Fwd: Abundance Insider: February 3 Edition

In this week's Abundance Insider: Poker-playing AI systems, graphene made from soybean oil, and a new cancer breakthrough. Cheers, Peter, Marissa, Cody, Kelley, Greg, Sydney and AJ P.S. Send any tips to our team by clicking here, and send your friends and family to this link to subscribe to Abundance Insider. An AI Poker Bot Has Whipped the Pros What it is: The AI poker bot Libratus recently beat top professional poker players at Pittsburgh's Rivers Casino. Built by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, the bot demonstrated a significant advancement in AI by being able to apply reason and intelligence in games of "imperfect information." Libratus ended with $1.8 million in chips, while the pros ended with a deficit. In an interview with Wired, Daniel McAuley, one of the professionals Libratus beat, said of the AI, "It splits its bets into three, four, five different sizes. No human has the ability to do that." Why it's important: Just as AlphaGo AI's vanquished Asia's Go champs, this AI poker bot's consistent success in beating human professional players shows how capable AI systems are getting. As AIs continue to learn and apply reasoning in highly complex situations, we'll eventually adopt them throughout our everyday lives -- including in ways we initially deemed "impossible." Join the Discussion Spotted by Khaled Salih / Written by Sydney Fulkerson Vespa's Creators Just Unveiled a Personal Cargo Robot What it is: Vespa's creators Piaggio Fast Forward recently unveiled the company's first product, a personal cargo robot named Gita. The bot can carry up to 40 pounds autonomously using maps, or by following a human operating the bot's path. While they haven't revealed details on Gita's cost, range, and further performance limitations, Piaggio plans to release a version consumers can buy for individual use. Why it's important: Robots will soon become an integral part of our everyday lives; as this happens, we'll have to rethink the interfaces, rules and behaviors we exhibit around these technologies. Thanks to the convergence of artificial intelligence, sensing, actuator technologies and the mobile phone revolution, we're rapidly heading toward a future where robots are integrated in our day-to-day lives in a truly personalized fashion. Join the Discussion Spotted by Aryadeep S. Acharya / Written by Sydney Fulkerson Scientists Cook Up Material 200 Times Stronger Than Steel Out of Soybean Oil What it is: A team of Australian scientists has discovered a method that uses soybean oil to make graphene in a lab. The process involves heating the soybean oil in a tube furnace for 30 minutes, resulting in the oil decomposing into carbon building blocks on nickel-based foil. Why it's important: This development has the potential to significantly demonetize and dematerialize the making of graphene on a commercial scale. For more on the impressive capabilities graphene enables, check out this post from Peter. Join the Discussion Spotted by Bjorn Russell / Written by Sydney Fulkerson An AI Law Firm Wants to 'Automate the Entire Legal World' What it is: LawGeex, founded in 2014 by commercial lawyer Noory Beecher, has created AI to automate the process of reviewing contracts -- one of the more mundane yet costly tasks, whether in-house or at a private firm. In as little as an hour, LawGeex can look across about 20 different contract types, identifying clauses that don't meet normal standards, those that might be missing, and those that might need revision. Why it's important: Machine learning can now tackle the low-hanging fruit of the legal industry such as contract analysis, document review, and even legal research. Importantly, the story here isn't so much that AI will replace lawyers (yet), but that AI makes the process and cost of legal analysis more efficient -- eliminating potentially costly mistakes while also freeing up attorneys to focus on the more creative aspects of advisory work. Join the Discussion Spotted by Khaled Salih / Written by Jason Goodwin Two Infants Treated with Universal Immune Cells Have Their Cancer Vanish What it is: In a first, two infants in London have been cured of leukemia via reengineered T-cells. Using a gene editing method called TALENs, the London team made a total of four genetic changes to donor T-cells -- one that eliminated the propensity to attack the cells of another person, and another that caused the T-cell to target cancer cells directly. Although the therapy was provided in conjunction with chemotherapy, both children are in full remission. Why it's important: Despite the caveat that the T-cell therapy was combined with chemo, it's significant that the engineered cells do not appear to have attacked the patients' tissue, which has been a major roadblock in expanding treatments to a larger set of patients. With a potential order of magnitude cost reduction, this is a big step forward for immunotherapy, not to mention the quest for eliminating bloodborne cancers and the adoption of gene editing techniques. Join the Discussion Spotted by Cody Rapp / Written by Jason Goodwin What is Abundance Insider? This email is a briefing of the week's most compelling, abundance-enabling tech developments, curated by Marissa Brassfield in preparation for Abundance 360. Read more about A360 below. Want more conversations like this? At Abundance 360, Peter's 250-person executive mastermind, we teach the metatrends, implications and unfair advantages for entrepreneurs enabled by breakthroughs like those featured above. We're looking for CEOs and entrepreneurs who want to change the world. The program is highly selective. If you'd like to be considered, apply here.  Know someone who would benefit from getting Abundance Insider? Send them to this link to sign up. If you wish to stop receiving our emails or change your subscription options, please Manage Your Subscription PHD Ventures , 800 Corporate Pointe, Suite 350, Culver City, CA 90230

Fwd: Abundance Insider: January 27 Edition

In this week's Abundance Insider: Flying cars from Airbus, voice analysis tech to diagnose disease, and a new employment milestone for the solar energy industry. Cheers, Peter, Marissa, Cody, Kelley, Greg, Sydney and AJ P.S. Send any tips to our team by clicking here, and send your friends and family to this link to subscribe to Abundance Insider. Airbus Plans to Make Autonomous, Flying Cars a Reality by 2017 What it is: Airbus recently announced Project Vahana, its plan to make an autonomous flying car. The company envisions a future in which they're able to transport several people in a helicopter-style, autonomous vehicle. Airbus, which is the world's largest commercial helicopter manufacturer, assures that it will use clean technology throughout the development of these self-flying cars. It is estimated that the prototype will be completed this year (2017), and will launch for short-haul trips by 2021. Why it's important: Autonomous flying cars may disrupt industries even more than current autonomous ridesharing initiatives. Mckinsey suggests autonomous vehicles could reduce the need for parking space in the U.S. by more than 5.7 billion square meters. Imagine the amount of land that will be reclaimed in a future of flying autonomous cars, and increased human productivity due to faster, more enjoyable commutes. Join the Discussion Spotted by Khaled Salih / Written by Sydney Fulkerson Drive Any Cadillac, Anytime, for $1,500 a Month What it is: GM's new Book by Cadillac service brings cars to the X-as-a-Service mindset to New York City. For a payment of $1,500 per month, customers can drive a Cadillac and switch it out for a different Cadillac model as many as 18 times per year. The month-to-month plan also includes insurance and maintenance. Why it's important: Ridesharing services like Uber and Lyft are upending classical ideas of car ownership; simultaneously, traditional carmakers are fighting for market share via advanced safety and technology features. This Cadillac experiment is symptomatic of further business model experiments GM and other automakers will conduct as they try to avoid getting crushed by this tsunami of change. Join the Discussion Spotted by Clyde Dennis / Written by Jason Goodwin Solar Employs More Workers Than Coal, Oil and Natural Gas Combined What it is: According to the U.S. Department of Energy's second annual U.S. Energy and Employment Report, 2016 marked the year when solar employed more workers than any other energy industry, boasting more jobs than coal, oil and natural gas combined. Some 6.4 million Americans now work in the traditional energy and energy efficiency sectors, and 300,000 net new jobs -- representing 14% of U.S. job growth -- were created for this newly dominant industry. Overall, the U.S. solar workforce increased 25% in 2016, and solar employers expect to increase employment by another 7% this year. Why it's important: New developments are occurring every day to move us to a world of abundant energy, abundant clean water and abundant possibility -- including employment in the efficient energy sector. Join the Discussion Spotted by David Butlein / Written by Sydney Fulkerson CEPI Officially Launched What it is: In a launch at Davos, the governments of Germany, Japan and Norway, plus the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Wellcome Trust have committed $460 million to create CEPI, or the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness. Their goal is to dramatically shorten the time it takes to develop new vaccines, in particular those that suddenly emerge as public health threats, like Zika and Ebola. With backing from Merck, GSK, Johnson and Johnson, Pfizer, Sanofi and Takeda, CEPI is looking to first target the MERS-CoV, Lassa and Nipah viruses, which have known potential to cause serious epidemics. Why it's important: This combination of public, private, and philanthropic support is a great catalyzer in responding to humanity's grand challenges. As artificial intelligence, synthetic genomics, data mining and computational power increase their exponential growth, we'll see a wave of interest in developing new methods and processes to create vaccines and, ultimately, eliminate disease entirely. Join the Discussion Spotted by Marissa Brassfield / Written by Jason Goodwin AI Software Learns to Make AI Software What it is: In recent months, researchers at Google Brain, OpenAI, MIT, Berkeley, and Google's DeepMind have all reported progress on creating a machine learning system that creates machine learning systems. At Google Brain, the team designed a piece of software to design a system to take a test used to benchmark how software is able to process language, surpassing all previous results from human-designed software. Why it's important: This is a huge first step in designing powerful self-starting AI's. The Google Brain design required 800 GPUs, but this barrier will be eliminated as recent developments in supercomputers, materials science, and quantum computing extend or accelerate Moore's Law. This development frees data scientists to focus on higher-level work, and also democratizes machine learning and AI systems to less-technical users, hastening a cognitive revolution. Join the Discussion Spotted by Marissa Brassfield / Written by Jason Goodwin Graphene's Sleeping Superconductivity Awakens What it is: Researchers at the University of Cambridge have experimentally verified the latent superconductivity of graphene, a two-dimensional sheet of carbon known for being strong, light, flexible and highly conductive. Up until now, adding superconductivity has required doping with another material, which Cambridge researchers say can compromise some of its other properties. Here, although the researchers achieved the superconductivity with a copper oxide, they were able to experimentally confirm that the superconductivity was coming from the graphene itself, versus the doping material. Why it's important: This marks an important step in realizing graphene's potential in healthcare and electronics, as superconductors are present in a range of devices, from MRI machines to levitating trains and energy storage. Look for graphene to make these devices lighter, stronger and more powerful, while also enabling new types of devices in high-speed and quantum computing. Join the Discussion Spotted by Marissa Brassfield / Written by Jason Goodwin Voice Analysis Tech Could Diagnose Disease What it is: Voice samples are becoming rich sources of diagnostic data for a person's health, particularly for conditions that are not reducible to a blood test. By comparing the pitch, rhythm, rate and volume of voice samples from patients with PTSD, TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury), and depression versus healthy subjects, Charles Marmar of NYU, in collaboration with SRI International created an AI system that accurately diagnosed PTSD 77% of the time in a group of 39 men. Why it's important: Converging advances in computing power, machine learning algorithms, and the digitization of voice data enable us to quantify that which used to be intuitive but untestable. As these advances continue, we'll uncover even more relationships between voice and other diseases, and diagnostics will demonetize as more noninvasive and highly mobile testing options become the norm. Join the Discussion Spotted by Marissa Brassfield / Written by Jason Goodwin Brno, Czech Republic Takes First Step to Create European Hyperloop Connecting to Slovakia What it is: Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT) recently announced the signing of an agreement with Brno, Czech Republic to explore the feasibility of a Hyperloop system that would connect Brno and Bratislava, Slovakia. According to HTT, this is the first Hyperloop agreement to connect two international cities. Brno is about 80 miles north from Bratislava and 140 miles south of Prague, and is considered an international crossroads of railways and highways. (Brno's main railway station sees 500 trains and 50,000 passengers daily.) Why it's important: The transportation industry is in a time of rapid, aggressive disruption. Will this agreement accelerate progress toward truly porous borders and a truly global economy? Join the Discussion Spotted by Marissa Brassfield / Written by Sydney Fulkerson China's War On Coal Continues -- The Country Just Canceled 104 New Coal Plants What it is: China recently ordered 13 provinces to cancel 104 coal-fired projects in development, equivalent to 120 gigawatts of capacity (for context, that's almost half of the 305 gigawatts of the U.S.' entire coal capacity). Of these 104 developments, worth an estimated $30 billion, 47 of them were already under construction. Why it's important: China's big coal plant cancellation proves we are amid an energy mindset shift. Ceasing coal plant developments is just the first step towards a future of continuously declining coal use, in China and elsewhere. Join the Discussion Spotted by Marissa Brassfield / Written by Sydney Fulkerson What is Abundance Insider? This email is a briefing of the week's most compelling, abundance-enabling tech developments, curated by Marissa Brassfield in preparation for Abundance 360. Read more about A360 below. Want more conversations like this? At Abundance 360, Peter's 250-person executive mastermind, we teach the metatrends, implications and unfair advantages for entrepreneurs enabled by breakthroughs like those featured above. We're looking for CEOs and entrepreneurs who want to change the world. The program is highly selective. If you'd like to be considered, apply here. Know someone who would benefit from getting Abundance Insider? Send them to this link to sign up. If you wish to stop receiving our emails or change your subscription options, please Manage Your Subscription PHD Ventures , 800 Corporate Pointe, Suite 350, Culver City, CA 90230

Fwd: What CEOs and CMOs Can Learn from the Chargers Mishaps

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Fwd: What CEOs and CMOs Can Learn from the Chargers Mishaps

What CEOs and CMOs Can Learn from the Chargers Mishaps From my perspective there are two differing and opposing belief systems within the Chargers organization. One is the ownership perspective, which is focused on increasing the value of the Chargers NFL franchise. The other is the front office roles of branding, PR and marketing, which is charged with creating a loyal fan base and selling tickets for both the team on the field and the fan experience. It seems that the public has seen the Chargers value-system clash play out publicly through the events of the past several years. From 2007 to 2015, just before the Chargers announced they were interested in moving to LA, my agency Mth Degree was the branding and marketing partner for the Chargers. I feel fortunate both for our time in working with the organization and the many good people there, and to have jumped the ship just before things started to go south, or I should say, north. A brand is the culmination of how anyone experiences an organization. What that organization believes and how that organization behaves will define what the audience experiences. The clash of differing internal perspectives, created not just a confusing brand, but essentially a chaotic public perception debacle. It's astonishing to me how the Chargers leadership fumbled so many things with the public. What played out couldn't have gone worse for the Chargers brand or the fans. All of this begs the question, what could the Chargers have done better or different and what can be learned here? Here's a few suggestions. To love them is to know them. Having an authentic relationship with the people who support your brand is a cornerstone to understanding and relating, and necessary for a meaningful relationship in business. One of the biggest mistakes that the Chargers ownership made was not sitting down with the San Diego fans (or the ones to be in LA, for that matter) and listening to them and having open conversations with the people. Instead they threw a Hail Mary ultimatum called the Convadium Initiative that was voted down on the fall ballot. When the Chargers made their announcement to move to LA, they posted a manifesto of sorts that began with telling the people of LA who they are, what they stand for and what their city is all about. Big mistake. By going to LA or any other location and not listening and learning first, any brand is doomed to fail. Stand for something beyond money. What would make a team move out of America's Finest City? Money. Greed is a horrible brand position and an even worse guidance system when building a fan base. This purpose serves no brand promise other than what's in it for the ownership. Unfortunately, the true colors of the Chargers ownership has shown and it will take years, or maybe a team sale, in order to repair it with fans. Lead, don't chase. Once a company starts to chase their competitors they have immediately lost their own way. Having an internal compass that defines where you're going and why you're going there will guide you through the most challenging times. The Chargers lack this. If the Chargers were intent on going to LA or building a stadium to call their permanent home in San Diego, they should have committed to one of those paths. Instead, they chased all opportunities, which decided their fate. Now, they will pay the price for chasing every opportunity by losing years if not decades of brand equity and diminished brand value. Be honest. While this seems like obvious advice, it seems clear that the Chargers ownership wasn't honest—perhaps they weren't honest with themselves, and not to the fans of San Diego. They seemed to have misled the media, misled city officials and misled Chargers fans everywhere. By setting and stating clear promises, and delivering on them, brands establish audience trust. Even if the Chargers had stated they were moving to LA and treated the San Diego fans with respect, they may have had a better opportunity to migrate a larger number of their San Diego fan base to follow them to LA. Create a symbol that stands for who you are. On the design side of the brand the Chargers publicly shared a logo that was built with a design brief that may as well have read "add a bolt to the LA Dodgers brand so we can migrate their fans." This logo was booed at the Staples Center when shown at the Lakers-Clippers game and ridiculed publicly across the country including by other sports franchises. Chargers then released three different logos in 36 hours and ultimately pulled the newly created logo. The Chargers have some soul searching to do. They can make courageous decisions about what they stand for and what kind of brand they will be to their future fans, or they can stay the course and continue to question why the people of both San Diego and LA are so angry at them. Is your brand part of your profit strategy? Download our free eBook to learn how to evolve your brand with purpose for maximum value and profit. Click here to download the free Brand Love & Loyalty eBook (1.7MB PDF file). Need Branding Help? Mth Degree is a purpose driven, strategic branding and marketing agency. Everything we do is focused on creating deeper human connections and experiences for the brands we partner with, and especially with their customers. Our purpose driven approach to the selling experience fuses marketing and sales training that delights customers. Copyright © 2017 Mth Degree, Inc., All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you are connected with the Mth Degree network and/or you opted in to the Mth Degree website. Our mailing address is: Mth Degree, Inc. 950 6th Ave., Suite 212 San Diego, CA 92101 Add us to your address book Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list

Fwd: Use the haters in your life to write killer copy...

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: John Carlton <john@johncarltonemail.com> Date: Wed, Jan 25, 2017 at 6:18 AM Subject: Use the haters in your life to write killer copy... To: stevescott@techacq.com Here's one of those beefy, super-cool advanced copy tips… ... that most professionals won't share with you (cuz they're selfish bastids). Ready? Here it is: The big secret behind the most profitable ads in history… … all have just one thing in common: The massive deployment of empathy. Look the word up if you're rusty with definitions. Basically, it's the ability to actually (not in a fake way) put yourself into the head of someone else. To see the world through their eyes, to feel life through their heart, to think like they think. Seems easy, doesn't it. It ain't. In fact, MOST of the people walking around you have zero empathy for others. It's the human condition — you live inside your own head, and the bulk of your fears, goals, dreams and aspirations… … are all centered around the real star of the show: You. Which is fine… for civilians. But if you're an entrepreneur or ad creator… you're asking to be ignored (and, worse, poor) if you can't kickstart your empathy gland. I am not being mean when I say this: You write with empathy after you learn to LIVE with empathy in your life. Here's a nice homework assignment to goose your empathy chops: Pick 3 people you don't like. They can be family, in your social circle, biz associates, or even someone famous or infamous. Now, walk a mile in their shoes. Get into their head, their life, their outlook, their opinions. Own it. Put your own biases aside, completely. The copy you write, while in this zone, will the best you've ever created. This is a tactic I learned from doing debates in college -- my prof purposely assigned me to argue positions she KNEW were opposite to how I actually felt or thought. Damn her. This forced me to put aside my own feelings -- cuz I wanted to win the debate more than I wanted to hold onto my own biases -- and essentially "try out" a completely different John. A John who had the opinions, outlook and determinations of someone I would normally not like, and might even despise. Best lesson I've ever had. My entire career (and life's happiness) rests on the foundation of what she taught me. Took me out of my own head, and gave me the ability to peer deep inside someone else. Great writers are able to "box up" everything in their head. Their own feelings, beliefs, opinions, all of it… ... box it up, put it aside, and open a different box up and OWN that new set of feelings. I have written for markets where I had ZERO personal experience… and yet, whenever I met one of the new customers, they would bet their life that I felt exactly like they did, and shared their passion for the product, or service, or whatever. And, no, I usually didn't change my own way of thinking. After the gig, I easily returned to my "normal" bad self, unchanged in opinion or outlook. Though, sometimes, I changed a little bit. Other times, a lot. It was all good. It's as close as most of us will come to being in a real science fiction story. When you get good at this, you actually become — for a short time — another person. Seeing, feeling, and thinking differently. That's what you aim for. Start practicing now. Empathy is NOT standard equipment in humans. You gotta birth it, nurture it and grow it. The rewards are beyond counting. Your ads will create firestorms of interest, because you're one of the tribe. Your sales campaigns will start to bring in the Big Bucks, because folks trust their own. And your reputation and fame (or notoriety) will reach levels of appreciation you cannot even imagine yet. Keys to the kingdom. Use this new power wisely, though, or you'll burn in hell. It's that powerful. Stay frosty, John "Truth & order amidst the chaos" P.S.  The best "crash course" in empathy, if you're interested in being guided toward it (rather than fumbling around with your own plan)… … is still the Simple Writing System. I crammed everything I know into that truly simple coaching program. And yes, we start with empathy early on in the lessons. It's not for everyone. But if you suspect this legendary course might be for you, here's a fast way to see what the fuss is all about. This message was sent to stevescott@techacq.com from: John Carlton | john@johncarltonemail.com | Carlton Ink | 316 California Ave #114 | Reno, NV 89509 Email Marketing by Manage Your Subscription