently everywhere, I think that area will unfold slowly as well.  Some of the best IP opportunities I see are based around areas the university has extensive “frequency”, by flow, opportunity, context, expertise.  Also what the market thinks is hot NOW tends to be “oh yeah that, we did that like 5 years ago…” meaning the academics and research folks are further in future than you realize.  Like NEXT on campus is likely more Quantum Computing than say IOT, or VR, etc.  Not to say its not there, but the fringe of next isn’t mainstream- IOT is going mainstream, in labs, dude we’re working on warp drive (ok maybe not but some amazing stuff, definitely!).

    As of August 30th? – We’ve barely scratched the surface of athletics IP, and really TCO can’t do everything, we need leadership from that side of the campus to connect and help us rock it, cause there are a few billion ideas in there.  IOT, internet of things did and is taking off at TCO, we often don’t classify the IP like that though I’d say theres 7-12 techs that are solidly in the IOT space, and they all have deals on traction so yeah, thats good.  Nada on quantum computing, thats probably stuck in the research/new frontier, we dont recognize what we’ve done as IP yet.  Same with VR, see little on that front, anything that does pop gets sucked into the open source void, which isn’t to say it has no opportunity but more to say the perception is that is should be free- people forget that many of the valleys greatest startups are built on free models.  Analytics connected to health continues but its mixed- its about the questions and problems and insight you want from that space.  We need more that just tools that are fast, we need stakeholders that have questions, or more so we need pattern sensing AI thats connected to pending regulation, opportunity, or infrastrcture changes coming.

Five, 2015 Predictions for the Central Ohio Startup Scene

  1. Traction and Exits.
    Central Ohio startups formed 3-5 years ago will be more notable, recognizable and piling on the traction front.  Some will be exiting.  Of course we rarely hear about the startups that tried and died.  But I see more talk of traction, more tale of how, the people of Columbus will rally to support and exits, mergers and acquisitions will be afoot.  Some of these starts are down right tactical meaning their time for epic glory is coming, provided their ramen will last.

    As of August 30th?  – Exits haven’t occurred at least to my knowledge, there has been bit ones that I know of but not the ummph or booms we’d like to see and hear about.  Traction is happening for those startups that have received significant funding.  Its been a pretty “steady as she goes” year for Columbus startups.  

  2. City of Design.
    Columbus is booming with agencies.  Columbus has always been a “design” town but it will be more known and notable in 2015 as the many more agencies spin up, mid sized ones expand into larger agencies, and the pool of talent coming out of the schools kicks of more doers, believers, thinkers and so on.  Columbus is becoming a magnet for hip, interesting, arts, maker, doable, hustle.  The frame of “design” is changing as well as it bleeds into any and all biz related the space- software, PR, creative, maker, experience, research, you name it!   How this factors into the startup scene?  Well more shops crafting and coding meaning more code made here for here.  Plus the talent pools and spill overs forming new groups will be continual.

    As of August 30th? – We’ll Columbus is awash of new dev firms, that is true.  But this was more a notion I had when i saw the rise of ad firms and folks like wondersauce coming to town and what not.  I think its not so well baked on my part.

  3. Power Struggle in the Tower of Influence.
    As more people believe there are more to be told the message.  Of course the message varies and we’ll see that unfold in 2015 as the game of influence.  There are new players in town.  Even more to come.  The battle of influence from everything to how to start to why to start is underway, its been brewing for awhile but the game is getting thicker.  We’ll see more events, more conferences, more blogs, more chatter, more well, everything.  Its not just for VC tho, from casual players to private equity, just about everyone is eyeing on what they see as next in Columbus Ohio.  The long game is definitely apparent.  The prize is what’s ahead in 10 years.  2015 will be a good year for opinion and voices on the subject, as the hustler audience doubles so does the demand for worthy content and commentary.  So influence will be unfolding on multiple tiers, incubator, state level, life style, funding, making, retail, you name it, there is room for curation, authority and influence.

    As of August 30th? – Hasn’t happened, most cause there are few challengers to the norm.  

  4. CASH continues to be tight.
    The golden goose of every would be startup is CASH, who can provide it?  Well in 2015, cash will be present but it will still be tight.  Just because Forbes writes an article on Columbus every other month doesn’t mean the midwest just gave us all a blank amex card.  New currency will be passed around from mentorship to space to networking power but CASH will still serve the golden key of survival for many.  Which will make our scene hard to grow within, meaning we’ll be talking out our related states and valley partners to help bridge the valley of death every new business must cross- onward to traction!  The ideas built on transactions today will SKYROCKET in Columbus and serve as early leaders of the space.  The State of Ohio will continue to fuel and encourage the scene as well, and I suspect it will double down in some ways providing more CASH for solid people with ideas that can prove the rainbow of cash on the other side.  More people will turn to crowd funding, angels and more cash enabling ideas to get their start as well.  The big question is whether or not Columbus finds a way to help the big disrupters cross the gap without big cash- which could happen.. if we reduce the impact of where cash goes.  For example the pending tax free zone coming for startups, combined with affordable talent and great ideas and long term players betting on 2025, maybe we can grow that base for the big disrupters.

    As of August 30th?  – True.  Cash continues to be tight for startups.  People continue to tell me this isn’t true, and thats from folks that have money and or wish to communicate that all is well.  Reality is, money is still tight.  The requirements for money are increasing tight if not overly laborious, course its not like i’m giving out funds.  But I see plenty of startups struggle and thats basically the model really, unless you convince others, or do the obstacle course or give away a big chunk of what you’re doing.  Its not just that there’s few cash outlets, there’s few cash prospects on the horizon too.  Everyone credits DRIVE Capital with signaling the new era of VC vesting in columbus but thats pretty much a myth.

    DRIVE is good for the region but it wants overwhelmingly good/obvious/already have traction plays to invest in.  Traction like customers.  DRIVE is growth cash, double down on customer acquisition cash, sizable opportunity with a ball rolling down hill at mach 11 cash.  If you’re starting, you’re on your own in columbus, unless you play startup columbus, and take your lumps like everyone else and or work the system, and or be insanely inventive, or pick a model that doesn’t rely on cash from others.

  5. Foundational Testing.
    With CASH continuing to be challenged and or tight, there will be more foundation testing happening- what the heck is that?  Its basically a means to piece together the fate of a tech/startup without vesting in it.  We’ll see alot of this happening with new incubators spinning up.  It follows along with more people believing as well.  While CASH is tight, hope is boundless and there will be more support (with the hope of influence) to direct the herd of “potentials” into rivers of foundational testing.  This will lead to mixed results.  Testing is good, but so is leaping off the cliff and doing.  Columbus will split between a sea of doers, often insanely crazy or delusional, and later reflected upon as brilliant, to safety net of validation, which can yield good safe results but at what costs?  There is middle ground and we’ll see that play out but get ready for the ride!

    As of August 30th?  – True.  Concept Academy is positioned as Rev1’s gate on this notion of foundational testing.  You favor well in CA and money as a conversation is considered.  I’m continually motivated by the right model for doing a startup, the two sided market is daunting if not impossible in Columbus, the aggerated/organized thing that is yours to organize and improve, i like, the b2b because they better or gov will penalize them, i like as well, the b2c cause like you can and its timely fad, iffy, the b2c because we’re all mobile now, iffy, the b2c cause c wanted b, better.  Finding the model for this town is key to getting funding in this town.  I think MVPs still rule, you gotta show more than a notion of a biz model, you need to show more than a notion for a solid team, you gotta show more than a notion of a concept, you gotta make it.  YOU have to scale it back tho, feel like andre the giant inside but you appear as mouse for the moment.

    Overall, I feel like I’m mixed on predictions.  Most are on target while others are meh.

 

10 Predictions for 2015

future-crystal-ball

 

Its December 15th and as we ease on into the famed xmas week of insanity and xmas shopping, hanging with family and thinking about the end of 2014 and the new year of 2015 approaching, I always scribble down my predictions for the year ahead.   They’re predictions, based on notions, trends, gut thinking, essence in the air of what I’ve seen, what has come to pass and what I foresee as next.  Loosely based on science, a bit based on patterns, much of it based on the sheer gut.

Last week I jolted down 10 predictions.

  • 5 for Ohio State and the state of technology transfer scene in 2015
  • 5 for the Central Ohio startup scene in 2015

Let’s go!

Five, 2015 Predictions for the Ohio State Technology Commercialization Scene

  1. We Believe.
    There is a aura of belief unfolding on campus today.  Its safe to say that commercialization has taken root in the university.  More people believe in the potential of what they’re working on.  We’ll seen even more positive energy toward “we can do it” in terms of ideas to market hustle.  Its across the board from the highest pillars of senior leadership to the deans, chairs and faculty and staff.  And of course the students, always the first to believe I think, they will continue to impress.
  2. Medical / IT led innovation will continue to dominate.
    Startup health is just getting up to speed.  2014 was a big year for mindfulness, wearables, software, data analytics, and more when it comes to health care.  2015 will continue to be very loud on the innovation around health.  Between the new Neuromodulation Center to the new James cancer center spinning up, a sea of innovation, opened doors and possibility will follow.  Plus digital health is beginning to cross the threshold in adoption in both practice and common placement with medical centers and in administrative and doc acceptance.  Add the applicability in terms of next generation compliance/adherence and you find a sea of opportunities.  Note many solutions will be more “risk mitigation” orientated.
  3. In the Groove on Process.
    2014 was an epic year for commercialization and startup process.  The team jelled under new leadership and really pressed into often difficult territory and laid down many processes and norms and procedures on how to do things, how to make things GO.  2015 will see these efforts streamline and get in the groove.  Process is a big part of success when it comes to starting, when it comes to doing, when it comes to alignment and more.  I see us all in the groove for next, let’s do this!  The new Acceleration Award will help many fill in the gap from clinical trials to prototyping, this will compliment general areas of hustle across campus to make, validate, realize and net traction.
  4. Collaboration Frontier.
    Bigger and better collaborations are afoot.  Thats not always a good thing as they tend to be well, involved… but I see more incubators, more collaborative partners, more groups unifying for what could be, more and more thinking, more people coming to the table, especially as more believe in the effort, and the end game.
  5. New IP Frontiers.
    I believe Athletics, Sports Medicine and Arts & Sciences will be new pools of IP frontier.  Not to say its where the big deals will be but these areas will not be “unknown” any more in terms of IP.  Data Analytics will continue to be in the crosshairs as well but it needs time to nurture.  While the demand for Internet of Things is apparently everywhere, I think that area will unfold slowly as well.  Some of the best IP opportunities I see are based around areas the university has extensive “frequency”, by flow, opportunity, context, expertise.  Also what the market thinks is hot NOW tends to be “oh yeah that, we did that like 5 years ago…” meaning the academics and research folks are further in future than you realize.  Like NEXT on campus is likely more Quantum Computing than say IOT, or VR, etc.  Not to say its not there, but the fringe of next isn’t mainstream- IOT is going mainstream, in labs, dude we’re working on warp drive (ok maybe not but some amazing stuff, definitely!).

Five, 2015 Predictions for the Central Ohio Startup Scene

  1. Traction and Exits.
    Central Ohio startups formed 3-5 years ago will be more notable, recognizable and piling on the traction front.  Some will be exiting.  Of course we rarely hear about the startups that tried and died.  But I see more talk of traction, more tale of how, the people of Columbus will rally to support and exits, mergers and acquisitions will be afoot.  Some of these starts are down right tactical meaning their time for epic glory is coming, provided their ramen will last.
  2. City of Design.
    Columbus is booming with agencies.  Columbus has always been a “design” town but it will be more known and notable in 2015 as the many more agencies spin up, mid sized ones expand into larger agencies, and the pool of talent coming out of the schools kicks of more doers, believers, thinkers and so on.  Columbus is becoming a magnet for hip, interesting, arts, maker, doable, hustle.  The frame of “design” is changing as well as it bleeds into any and all biz related the space- software, PR, creative, maker, experience, research, you name it!   How this factors into the startup scene?  Well more shops crafting and coding meaning more code made here for here.  Plus the talent pools and spill overs forming new groups will be continual.
  3. Power Struggle in the Tower of Influence.
    As more people believe there are more to be told the message.  Of course the message varies and we’ll see that unfold in 2015 as the game of influence.  There are new players in town.  Even more to come.  The battle of influence from everything to how to start to why to start is underway, its been brewing for awhile but the game is getting thicker.  We’ll see more events, more conferences, more blogs, more chatter, more well, everything.  Its not just for VC tho, from casual players to private equity, just about everyone is eyeing on what they see as next in Columbus Ohio.  The long game is definitely apparent.  The prize is what’s ahead in 10 years.  2015 will be a good year for opinion and voices on the subject, as the hustler audience doubles so does the demand for worthy content and commentary.  So influence will be unfolding on multiple tiers, incubator, state level, life style, funding, making, retail, you name it, there is room for curation, authority and influence.
  4. CASH continues to be tight.
    The golden goose of every would be startup is CASH, who can provide it?  Well in 2015, cash will be present but it will still be tight.  Just because Forbes writes an article on Columbus every other month doesn’t mean the midwest just gave us all a blank amex card.  New currency will be passed around from mentorship to space to networking power but CASH will still serve the golden key of survival for many.  Which will make our scene hard to grow within, meaning we’ll be talking out our related states and valley partners to help bridge the valley of death every new business must cross- onward to traction!  The ideas built on transactions today will SKYROCKET in Columbus and serve as early leaders of the space.  The State of Ohio will continue to fuel and encourage the scene as well, and I suspect it will double down in some ways providing more CASH for solid people with ideas that can prove the rainbow of cash on the other side.  More people will turn to crowd funding, angels and more cash enabling ideas to get their start as well.  The big question is whether or not Columbus finds a way to help the big disrupters cross the gap without big cash- which could happen.. if we reduce the impact of where cash goes.  For example the pending tax free zone coming for startups, combined with affordable talent and great ideas and long term players betting on 2025, maybe we can grow that base for the big disrupters.
  5. Foundational Testing.
    With CASH continuing to be challenged and or tight, there will be more foundation testing happening- what the heck is that?  Its basically a means to piece together the fate of a tech/startup without vesting in it.  We’ll see alot of this happening with new incubators spinning up.  It follows along with more people believing as well.  While CASH is tight, hope is boundless and there will be more support (with the hope of influence) to direct the herd of “potentials” into rivers of foundational testing.  This will lead to mixed results.  Testing is good, but so is leaping off the cliff and doing.  Columbus will split between a sea of doers, often insanely crazy or delusional, and later reflected upon as brilliant, to safety net of validation, which can yield good safe results but at what costs?  There is middle ground and we’ll see that play out but get ready for the ride!

Usually I have a few more as well.. like..

  • stocks
  • tech trends
  • startups to watch

but yeah.. we’ll get to that later.  Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!

 

Can venture capital disrupt academia?

Via the A16z Podcast about evolving trends in venture capital investing in academia. This is key podcast for leadership across all colleges, ILO and TCO offices, great big thinking here.

It’s a myth that startups happen in isolation. Those legendary two people in a garage are often building on deep and basic research — long funded by government and conducted in universities — that has come before it. But with the advent of the internet, what’s the future of peer-to-peer collaborations and startups-as-“science experiments”? Can venture capital disrupt academia… and vice versa? And finally, what’s the secret to universities like Stanford making money off the entrepreneurial ideas coming out of them? (Hint: It starts with a ‘p’. But isn’t what you think.)

a16z’s new professor in residence Vijay Pande interviews Marc Andreessen at our recent Academic summit on these topics, as well as ‘regulatory arbitrage’; how to mix humanities and science; and what major Marc would have done if he were 18 today.

 

The Ackerman 660 Project

buildingImg

 

Sometimes I laugh at some of the truly crazy ideas I come up with.  This week I went to a meeting at 660 Ackerman to talk to an inventor around some algorithms in management engineering, cool stuff, brilliant guy, great team and super engaged department.  It was a fun meeting, the energy was excellent, we gotta a plan, a mission, we’re gonna try- because if we don’t try, we got nada.

BUT in the elevator going down, leaving the building i couldn’t help but stare at the directory in the elevator- every floor, various departments, all around the management services, departments etc for the hospital/cancer center etc.  Sometimes intellectual property is not obvious- transfer offices are hard wired to find IP and patents in the labs and benches of our core R&D offerings on campus, but here, in this building I see a different kind of IP.

The IP of process, the IP of expense, the IP of transactions, patient experience, revenue cycle management, billing, customer management, data analytics, workflow optimization, strategy on how to save millions and spend it wisely…. this building is full of IP, it holds 2 startups maybe more we just haven’t found them yet.

But they’re here, I know it.  Even better they’re all likely to be enabled through software, which is CHEAP considering its power in wielding the ability to manifest NEXT.

I studied that floor department listing more closely, yeah… i nodded and the elevator doors opened, people were getting in and I was there just staring that this directory… eventually I had to get out of the elevator.

Hackathon, yep, you heard me, hackaton, this whole building needs to do one massive floor by floor challenge hackathon, each floor is responsible for serving up big ideas they see, big opportunities they believe could be huge, and the whys behind that, and the notions of how’d they do it, each floor of 660 ackerman, needs to battle it out with the other floors, together creating one massive say, day long or week long hackathon- they dont need to code, merely serve up the big idea, they compete with the other floors, we do our own shark tank, have teams manifest their pitches, I’ll help each one of them do it, me and my team, you got it, then lets see, bring forth the ideas i know that are in that building.  Make it fun, make it engaging, enable the guy or gal that has seen the same problem over and over and over, step out of the cubical and say “ummm i got an idea to fix this” because the beauty of that idea is that FIRST, we, Ohio State benefits from that innovation, and then second, we take it to market, and third, we change the culture and we enable people to show us the next, and they want to be heard.

Now how to pull this off?

Well thats like a proposal, then a conversation, then a meeting, and so on.  Would everyone participate, maybe yes, likely no, but without trying you get nothing, I’ll keep trying.  Plus it’d be a hugely awesome feat if we could do it… really WE can, just gotta say, do lets go for it.

Nothing motivates people like annoying problems, or well cash, but while a cash prize could be done, we really want the annoying problems and the experts to fix them to stand up.

Easily over half of commercialization is “noticing” what could be, and then being crazy enough to go for it.

I notice you 660 Ackerman, I will keep digging!

WearGood pitch analysis

A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of judging the first WearGood hackathon event in Columbus.  Held at TechColumbus and put on by the CivicHacks team the event was “challenging”.  David All is resilient guy.  While I love wearable tech, I thought a hackathon with wearable tech would be challenging- because the average startup weekend is hard to see results.  But David and Jennifer and his whole team rocked it, even with low participation in the overall event.  

Let’s talk about participation.  After doing events like Wakeup Startup, Ignite Columbus, Startup Weekend, and the hackathons I put together at TCO, participation in my view is a luck of the draw.  You never really know you have it until the the last week or so before the event.  In some ways I think of events around this notion that do I have enough friends to make it worth while, if yes, do it, if no then risk it and be happy regardless with outcome.

Events are about leading.  They’re about telling the planet, “we’re supposed to be going this way” they are filled with RISK.  You need to embrace the audacity within and go for it and that sounds cool but sucks big time when no one shows.  We’re not mighty morphin power rangers, we’re people with feelings, we want traction, and when we work so hard and don’t get it, it sucks.  So huge congrats to the WearGood team for pressing thru and making it happen with low participation numbers.

41u91nME9sL._SY300_

The Teams

I was seriously impressed with the teams, writing software in 24hrs is challenging, doing a wearable hacked thing, that sounds even harder.  Sometimes its hard to judge these teams.  I feel bad for judging teams like this because the act of creation itself never seems to get a break.  I mean its hard enough willing something into existence and then being cross examined by folks who debate your biz model.  In some ways I wish we wouldn’t discuss biz models and instead speak to traction and only that.

Anyways.. the teams.  (via weargood site)

STEPLITE – FIRST PLACE

StepLite solves a medical challenge by deploying wearable technology to alert the person wearing the device when pressure is placed on the bottom of the foot.

Why it got first place?  Why did this pitch win?  Well for a few reasons I figure, one, its healthcare, and right now investors love anything healthcare.  Second it worked, and the use case, the primary user was the creators husband.  It was nice to see tangible working thing right there doing its job.  It was also simple, understandable, a narrative that worked.  It didn’t talk about a 64 billion dollar industry of feet, it spoke to this person in this room needs this thing right now.  And they willed it life and there it was.  So it just had all the right nuts and bolts to make it go.  I loved that it kept working throughout the other pitches as well.  The team was new, or at least felt new, they felt coachable.  Product still has a ways to go but the size of the market, the applicable need and such all seemed good.

THE BAND – SECOND PLACE

The Band solves the identity problem in homelessness by using NFC technology to provide a profile that can be easily accessed from a wearable band.

What about this pitch?  Well this team took the Frankencup award from me and BigKittyLabs.  The prototype worked, and I like software feats of amazement in short time frames.  I also liked the “data” aspect of this play and its “infrastructure” opportunity.  If done well, and nets adoption, this concept would get acquired for organizing, enabling a whole new market.  However, later I thought.. you might not need hardware at all and simple go with biometrics and use fingerprint id and just do away with yet another thing people can use and or traffic to exploit the system.

SHAKE UP – THIRD PLACE

Shake Up addresses unemployment and entrepreneurship by bringing the act of swapping business cards to a wearable device in a fun and engaging way.

What about this pitch?  This one i was surprised got into the top 3.  I think it did because it looked the most “built”  The pitcher had the item on his hand with wires and all it feel the most cyber.  But I dunno for me its another kickstarter project, go for it, but i’m not sure about the biz per say.  But by all means go for it.

PAVLOG

Pavlog is an app that connects wearable technology to the Internet of things to create a personal marketplace for all of your connected habits.

What about this pitch?   This pitch felt familiar, if you’ve followed the quantified self scene there are alot of companies connecting health to habits and the like.  Pitch wise I felt I needed to see more on this one to get the gist of where it was going.  Its an idea that I’d continue to work on though- but at an insurance/accountable care angle so that what you end up has sustainable traction to it.

COMPASS

A wearable device can be used to educate by gamifying field trips and unlocking interesting content.

What about this pitch?  Geocaching concepts are coming back.  This one had an interesting twist where by kids gain from location based education aspects, like, challenges of go to COSI, go here, go there etc.  It’d be another idea that could work, but needs baked.

REFRACT

Refract is a public art installation that uses wearable technology to interact with mind-bending glass/light displays.

What about this pitch?  Cool idea from the hackable aspect.  I think this one would do well on Kickstarter, but it screamed expensive infrastructure to get going and be a biz.  But thats where kickstarter can help maybe.  I liked the idea of citizens hacking/updating city public art installations.

LIGHT IT UP

Events can use the Light It Up wearable technology to synchronize massive, personal light shows.

What about this pitch?  This felt like something that RedBull would sponsor.  Needed to be baked more, but they pulled off the tech demo.

Overall great event, look forward to seeing more from the Civic Hacks team in the future!

The Traction Potential Score – Part 1

It’s been a busy summer.  Even while students were away the halls of TCO were packed with inventions, patents, and hustle.  The machine of invention is relentless.

I did alot of ideation this summer, which is one of my favorite things to do at TCO.  Take something, shape it, make it better.  Course I still like the dance, the art of the deal, and the ramp up to awesomeness.  But ideation lets you create.  And that has me thinking about new ways to triage and assess ideas.

I look back on successful techs that I have been a part of that turned into deals for the university and I think about common aspects in and around those deals and techs, what are the factors that made those things fly, or was it all by chance?  For as much as I perceive and believe that some technologies are more valuable then others, I can’t help but think of the crazy things that come out of Silicon Valley that no sane person would believe had any potential and in mere years some of them have become juggernaughts of disruption and billion dollar pay days.

I like to think that part of my skill set is believing and overcoming the odds of no that befall all technologies attempting to get to market.  Its like a mission.  And it is a roller coaster.  And its pretty unpredictable.  And all these things I think freak out just about everyone in for the journey. You need to be insanely resilient to start a biz.  You have to have more optimism than most and you have to know your customer, your product, the market and have a nose for traction.

This has me thinking about triage and assessment of technologies in a new light.  Of course there’s the basics of assessment, how big is the market, who or what is the gold standard and the competition questions.  Then there’s patents and protection.  None of my deals have ever had any protection, no patents in my neck of the woods, not to say i don’t like them, but I tend to favor techs or shall i say i’ve had more success with techs that had inherent momentum to them, ie traction potential.

On the way home today from work, coming out of an ideation session with a team of inventors part of the Arts & Sciences CAPS group, where we dabbled with some feature mapping and tales of traction, got me to thinking that traditional assessment is good but in software, for me, what I need to see is “traction potential” or a TPS, yes thats right Office Space people, I need a TPS report.  What is that technologies Traction Potential Score?  It should be noted that i’m solely speaking to a tech’s TPS score in the view of a deal to be, not a TPS score in the sense of its overall success in the market.  Tho they are related, like anything however, especially in making things come to life, there are phases, ie the journey.

How do you compute a Traction Potential Score?

Well for me, first we have to qualify what I like to work with.  It has to be copyrighted content, software orientated, and or problem that is addressable by software.  So what I need to see is either software thats been made, or content that could be something and or a problem articulated with a notion that software could fix it.

Then there’s factors that get weighed in the mix.  Some are more critical than others.

They are: Team, Alignment, Audacity, Conviction, DogFood, Enablement, Narrative, Sauce, Customer, Baselines.

Team, people matter.  I often hear this from investment, they lead their investment based on people first not technology.  Why?  Because you want to bet on the person with the idea to overcome the journey and pitfalls ahead.  This is why so many investment groups end up placing their own people into deals i figure, control is one aspect i’m sure, but its also a sense of can the guy/gal at the helm take the hit that will hit hard- hr, tech, customer – related fails etc.  For us at the early stages of idea, tech, to license arena, team matters in that licensing is also a journey.  So a team needs to be there hand in hand to get the job done.  The university is not a solo quest.  You need people to make things happen.

Alignment, likely the most important thing early on in getting traction.  If you are aligned you’re ready to do things, crazy things, you’re ready to dream and fail, you’re willing to get back up and pitch, you are willing to be smashed, twisted and then wham you just re-take shape and are good to go.  You align well with others.  You may not always agree, but you’re in it.  With teams are not aligned, all traction stops.  This is a big deal because you’re trying to drive the ball down the field and if the team isn’t working the ball stops and the clock runs, and runs, and runs.  What’s worse is that the team can falsely project that alignment is there but its not thus you don’t realize the clock is running and the ball has gone no where.  For TCO alignment doesn’t come easy.  We’re often a rock in a hard place by a factor of 10.   We’re attempting to help inventors navigate a sea of constraints, legal, conflict, protection of the tech, situational awareness of whats needed to make the tech to go further, optics, politics, dynamics, people stuff, you name it.  But successful deals are born on the backs of alignment.  Sometimes we can’t control the alignment because its outside parties, our would be license’s are often at odds with the universities directive.  This is to be expected really, you don’t want to fault someone for being hustle orientated, you want the economic engine to roar and go fast.  In the end, to me, thinking about TPS, alignment is a big factor.  Luckily it can always be address and tweaked thru communication, best practices, and willingness to bounce back.

Audacity, I use this word alot.  I like techs that have the audacity to change things.  They say, why walk when you can teleport across the room.  Thats a cool tech, lets harness that one and run with it. Audacity helps the marketing and competitive conviction of a concept.  It feeds the essence of the software to change your perspective of what you thought “was” before.  In the valley, everything is change orientated.  Investors love change, to a degree, especially in the sense that this change brings on the potential for new standards, new real estate of which they own or are a player of.  Techs need a degree of audacity.

Conviction, follows alignment, but is really centered on the sheer will factor of a tech.  Sometimes I see techs that communicate conviction.  Then I meet the people that invented them and I see conviction in their eyes, their mannerisms, the way they quickly attain alignment, become a part of the team, and invent additional IP nearly on the fly or manifest it for the one goal, to make this tech move, make it fly.  These people are self starters.  They are the mover and shakers the university is working to cultivate, to unearth and likely find.  Odds are they are already known in their groups and departments, but not always.  A big part of the resiliency you need to go.

DogFood.. heh, this refers to the likely-hood that the university or inventor will use the technology themselves. I still stand behind the notion that some of our biggest deals to date are based on the Dog Food factor, ie, we ate it ourselves.  This is great for the traction score because you’re gonna do the idea regardless of commercialization.  This allows the TCO to work in parallel of your efforts.  Plus its a nice big indicator of interest to biz leads when they realize the university is going to see it thru.  Of course most take that wrong though.  They see that the university needs that thing they made, cool, i’ll license it and sell it back to them, awesome- but thats not how it works.  It hasn’t happened on my watch at least.  Plus thats the wrong thinking I want from a biz lead.  I want them to think about new customers, beyond the buckeye walls.  What is good however is that technically their is a first customer, the university, and that in marketing and telling people the tale of why they need x thing is huge early on.  So many startups fail to get a first customer, in techs with high Dog Food factor, we got you covered on that.  The Dog Food factor also means the tech has more widgets and wheels, there’s more meat on the bone, and that makes the IP richer and a better healthier hand for the university, meaning more likely to net $ in my opinion.  A strong Dog Food factor also means the administration, the higher ups stand to benefit more in that these techs represent a often infrastructure need that is converted into cash.  I also like them because the university is a sea of possible context.  I tell people Ohio State is a city.  You name it, we have it.

Enablement, how well is the technology currently enabled.  Meaning, do you have code, do you have an app, do you have content?  Traction is about speed, time, time to get to market, can you get it, you have to iterate and roll, fast.  If the tech has no current enablement, thats unfortunate, it doesn’t rule it out of the TPS, though likely downs the score a bit.  Some IP is tricky, its conversational, its someone recognizing the need, and that seems meh at first until you realize theres more to that need. I often gravitate toward ideas with code however but are part of a story that I see enabled.  There are a handful of techs that purely content and or just stories of customers and needs, that I see the end game on.  I already see the software.  I know it can be made, thus it factors into my enablement score be it lower often than sitting on existing code.  Its hard to explain, but sometimes you see it, you know everything to make, and its not hard to you, you still people to make it, but you see it.  Thats why i think I like prototyping so much, is because seeing it in my mind and then seeing it in code, no matter how crude is an amazing feeling of awesome.  In those instances I become inventor in some ways.  I enjoy helping people see their ideas realized, its why I’m at TCO.

Narrative, can the tech be spoken to in a narrative form that people get.  What most people don’t realize is that whatever big idea you’ve got, if you can’t articulate it in 5 minutes or less, odds of you netting any traction is near zero.  Its not to say we want noncomplex ideas, its just that our audience does.  I still recall my first day at TCO going around campus leaping from complex context to complex context.  It was crazy, insanely complicated battery technology, polymers, to medical this and that.  A primary TCO mission is to inform the planet of the insanely awesome invention we have at Ohio State, to do that, techs have go from complex to meaning in marketing.  And its a super fine line.  You dont want to dumb it down but you also dont want to alienate.  A conversation of huh is still better than no conversation, so i’ll take a huh any day, but when the other party declines to connect based on confusion, thats not good.  In 5 minute pitches, the audience actually views the speaker more than the deck.  So the narratives are key.  People have heard this before, the elevator pitch.  But whats more accurate in todays scene is the taxi pitch, meaning you’re pitching to people distracted, looking to get in another vehicle to take them somewhere, and you need to have enough appeal for them to either pass on the taxi or invite you in for the ride.  Techs with a low narrative score can hinder traction because the language of understanding is unknown.

Sauce… hmmm this is like techs having an angle to them.  I love it when I come across a tech/idea that has angle.  The angle refers to a secret sauce aspect of the idea, like for example, pending law changes will impact this market causing these people to freak out because this will be mandated.  Building for that pending change, regulation etc, is a nice angle.  It doesn’t rule out others can target it as well, however.  Sometimes sauce is purely technology awesomeness, xyz tech does it better than anything out there, or maybe its the patent.  Every tech has a sauce, the special, the one thing the inventor pulled from the heavens and infused into their creation.  Sometimes we can’t see the sauce, but we feel it as it moves thru the vibes of the inventor, its fuels their conviction, and we get it, and more so it plays to narrative in a big way.  TCO isn’t meant to be an all knowing league of extraordinary people (though we are) we’re about having the right mixture of people to take IP further, and the mission is not to run these new companies, tell established ones what to do, but help set them and the IP in motion.

Customers.  Ya gotta know the customer.  You have to have a sense for who they are.  I like to know what they eat for breakfast, I wanna know frequency of use with the said thing you made for them.  I want to know what inspires them.  What they read, who they hang with, and why they want your product.  With customers come a sense of transaction, which in itself is a worthy factor but I bundle it in with Customer.  Transactions, moments of engagement between customers and your said thing is what drives your IP in the end.  That value that customers see in your IP, and transact accordingly is the crowning achievement of commercialization.  Can an idea with no customers have traction?  The crazy thing is yes.  Why because technology is an ever oozing entity in itself.  Technology is like force and things like the internet help spawn patterns of random weirdness, like strange fragments or residue left over from human interaction, I believe sometimes these fragments themselves are things that get traction regardless of a known customer or not.  Whats more crazy is that those things snowball, especially online and they themselves reveal whole new markets and customers that feed them.  This is the power of software, especially when it fades to near zero cost, technology doesnt ask why, and there for it breeds an army of doers that don’t ask why either.  That lack of why or lack of customer orientated thinking runs rampant online and cannot be underestimated.  It doesnt appear in our halls too often however, as inventors invent IP typically for a reason, but we as an org, as a university, need to champion discovery, we have to nurture the possible, especially the force of technology, its a cult.  I mean you can ignore it, but why?  There’s a hundred would be Zuckerbergs on campus, why and what would the university stand to gain in limiting the dreams of people? Nothing. So dream on customer or not I say.  But for our TPS score, we like ya to have a customer in mind.

Baselines.  Are there norms to compare to?  Baselines are like competition but I don’t want to use that word any more because it spooks people into the wrong line of thinking.  Too many times would be startup or inventor thinkers get caught on the its gotta be something that no ones done before mindset.  They obsess over newness, but that is a terrible pit of badness.  For me on the traction score, if you have no competition, that is a huge red flag.  With no known baselines, you’re really on to something or you’re in a scary unknown un-investable space because with no baselines, ummm whats up or down?  Plus the “i gotta be the only one” thinking is really really bad for the whole traction story, for the narrative it means you’re super unknown, for enablement it means the tech is either really hard to understand, and or going down a path of squiggly uncertainty because we’re not customer focused as much as being totally new and unique focused. But is there a line of good competition and bad?  Yes but its case by case basis really. Baselines include more than competition, they speak to the norms or patterns in and around the tech, perspective of market, market size, willingness of that market to embrace new things, typical costs, team makeups, likely investors in that space etc.  Computing this factor is tricky as well, its like a gut score.  There’s some but not overwhelming odds.  The perception of ODDS against you is also dangerous, which is why you need a high conviction, audacity, enablement and alignment score to overcome those ODDS, which are purely suggestive, its not like you feel them, they are thrown at you by others.  When you pitch an idea, you pitch it a 1000 times to a sea of nos until you net that ok lets talk.  Through pitching you gain confidence, more data, and help hone your narrative, heighten your sauce, brag about your dog food and shine thru enablement.

Traction is a battle, but going forward I’ll be thinking more about the TPS report!  The next post will be applying the TPS to some past deals and ones i’m working on now to thinking about TPS in terms of what I see in the valley and more.

Channeling Jacques Cousteau

cousteau-diving-saucer-abercrombie_8009_990x742

 

Jacques Cousteau is one of my fondest memories growing up.  My father was always watching this guy that would go to the ocean and like find stuff.  He was basically as good as Sean Connery to me, sure he wasn’t Bond but they guy was always in the ocean finding stuff.

Sometimes I think about my role at university, this explorer, looking for technologies in the sea of Ohio State.  I don’t have a cool retro mini sub like Jacq had but the mission is relatively the same, go seek, find, discover and report back to base.  That mission is one I love at the Technology Commericalization Office.

Course its not all gravy.  Much of Jacq’s life is picking thru shells on the sea floor and pulling up the really really special things.  But these days, everyone has their special thing, who are you to say this shell or that shell doesn’t matter?  Well there are tools, but I like to fall back on the basics- what’s the problem you’re solving, what’s the solution you’ve realized, what’s the dna of what you’ve injected into the big idea to realize it and tell me a story of 5 people who love it and why?  Others will beat ya over the head on competition, and market size, value projections, which are actually all valid, but to me, momentum trumps everything.  But SPEED has a cost, it cares not about what you personally want, it only speaks to traction in the market, a market where consumers jump from brand to brand faster than bees on flowers in a field.  Loyalty only occurs when you’re really really really good.

Jacq spent alot of time on the bottom of the ocean before dishing out some classic finds.  Life at TCO is similar.  In every office theres a battle plan on the wall, ideas and techs to be something larger, greater, hopefully realized.  People often think we’re sitting on this trove of treasure but its really more like a ocean bed of shells, some are more enabled to get to market to win than others.  I love an underdog though.  But an underdog product with no customer or value perception is a project, and thats ok, cause projects + love = realization in a larger level one day.

You do see something however, startups are going mainstream.  They’re in the diet of nearly every magazine and journal.  Startups, creating things we see as hopefully super awesome is happening everywhere.  Whats really crazy is that just doing and starting is starting to be the same thing.  The danger is that doing is doing and that starting up, well that implies alot more and assumes alot more.  But many folks are actually just doing but feel they need to be starting up to say their doing.  (thats deep!)  What happens is that they should be just doing but instead they get caught in the trap of “well to do i must be a startup, and startups get money to do, so where’s my check?” and it doesn’t quite work like that.  I always think every check i take is another commitment i need to fulfill.  Before seeking a check be sure you can tell the story about how without it you still rock.  Its not to say you wont get it, but in todays market, money is rarely the reason why you didn’t succeed.   Ohio is starting to shape up however, more and more capital is being injected into the sphere of startups with momentum.  Every day I work to craft and shape my focus to enable OSU related startups to rock in that respect.

Its a great time to invent, its even a better time to validate- that is our greatest asset at Ohio State I think.  The ability to invent, everyone can do, the ability to test and validate that big idea in research, applied to projects, enabled by the young minds that go on to be work force of tomorrow, what a huge massive and awesome opportunity.

I often think about the seriously tasty.. and here’s what I think is seriously tasty and needs to get to market more at Ohio State.  Consider these my Jacq Cousteau learnings after 2 years here…

  1. Validation.  We don’t give ourselves as much credit as we’ve earned when it comes to our expertise and validation we apply to the process of ideas.  Validation in my mind, is one of the next great frontiers for Ohio State.  Our ability to address, quantify, improve, validate and test across 13 colleges, with multiple focus areas not mention a world class Cancer center and epic sports department, holy cats people, thats awesome.
  2. Content, content, content.  The university sits on a massive treasure trove of information.  We create a ton of content to address well, just about everything.  We craft the narratives that teach the students of tomorrow.  We create alot of content.  All that content given its exposure to students and “practice” has inherent momentum attached to it.   The university carries with it scale, it carries city like application.  We are a small city, you ever think about that?  Pretty wild really.  Content falls under varied tiers however in terms of commercialization, thats short of saying its not all up to TCO, in fact most is out of our reach.  But the opportunities to funnel, shape, and wield that information and form game changing applications around it however are in our wheel house.
  3. Practical Applied Engineering, ok I just fudged that a bit.  But the gist is that our engineering applied to context, that holds value, equals win.  When we solve our own problems at Ohio State we create tangible living assets that are screaming to go to market.  While many are looking for the absolutely newest thing on the planet, I’m in the halls of obvious looking at folks who used x thing for as long as they could until they said heck with it and re-engineering it and made it 1% to 200% better.  What’s great about those innovations is that they all have a strong compelling narrative around them.  They breathe.  They have stories.  I love stories of suck.  “Yeah we used x, it sucked…” thats awesome, tell me how and why that thing sucked.  Just about everything thats ever sucked has come from a company, a company that probably did a fair job at getting people to buy it, course then it sucked.  But the lesson here is that proven sales channels exist, known customers are there, new innovations on top of known markets mean momentum just a few steps away from realization.  The completely new thing still has a chance to get to market but its harder, it has no other thing to compare to, it may not even have a customer that knows thats a problem they have.  I love ideas that are just 5-20% better than the now, huge opportunity- BUT you have to go FAST.
  4. Context Gold Rush.  The university represents a context gold rush.  I always love to retort to those that ask me “well what does the university offer?” (in terms of technology) and my response is always “you name it”.  We have everything.  Really we do.  And even if we don’t, we need to stick with the mantra that we do.  Why?  Because we do.  Seriously, ideas are less about specific constructs of enablement and more about a recipe of win.  You need a dash of this, a bit of that, its a mixture and universities rock in this department.  We sit on a massive bed of context.  If we were really crazy, we’d roll into any department at the med center and just for 1 day focus on next, we’d yank out about 40 ideas, 10 of which are really whole new companies. Then the beauty is that we actually have the bits and dashes of expertise to validate those notions, we need more help of course but the context of “could that work” is there.  We likely have tons of software and algorithms to apply to the venture to enable it, to refine it, and of course we have the sponsored research power to further enable it.

We are entering an interesting time both in our enabled society, radically net-connected youth and the dawn of everyone-can-ware.  Should be fun!

The Modest Merlin

Every now and then I meet yet another what I call a “modest merlin” on campus.  This is a person who can wield unusually enabled powers for our time.  One example of this would be people knee deep in the maker movement.  Did you know Ohio has the 3rd largest 3d-printing people, biz, communities?  Very cool.  Those people who decide “i’ll just print that..” those folks to me are modest merlins.

Where does the modest come from?  Most of these folks don’t place a sense of ego in front of what they do, they’re laid back, focused and well, just in their zone.  I mean they’re all geeked out to nnnnth end degree of their field of interest but I don’t get the sense they’re wielding godly like powers for impression sake.

Another example of the modest merlin are todays quiet mild mannered software developer.  Todays developers, really really, scary good ones, can wield so much power to make and manifest ideas, they become easily bored with every day software development.  They live on the fringe, testing new ideas, making startups for fun and then abandoning them as soon as they get serious or fester into that “work” zone.

Modest merlin can be found in business i suspect as well, self made entrepreneurs, successful, enabled, but like to blend in.

Maybe I think I’d like to be a modest merlin, I dunno.  I do think we have an incredible means to make today, thats never been out there before.  There are no more boundaries in terms of software development.  Hackery has taken hold and its in every day living.  We and pushing the edges of tech, bleeding the boundaries in robotics, processing power, sensors, ambient passive aware everything.  Interesting stuff.  Hug a merlin today!

Trend: Quantified Self

The Quantified Self trend is one I’ve been following for years when I first read about the term from a blog that was covering Foo Camp an annual hacker event hosted by O’Reiliy Media.  Foo Camp is legendary in terms of events/places in the world that shape things.  Its alot like The Well one of the oldest social networks ever, and if you say The Well then you gotta mention the Whole Earth Catalog and while you’re there drop Mondo 2000 and heck lets say cyberpunk, VR and umm hippies.  Alot of great free thinkers built everything you and I see today right now, right here in this browser.  The Quantified Self movement was born with those free thinkers, people relentlessly curious about everything, especially the untapped, unexplored and the often seemingly inconsequential aspects of our daily lives.  All of that is up for grabs and the grabbed it.

Today, you experience it.  I have half dozen so called quantified self inspired devices that track my health.  I am addicted to these things.  Mostly because they tell me stories about myself and educate me on things I just didn’t think about before, that leads to new behavior patterns, which result in well, more data overload for one, and the better benefit, better health.  But I’m hardly a fit and fiddle guy, I like gadgets and so I love the quantified self.

What is the quantified self you ask?  Wikipedia tells us..

The Quantified Self[1] is a movement to incorporate technology into data acquisition on aspects of a person’s daily life in terms of inputs (e.g. food consumed, quality of surrounding air), states (e.g. mood, arousal, blood oxygen levels), and performance (mental and physical). Such self-monitoring and self-sensing, which combines wearable sensors (EEG, ECG, video, etc.) and wearable computing, is also known as lifelogging. Other names for using self-tracking data to improve daily functioning[2] are “self-tracking”, “auto-analytics”, “body hacking” and “self-quantifying”.[3]

There you have it.  Let’s focus on the words that mean the most… movement, data acqustion, person, sensor.  Most of QS involves sensors in todays health crazed space.  But QS can be non sensor as well, it can be old school observation of your moods, it can be data collection in a game or browser, it can be just about anything you can think of.  Its a cool space, an even cooler trend to follow and an explosive industry to be.  Wearable Computing, basically the heart and soul of QS movement is now a 3 billion dollar market and growing fast.  Sensors are no longer one off products that hear about, they’re turning into and being infused into major brands.  Nike is fan, soon Bebe, Prada, you name it, sensors are going everywhere.

snack on some tasty videos!

 

Now the bigger question I often think about is overload.  We give ya more data but we still have stupid people, I am one of those stupid people.  Meaning more data doesn’t change behavior.  In fact more data with less understanding equals stress.  Its more crap the human has to manage, and the human is pissed that he/she has to think about that crap without the comfortable blanket of context, meaning, fulfillment.  I mean I drown myself in Harry Potter lore, so much to the point most people would run away from me sensing that data overload, but to me, because I have a “key” to context, meaning and fulfillment around that data set,its not so bad, it empowers me.  Same goes for todays onslaught of quantified self health related data.  When its education, informative, game like, engaging, when I’m given the key to getting it, it sticks, and behavior change is possible, when its noise, we’re back to stress and me whining about bad gadgets at dinner parties.

So while the scene explodes with more sensors and more capture abilities, the data set grows and the noise level ramps up, but unless that story is told to me in a way i get it, and I get a key, the whole product, the company, everything you do is in jeopardy, and I’m label a fussy, fickle customer.  HA!

Regardless, I love this trend, one of my favs.  I look forward to where they’ll take us next.

The Behavioral Holy Grail

Ahhh the quest for understanding, anticipating, modifying human behavior.  Its the DNA in everything we do and use.  Social networks are constantly data mining our thoughts and movements, our networks, our intent is constantly in question, our behavioral mapping always a desire.  As these cray super computers x 1000 in our pockets get smarter and smarter, the game of understanding humans better than they understand themselves is afoot.  That is a fun ride really.