Read it Later: August 2015

Monday, August 31, 2015

Fwd: solar-energy revolution

----- Forwarded message from Peter Diamandis <peter@diamandis.com> -----
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 2015 09:47:11 -0700
From: Peter Diamandis <peter@diamandis.com>
Reply-To: peter@diamandis.com
Subject: solar-energy revolution
To: STeve <stevescott@techacq.com>

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solar-energy revolution

My friend Ray Kurzweil projects the U.S. will meet 100 percent of its electrical energy needs from solar in 20 years.

Elon Musk is a bit more conservative, pegging it at 50 percent in that timeframe.

While the growth of solar may seem slow to some, it's fair to say it's in the midst of its "deceptive phase," on the road to disruption.

For example, a 30 percent increase in solar energy production per year, means 1 percent today grows to 1.3 percent in 3 years.

It also means that in 20 years (7 doublings), we'll see a 128-fold increase.

Either way, it Ray and Elon are even close, there is a trillion dollars up for grabs (as well as the future of our planet), and the future is bright.

Let's take a closer look at the converging technologies driving this future...

The cost of solar panels is dropping exponentially.

The first and most important technological change is the falling cost per watt of silicon photovoltaic cells over the past few decades.

Check out the plummeting cost from $76 in 1977, to less than $0.36 today.

The International Energy Agency predicts that we will produce 662 GigaWatts of solar energy by 2035 following a $1.3 trillion investment in this area, but frankly this estimate is "highly conservative."

The second technology at play is satellite-Earth imaging, which enables companies like solar City to make rapid and accurate decisions on solar panel installations.

These days, an installer can check out your rooftop on Google Earth and determine in minutes if you are a good candidate. Super-simple.

Energy Storage Mechanisms Are Improving Rapidly

The third key technology transforming our energy economy is battery storage.

The ability to take solar energy captured during the day, and time-shift it into the night.

Here to the change has been very significant, with a 50%+ reduction over the past four years, and an additional 50%+ reduction by 2020.

In addition to this ongoing cost reduction, we're about to see a massive increase in battery production.

Tesla's Giga-factory alone will produce 35 Gigawatts worth of the batteries by 2020, more than 2013's total global battery production capacity.

Electric Vehicles (EVs)

Tesla's Gigafactory also supports the production of 500,000 electric vehicles per year.

The rapid rise (see below) of Electric Vehicle (EV) production will play a critical role as well.

As the number of EVs increases, so too will the availability of batteries sitting in your driveway.

These will, in turn, provide a distributed network of storage capacity able to regulate, allocate, and conserve energy collected from the sun during the day.

6 D's: Tying It All Together

The convergence of solar, batteries and EVs will democratize energy production and offer billions of people access to cheap, carbon-neutral energy.

Looking at solar energy thru my 6 Ds paradigm of exponential technologies may offer some added insights:

Digitized: How we manufacture, measure, and control solar electricity has become digitized, and therefore hopped on an exponential growth path.
Deceptive: Today we are in the deceptive phase of solar growth. Remember, a 30% increase per year means we are only 7 doublings, or 21 years, away from a 128-fold increase.
Disruptive: With 5,000 times more solar hitting the Earth's surface in a year than humanity uses today, solar has plenty of 'head-room' for growth. The UBS study said it well: "Our view is that the 'we have done it like this for a century' value chain in developed electricity markets will be turned upside down within the next 10-20 years, driven by solar and batteries."
Dematerialized: a distributed, pervasive solar grid will create a far more robust and capable energy grid. Again, from the UBS report, "(Today's) large-scale power generation, will be the dinosaur of the future energy system: Too big, too inflexible, not even relevant for backup power in the long run".
Demonetized: Ultimately, energy from the Sun is free. Better yet, the poorest countries in the world are also the sunniest. Imagine a world where there is a squanderable amount of cheap and clean energy?
Democratized: As said above, solar scales globally, available to everyone, even in the poorest countries in the world.

It's Time to Join the Revolution

UBS continues:

"By 2025, everybody will be able to produce and store power. And it will be green and cost competitive, i.e., not more expensive or even cheaper than buying power from utilities. It is also the most efficient way to produce power where it is consumed, because transmission losses will be minimized. Power will no longer be something that is consumed in a 'dumb' way. Homes and grids will be smart, aligning the demand profile with supply from (volatile) renewables."

UBS predicts the payback time for unsubsidized investment in electric vehicles plus battery storage plus rooftop solar will be around 6 to 8 years by 2020 (see below).

From my perspective, solar must be considered a central driver for our future economy.

How will this affect your business? Industry? Life? If this area is of interest to you, I have put together a mastermind of CEOs, executives, entrepreneurs, and forward-thinkers called Abundance 360 who meet on a regular basis to learn, debate and share these types of ideas. If interested, you can apply here.

All the best,
Peter

P.S. Each week, I write a blog on exciting emerging technologies and trends. Sign up at AbundanceHub.com to ensure you don't miss them.

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PHD Ventures , 800 Corporate Pointe, Culver City, CA 90230

Sunday, August 30, 2015

Fwd: problems are goldmines

-------- Forwarded Message --------

Subject:	problems are goldmines
Date:	Sun, 30 Aug 2015 10:29:20 -0700
From:	Peter Diamandis <peter@diamandis.com>
Reply-To:	peter@diamandis.com
To:	STeve <stevescott@techacq.com>

The world's biggest problems are the world's biggest business opportunities.

This also holds true for you.

This blog is a fun formula for fixing your problems while at the same time creating incredibly powerful startups.

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Advice to CEO's and Entrepreneurs…

I recently keynoted for a group of hospital CEOs.

For good reason, they are really concerned about their future. Their industry is ripe for disruption by a variety of exponential technologies.

Today's hospitals tend to be overly bureaucratic, inefficient, slow moving, expensive, confusing, and old-school in their processes and procedures.

Not surprisingly, they asked me what to do.

The conversation went something like, "We understand we need to change… but what problems do we solve first?"

My answer: Find a group of smart and curious 20-somethings, and give them the mission of interviewing your patients, employees and suppliers. Then have them catalogue and rate all of your problems.

Let me explain…

Hire 20-Somethings to Do Some Digging

I talk a lot about millennial entrepreneurs.

They are smart, hard working, and naïve – exactly the qualities you want in someone who is trying to reinvent a system.

They have no preconceived notions about the way the world (or a hospital, in this example) is supposed to work.

This gives them the ability to question everything – remember that "the day before something is a breakthrough, it's a crazy idea."

I have a team of 20-somethings that I call my "Strike Force" – you'll see why below – and I've been amazed by the brilliant ideas they come up with.

So where do you find your strike force? They may already work for you, or they might be grad students, or a group of local entrepreneurs.

What you're looking for is passion and curiosity. Ideally one or multiple teams of three to five individuals with a background in science, engineering, and an understanding of where technology is going.

Question Everything & Everyone

With your Strike Force in place, give them the following instructions.

I want you to interview our company's employees, suppliers and customers and document the major challenges we're having:

What is unduly hard to accomplish?
Where are we missing quality?
Where are we behind the competition?
What are our customers' biggest complaints?
Etc., etc…

Give them 4-6 weeks to literally walk around your company and examine everything. Tell them to talk to all of your employees, patients, servicemen, visitors, volunteers, staff, and so on. Everybody. Let them sit in different venues and observe how your business operates. Challenge them to think about how each and every process could be done better or differently. Make sure to emphasize that they have NO LIMITATIONS as to the ideas they can come up with – this is critical.

In summary, their goal is to document your company's biggest problems… question everything.

Catalogue, Prioritize and Select

Next, ask them to come together, compile their findings, and write up their top 10 - 20 recommendations.

For each recommendation, rate them with regard to:

Financial impact to your company
Competitive impact for your company
Value of the solution as an entrepreneurial endeavor
Ease of implementation (time and money)

Fund the Best Ideas and Best Team(s)

Based on my experience doing this, you'll be pleasantly surprised with their innovative attitude (perhaps naïveté and outsider perspective) and ability to put their finger on the biggest gold mines in your company.

Your goal is next to mine these gold mines.

Pick the brightest members of the Strike Force and fund them to develop the solution either internal to your business, or as outside entrepreneurial endeavors. Either way, you win.

Strike Force Guiding Principles

Here are three guiding principles to help guide your efforts:

Listen to your customers, and the data they generate: The most successful, agile and sustainable companies are customer-centric at their core. They vehemently care about their customers' experience and are constantly trying to improve it. Start collecting more data from them on your own – what did they like, what did they not like, how could you improve your service? You'll be surprised to find how bright your own customers are when it comes to discovering problems in your business and ways to solve them.
Start from a blank slate, then rebuild from first principles: If you were going to start your business tomorrow, how would you do it? Which services would you cancel, which would you maintain? Which would you reinvent? Really try to understand at its core what your business is and what it could be. Reason from first principles about what is possible and craft a vision that you can execute.
Experiment, fail, then experiment again: Once you have a vision, you have to get comfortable experimenting with it, and probably failing a few times. Run 30- or 60-day experiments to test new ideas. You'll be surprised to see that this is actually motivating and exciting to your employees.

Prioritizing Innovation

Disrupting yourself isn't just a thought exercise. It's not a rebranding. And it is certainly not something that is easy or simple to do.

It's going to take some time, so the key is that you have to really commit to innovation.

You have to be open-minded and strong-willed at the same time. You have to be able to motivate your employees when experiments fail, and rein them in if they are going too far off the entrepreneurial cliff.

Your Strike Force will mine your problems for gold nuggets, but it's YOU who will ultimately greenlight the effort to reinvent your business.

It's a challenging task – but disrupting and reinventing your business is the only way to survive during these exponential times.

Join Me

This is the sort of conversation we discuss at my 250-person executive mastermind group called Abundance 360. The program is highly selective and we're almost full, looking for a few last CEOs and entrepreneurs who want to change the world. You can apply here.

Share this email with your friends, especially if they are interested in any of the areas outlined above.

Best,
Peter

P.S. Every week I send out a "Tech Blog" like this one. If you want to sign up, go to PeterDiamandis.com and sign up for this and Abundance Insider.

P.P.S. I've just released a podcast with my dear friend Dan Sullivan called Exponential Wisdom. Our conversations focus on the exponential technologies creating abundance, the human-technology collaboration, and entrepreneurship. Head here to listen and subscribe: a360.com/podcast

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PHD Ventures , 800 Corporate Pointe, Culver City, CA 90230

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Monday, August 24, 2015

Fwd: [Mike’s Sordid Backstory] Bold Email Honesty Kicks Car Sales Hype

-------- Forwarded Message --------

Subject:	[Mike's Sordid Backstory] Bold Email Honesty Kicks Car Sales Hype
Date:	Mon, 24 Aug 2015 15:32:04 -0700
From:	Andy Jenkins & Mike Filsaime <training@marketinggenesis.com>
Reply-To:	training@marketinggenesis.com
To:	Steve <im1@bydf.com>

(Hey sorry I sent you this email 2x... the subject line "Deadline expires in hours. (See if there is still time.)" was from my last email Sunday that does not apply when I was starting my email campaign.) So I am sending the email again with the correct subject line you just opened. Thanks for understanding... Here is the correct email now...

Re: "Trust me, I'm an Internet marketer."

Hey Boss….

Today it's Mike here, and I have a quick warning about this e-mail and Wednesday's bold new training.

Don't dismiss it just because of my former profession.

Because what some see as my "supposedly unsavory" past actually had the OPPOSITE effect than you'd expect for my online career..

That said, you may or may not know this, but I was once in the auto sales business.

In fact, I was the General Sales Manager for one the most successful Toyota + Hyundai dealerships in the country. Well, you can imagine the jokes I've heard about car salesmen, used car salesmen, people hating buying cars, plaid jackets — and of course, getting the inevitable Hawaiian shirts as birthday presents over the years. (Still not funny.)

But here's the thing — the secret sauce that took us to the top...

It was telling the TRUTH... about the unseen scratches... the unnoticed nicks... and even the recalled fixes that were not required to be disclosed to the consumer.

Yes, after years of getting flack about HONESTY and the auto business, it made me hypersensitive to the topic of persuasion.

And I learned early on that deception, hype, and hyperbole are the absolute WORST things you can use for sales.

They ALWAYS backfire — either right in your face when people are disgusted by what you're doing...

...Or, in the long run, when the realization and resentment of being swindled turn into a despicable reputation. People that use those tactics ALWAYS fail in the long run.

So reflecting back, that's what has me so pumped about this Wednesday's training we are inviting you to.

Really, if you like ETHICAL PERSUASION, this is the TRAINING OF THE YEAR for you.

Big promise? Yes! But we will deliver…

Because the training we are doing will show you how to work WITH your customers... not try to fleece them or slide one by when they're not looking.

Unfortunately, I see a some of this going on online. We you know persuasion it is easy to spot when used for good and unfortunately, by some, for bad.

We live by the GOOD and this is why I love Daniel Levis' EMAIL ALCHEMY approach.

With Email Alchemy, you openly EMBRACE the fact that you have something to sell (as if customers don't know it already!.. We are all customers. And many marketers don't give us, the customers, enough credit.)

And when you make the journey such a pleasure, they will LOVE going along for the ride.

Which brings me to the TRUTH ABOUT EMAIL, and that is...

...When used correctly (which is rare) EMAIL is STILL the most powerful, most personal, most intimate, cheapest, fastest, easiest, and most profitable marketing medium — BAR NONE! Period. End. Period.

And... EMAIL is STILL the best, safest, fastest, most dependable and predictable way to make sales, build bigger lists, and keep clients and customers ENGAGED and BUYING...

...For both immediate and long-term profits!

This sounding interesting?

Cool, then on Wednesday, Andy and I are delighted to bring you highly respected EMAIL specialist, Daniel Levis, with a special Marketing Genesis Edition of his famous EMAIL ALCHEMY training.

But here's another warning:

He'll be grinding 5 sacred marketing cows into hamburgers!

Myths will be exposed.

In fact what are known to be FACTS will be exposed. Like The world is not flat….

No… Here is a better example… because one of the most revered marketing analytics will end up as a Big Mac at McDonalds.

For instance, you may know someone who believes in this EMAIL MARKETING MYTH...

Myth - OPEN RATES are a Key Performance Indicator.

Nope - Not true. Open rates are not a KPI

Don't believe it.. that's why you need to make sure to attend LIVE, because Daniel will show you case studies where open rates FALL — as sales EXPLODE!

EVEN BETTER, he'll explain the deeper TRUTH behind why people lose massive profits from misinterpreting this unquestioned statistic.

>>> And what about the misguided use of click through rates?

>>> What about the latest research on long versus short copy in the internet age?

>>> What about mailing frequency and burning out your list?

>>> And what about giving free content versus going for the sale?

It's happening on Wednesday at 11am Pacific/2pm Eastern as we dig deep into...

The EMAIL ALCHEMY "ELITE" Quick-Profit Clinic: How I 10X My Sales From Every Email Subscriber, Grow My List Fast, and Profit Now!

Andy and I have been ravenously studying everything Daniel has to say.

Because lately, we've found multiple experts with fabulous and timely trainings... who are only available for a short window of opportunity.

So we've gotta strike while the iron is hot and bring them to you FAST!

And EMAIL (when used correctly) is STILL hands down, the quick-strike media of choice... way better than Facebook, Twitter, SEO, or Instagram...

...I mean, what's the bulk of what we've been sending you for the last few months?

EMAIL... the EMAIL ALCHEMY way!

So you'd better be there unless you've never had any of the following thoughts:

"Does anybody read email anymore?"

"I'm afraid to annoy my subscribers."

"What's the latest on using humor?

"They take too long to write."

"Where do I put the links?"

"Do metaphors and similes detract from the sale?"

"Can I use a little profanity?"

"Isn't social media more powerful?"

"I can't spell and my grammar sucks!"

"What time of day should I send them?"

"Maybe SEO or Adwords will work better."

"Oh hell, I'll get a video course so I can just TALK!"

Daniel has the answers.

But even better, the hard statistics to back them up.

So you're not risking your marketing dollars on hearsay and unsubstantiated opinion.

...Which is a relief for me personally.

Because Daniel's proven what I've suspected for years, but have never seen the numbers (until now) to back it up.

So join us on Wednesday, right here.

There's even an INSTANT FREE GIFT when you sign up. You get Daniel's amazing:

SUBJECT LINE MADNESS for EMAIL MARKETING MASTERY Swipe File — 437 Proven Subject Lines to Plunder, Pillage and PROFIT!

I'll email it to you as soon as you sign up... so your subconscious starts dismantling those profit-squelching myths... while you sleep!

See you Wednesday.

Mike Filsaime

ONE LAST WARNING:

P.S. - If you DON'T grab a ticket for this event, I highly recommend you DON'T send EMAILS very often.

And when you do, make them super short and give away a ton of free content.

Otherwise your customers will unsubscribe like rats deserting the ship.

P.P.S - This email was written from what I learned from Denis from his Email Alchemy that you will learn much of for FREE on Wednesday. Since you read this email, and you read down to here, it is only proof that long, engaging story based email, with good content are exactly what YOUR customers want from YOU.

Marketing Genesis LLC 7660 Fay Ave. #H184 La Jolla, CA 92037

You're receiving this newsletter because this email address was submitted to an opt-in form on one of our websites. When you no longer wish to hear from us, we'll be sad, but we'll always welcome you back when you're ready to work on your business again. Just Click Here to Unsubscribe. ~Andy Jenkins & Mike Filsaime.

Please read our Affiliate Disclaimer: From time to time, we will promote, endorse, or suggest products and/or services for sale that are not our own. Our recommendation is ALWAYS based on our personal belief that the product and it's author will provide excellent and valuable information or service. This may be based on a review of that product, our personal or professional relationship with that person or company, and/or a previous positive experience with the person or company who's product we are recommending. In most cases, we will be compensated via a commission if you decide to purchase that product based on our recommendation. In some cases, we will receive the product for free for review purposes, or just to use. In some cases, we have used that product to our personal satisfaction in our own businesses.

IMPORTANT: Always Always ALWAYS do your OWN due-diligence before making any purchases, whether we recommend them or not. Never, EVER purchase anything that you cannot afford. Avoid purchasing products that do not have a clearly stated Guarantee, or that promise ridiculous results, like "Getting Rich Quick". Most people don't do anything with the products they buy, and most of the time, their results are zero - kind of like that Bowflex that I bought that is now serving as a clothing rack... No, there is no such thing as a "Free Lunch". Don't do drugs, stay in school, etc. Be safe out there!

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Sunday, August 23, 2015

Fw: 10^9+ companies

From: Peter Diamandis <peter@diamandis.com>

Sent: Sunday, August 23, 2015 10:10 AM

To: STeve

Reply To: peter@diamandis.com

Subject: 10^9+ companies

"Want to become a billionaire? Then help a billion people."

"The world's biggest problems are the world's biggest business opportunities."

Both of these statements are the way I describe the premise of Singularity University's Graduate Studies Program (GSP) and the companies we create each year.

Earlier this week we graduated our seventh GSP class and unveiled our newest crop of 10^9+ companies.

This is a blog on the coolest companies coming out of the SU universe.

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What is a 10^9+ Company?

In 2008, Ray Kurzweil and I co-founded SU to enable brilliant graduate students to work on solving humanity's grand challenges using exponential technologies.

During the GSP, we ask our students to build a company that positively impacts the lives of 1 billion people within 10 years (we call these 10^9+ companies).

Historically, if you wanted to touch the lives of a billion people, you had to be Coca-Cola, GE or Siemens.

Today, you can be a guy or a gal in a garage with connectivity.

Over the years, we've given birth to some very cool companies. Here's an update, and a peek at the newest players.

10^9+ All Stars

Matternet: Matternet is building a network of autonomous drones (UAVs) to transport goods in cities as well as places with inefficient or nonexistent road infrastructure. In the developing world, Matternet drones can carry 2 kg packages such as medicine, documents, replacement parts or other critical goods for transportation. In cities, their cloud-based navigation system is revolutionizing transport logistics. Sound like Amazon Prime? Yes, but Matternet was founded two years earlier.
Modern Meadow: For millennia, many of the world's favorite products have been cultured -- including beer, wine, yogurt, cheese and bread. Modern Meadow uses these same principles to nurture and feed animal cells, creating high-quality products (think 'meat' and 'leather') without the animal sacrifice and environmental harms of factory farming. Such cultured meat massively reduces the amount of land (by 99 percent), water (by 96 percent) and energy (by 45 percent) needed in product, and reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 96 percent.
Fellow Robots: Fellow Robots is reimagining retail robotics to create a smarter retail environment. Their robot OSHbot communicates with shoppers to identify what they need and then autonomously navigates through the store to enable the easy, rapid selection of desired items. This creates smarter shoppers and a more efficient shopping experience.
BlueOak Resources: BlueOak extracts valuable metals (copper, silver, platinum, etc) from discarded electronics (e-waste). Using existing scaled-up mining industry technologies, they capture value from the 40 million tons of e-waste that is landfilled or incinerated annually around the world, containing $70 billion worth of precious and base metals. One ton of cell phones contains as much gold as 70 tons of gold ore. Every day, U.S. consumers dispose of enough cell phones to cover over 50 football fields.
Made In Space: This company just launched the first zero-g 3D printer to the International Space Station. Their hardware is able to manufacture materials and complex structures in weightlessness. Eventually, we'll be able to 3D print entire structures in space from metallic material mined from near-earth asteroids.
MirOculus: MirOculus is creating a simple blood test that can tell you, at the molecular level, the exact type of disease you have and its severity before it presents any symptoms, and then monitor the success of the treatment. They are also focused on cancer detection using microRNA biomarkers, leading to routine cancer screenings that will allow for early-stage detection and the prevention of millions of cancer deaths.
Organ Preservation Alliance: Transforming human organ availability through breakthroughs in cryo-preservation. The nonprofit is developing technology to dramatically improve long-term organ storage mechanisms.

A Few of This Year's 10^9+ Companies

This summer, the GSP students pitched over 25 new business concepts. Here are a few of my favorites:

ImpactVision: ImpactVision uses hyperspectral sensors to analyze spectral signatures that cannot be detected by the human eye. Focusing on the food industry, they're able to detect pollutants and bacteria on foods to reduce food waste, and even help a shopper determine freshness or ripeness.
Anticip8 Analytics: Anticip8's mission is accurate, micro weather prediction that can help renewable energy producers (solar, wind). Uncertainty about tomorrow's forecast (cloud cover, rain) reduces the ability of suppliers to commit their full capacity, especially for wind farms. This leads to less renewable energy in the grid, and higher prices. Anticip8 offers low-power, low-cost field sensors with novel computing architecture and high resolution spatial and temporal modeling to increase suppliers' confidence when committing loads to the grid. They'll build better, decentralized ground-up weather models that update every 10 minutes.
RedOlive: There are 700 million motorcyclists in the world. 1.2 million of them are killed in accidents each year, and 80% of those deaths occur in low-income countries. RedOlive's first product Oliver is an embedded system designed to provide the convenience and safety experienced by high-end automobile drivers to ordinary motorcycle riders. It uses an array of sensors and cameras to constantly monitor motorcyclists' surroundings and notifies them how to react appropriately. Think AR + motorcycle helmet + affordability.
AIME: AIME's platform provides critical information for disease prediction and outbreak management via machine learning and artificial intelligence. The goal is to geolocate the area of the next disease outbreak up to three months before an outbreak occurs. Currently, AIME works to end dengue outbreaks. In the future, AIME will tackle tuberculosis, the flu, HIV and malaria.
Aipoly: Aipoly is an intelligent assistant for the visually impaired that empowers them to explore and understand their surroundings through computer vision and audio-feedback. They use convolutional neural networks to identify the elements within a picture and neural image caption generation to feed back a semantic description of its content. The user takes a picture and it is automatically uploaded to Aipoly servers, where it is analyzed and tagged, and a description is sent back to the smartphone that took it and read out loud using text-to-speech.

SU Accelerator

We recently launched an accelerator at Singularity University.

You can find out more here, but here are the basics:

We provide $100,000 in seed funding to give early-stage startups runway throughout the program, a coworking space at NASA Research Park, a structured program offering (bootcamp and 4-week sprints), and the best Singularity University has to offer for 7-10% equity in your company.

For nonprofits/501(c)(3) organizations we provide $50,000 in unrestricted grants.

Our goal, as stated above, is to empower entrepreneurs to build products positively impacting humanity at scale.

Join Me

If you are an established entrepreneur or executive, then the next iteration of this conversation is about how to turn your into significance.

Share this email with your friends, especially if they are interested in any of the areas outlined above.

Best,
Peter

P.S. Every week I send out a "Tech Blog" like this one. If you want to sign up, go to PeterDiamandis.com and sign up for this and Abundance Insider.

If you wish to stop receiving our emails or change your subscription options, please Manage Your Subscription
PHD Ventures , 800 Corporate Pointe, Culver City, CA 90230

Sunday, August 16, 2015

Fwd: communicating in exponential times

-------- Forwarded Message --------

Subject:	communicating in exponential times
Date:	Sun, 16 Aug 2015 10:45:26 -0700
From:	Peter Diamandis <peter@diamandis.com>
Reply-To:	peter@diamandis.com
To:	STeve <stevescott@techacq.com>

If you need to communicate something important to a friend, do you call? Visit? Email? Text? Skype? WhatsApp? Snap? Tweet? Message on Facebook, or LinkedIn?

How we communicate in exponential times is changing.

This blog is about the best practices, basic rules, and the emerging technologies in a rapidly changing (and increasingly fragmented) communication landscape.

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Communication 101

As more and more tools become available, we seem to have accepted the notion that communication is "contextual": LinkedIn is for work. Facebook is for friends. Snapchat is for close friends. Texting is for something immediate, if not urgent. Slack is for your team. Twitter is for public broadcast. Skype is for long distance. Phone calls are for intimacy or something really important.

And a lot of people make the mistake of thinking that email is well, good enough.

The reality is that email is probably the worst form of communication.

For me, I get hundreds of emails per day, and frankly:

If the email is more than a few lines long, I don't read it.
If I don't get the point in the first couple of lines, I stop reading.
An email from a stranger asking me for something (without context or an introduction) gets deleted.
If an email comes in at the wrong time (i.e. I'm hyper busy), it probably gets buried and doesn't get read.
It is so easy to misread someone's intent or emotions in an email that it can lead to embarrassing situations.

As we invent more and more tools to communicate with each other, sometimes tech can become a crutch and a replacement for actual meaningful communications.

How Should We Communicate?

We are social animals, and we communicate A LOT through the intonations of our voice and our facial features.

Basic rules:

If there's something critical to communicate – close a deal, raise capital, tell someone you love them or want to break up – do it in person.

If you can't meet in person, then do it by Skype (or Beam, see below).

If you can't do it by Skype, then do it by phone.

Everything else (today) is basically inadequate for anything really important. That being said, if you have to email, see below.

Where Will Technology Help in the Future?

The good news is that technology under development leapfrogs the current technology in place, and will create a more meaningful and intimate level of communications.

In the decade ahead, there are three key areas that will drive meaning capabilities:

Telepresence/Beam: While Skype is okay, it's static and limiting. If you follow my work, you've heard me speak about Suitable Technologies and their Beam telepresence robot. Some call it Skype on Wheels, but it is much more. I have 15 Beams across all of my companies and one of them at home. Telepresence robots like the Beam (and its future derivatives) are the next best thing to being face to face. It really gives you the ability to move around and participate, as if you were there in the flesh. Even better, in the very near future this technology is going to give you superpowers. You will have the ability to pull up details on your screen about the person to whom you're speaking. But it could get even stranger. Imagine having the ability to use the sensors on your robot to measure the heart rate and pupillary reaction of the person you're speaking to during a negotiation. Technologies like the Beam will expand our sensory experience when we communicate.

Virtual Worlds: The next step in technology-enabled communication comes when we're able to skip meeting in person, and instead meet inside of a high-resolution virtual world. A world in which two individuals can have their near-perfect avatars have conversations and interactions not possible in the real world. In these virtual worlds, the avatar's facial features mirror your exact facial features using the same technology James Cameron pioneered in his moving Avatar. This is the direction companies like Philip Rosedale's High Fidelity is taking us.

Brain-Computer Interface: The ultimate form of communications will materialize in the following decade, as we develop Brain Computer Interface (BCI) -- the ability to connect mind-to-computer and computer-to-mind. This will enable the most intimate level of communication conceivable, whereby you have the ability to understand a person's most personal thoughts and feelings.

A Few Last Words About Email

Given that email is such a ubiquitous and prolific form of communication, and I get way too much of it, I'd like to share some email best practices. The truth is: sometimes it is the only way to reach somebody. Use these tips to email most effectively.

Subject Line: The subject line matters a lot -- much more than most people realize. Take the time to craft it a short, compelling subject line that is descriptive of the email that follows, or, at least evocative enough to get someone to open it.
Opening Line: The opening line of your email (or at least the first two lines) is critical. Tell the person why you are writing and what follows.
Brevity is King: A short email is one that gets read. Something that meanders on gets deleted or ignored.
Make a Simple Ask: An email should have a single action or ask. Make it easy for the person you are writing to answer. For example, if you asking for a meeting, you can say: "Can you please respond with the name of your Admin with whom I can set up a call?" or, "Let me know what day next week works for a call?"

If you do these things, you should be able to get your point across.

Join Me

Share this email with your friends, especially if they are interested in any of the areas outlined above.

Best,
Peter

P.S. Every week I send out a "Tech Blog" like this one. If you want to sign up, go to PeterDiamandis.com and sign up for this and Abundance Insider.

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Sunday, August 9, 2015

Fwd: learning in exponential times

-------- Forwarded Message --------

Subject:	learning in exponential times
Date:	Sun, 9 Aug 2015 10:31:18 -0700
From:	Peter Diamandis <peter@diamandis.com>
Reply-To:	peter@diamandis.com
To:	STeve <stevescott@techacq.com>

How to learn is changing, and it's changing fast.

In the past, we used to learn by doing – we called them apprenticeships.

Then the model shifted, and we learned by going to school.

Now, it's going back to the apprenticeship again, but this time, you are both the apprentice and the master.

This blog is about how to learn during exponential times, when information is abundant and expertise is fleeting.

[ Click to Tweet about this (you can edit before sending): http://ctt.ec/KWYB9 ]

Passion, Utility, Research & Focus

First, choosing what you want to learn and becoming great at it is tough.

As I wrote in my last blog, doing anything hard and doing it well takes grit.

Here are a few tips I've learned over the years to help choose what you want to learn:

Start with your passions: Focus on something you love, or learn a new skill in service of your passion. If you want to learn how to code because it will land you a high-paying job, you're not going to have the drive to spend countless, frustrating hours debugging your code. If you want to become a doctor because your parents want you to, you're not going to make it through med school. Focus on the things YOU love and do it because it's YOUR choice.
Make it useful: Time is the scarcest resource. While you can spend the time learning for the sake of learning, I think learning should be a means to an end. Without a target, you'll miss every time. Figure out what you want to do, and then identify the skills you need to acquire to accomplish that goal.
Read, watch and analyze: Read everything. Read all the time. Start with the experts. Read the material they write or blog. Watch their videos, their interviews. Do you agree with them? Why?
Talk to people: Once you're done reading, actually talk to real human beings that are doing what you want to do. Do whatever you can to reach them. Ask for their advice. You'll be shocked by what you can learn this way.
Focus on your strengths: Again, time is precious. You can't be a doctor, lawyer, coder, writer, rocket scientist, and rock star all at the same time… at least not right now. Focus on what you are good at and enjoy most and try to build on top of those skills. Many people, especially competitive people, tend to feel like they need to focus on improving the things they are worst at doing. This is a waste of time. Instead, focus on improving the things you are best at doing – you'll find this to be a much more rewarding and lucrative path.

Learn by Doing

There is no better way to learn than by doing.

I'm a fan of the "apprentice" model. Study the people who have done it well and then go work for them.

If they can't (or won't) pay you, work for free until you are good enough that they'll need to hire you.

Join a startup doing what you love – it's much cheaper than paying an expensive tuition, and a hell of a lot more useful.

I don't think school (or grad school) is necessarily the right answer anymore.

Here's one reason why:

This week I visited the Hyperloop Technologies headquarters in Los Angeles (full disclosure: I am on the board of the company).

The interim CEO and CTO Brogan Bambrogan showed me around the office, and we stopped at one particularly impressive-looking, massive machine (details confidential).

As it turns out, the team of Hyperloop engineers who had designed, manufactured, tested, redesigned, remanufactured, and operated this piece of equipment did so in 11 weeks, for pennies on the dollar.

At MIT, Stanford or CalTech, building this machine would have been someone's Ph.D. thesis…

Except that the Ph.D. candidate would have spent three years doing the same amount of work, and written a paper about it, rather than help to redesign the future of transportation.

Meanwhile, the Hyperloop engineers created this tech (and probably a half-dozen other devices) in a fraction of the time while creating value for a company that will one day be worth billions.

Full Immersion & First Principles

You have to be fully immersed if you want to really learn.

Connect the topic with everything you care about – teach your friends about it, only read things that are related to the topic, surround yourself with.

Make learning the most important thing you can possibly do and connect to it in a visceral fashion.

As part of your full immersion, dive into the very basic underlying principles governing the skill you want to acquire.

This is an idea Elon Musk (CEO of Tesla, SpaceX) constantly refers to: "The normal way we conduct our lives is we reason by analogy. We are doing this because it's like what other people are doing. [With first principles] you boil things down to the most fundamental truths … and then reason up from there."

You can't skip the fundamentals – invest the time to learn the basics before you get to the advanced stuff.

Experiment, Experiment, Experiment

Experiment, fail, experiment, fail, and experiment.

One of Google's Innovation principles and mantras is: "Never fail to fail."

Don't be afraid if you are really bad at the beginning: you learn most from your mistakes.

When Elon hires people, he asks them to describe a time they struggled with a hard problem. "When you struggle with a problem, that's when you understand it," he says, "Anyone who's struggled hard with a problem never forgets it."

Digital Tools

We used to have to go to school to read textbooks and gain access to expert teachers and professors.

Nowadays, literally all of these resources are available online for free.

There are hundreds of free education sites like Khan Academy, Udemy, or Udacity.

There are thousands of MOOCs (massive online open courses) from the brightest experts from top universities on almost every topic imaginable.

Want to learn a language? Download an app like Duolingo (or even better, pack up your things and move to that country).

Want to learn how to code? Sign up for a course on CodeAcademy or MIT Open Courseware.

The resources are there and available – you just have to have the focus and drive to find them and use them.

Finally… The Next Big Shift in Learning

In the future, the next big shift in learning will happen as we adopt virtual worlds and augmented reality.

It will be the next best thing to "doing" – we'll be able to simulate reality and experiment (perhaps beyond what we can experiment with now) in virtual and augmented environments.

Add that to the fact that we'll have an artificial intelligence tutor by our side, showing us the ropes and automatically customizing our learning experience.

If you like this conversation, join me.

Share this email with your friends, especially if they are interested in any of the areas outlined above.

Best,
Peter

P.S. Every week I send out a "Tech Blog" like this one. If you want to sign up, go to PeterDiamandis.com and sign up for this and Abundance Insider.

P.P.S. I've just released a podcast with my dear friend Dan Sullivan called Exponential Wisdom. Our conversations focus on the exponential technologies creating abundance, the human-technology collaboration, and entrepreneurship. Head here to listen and subscribe: a360.com/podcast

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