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fb87e4ba656281c94489cd3b3bb5218b | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnbaldoni/2021/04/22/wither-wisdom-a-question-for-our-times/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter | Wither Wisdom? A Question For Our Times | Wither Wisdom? A Question For Our Times
Wisdom getty
David Brooks of the New York Times wrote a recent column about the wisdom of self-awareness induced by the example of others.
James Surowiecki described congregate wisdom in his book, The Wisdom of Crowds. Collective wisdom has its virtues as well as its deficits. Know the difference.
Marcus Aurelius, the philosopher emperor, noted the wisdom that comes from paying attention to what's around us, what today we would call "mindfulness."
Self-awareness. Collectives. Daily life. Each has its benefits. The challenge for us is two-fold. One, recognize wisdom. Two, implement its lessons.
Recognizing wisdom
Recognizing wisdom is a matter of observation. To paraphrase an old pop song, we are looking for learning, as Brooks notes, in all the wrong places. While the “right places” may include traditional places such as schools and the workplace, more specifically, we need to be alert to the in-between occasions. Life is seldom tidy and learning occurs at the edges when we may least expect it. Learning often occurs when we least expect it: a defeat, an act of compassion, a note of love.
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Recognizing wisdom is a matter of choice. It comes from within us. We decide to keep our minds open so that we give it proper attention when we experience a learning moment. Easy to say, certainly, but hard to implement because we are so wrapped up in the bustle of our own lives that we ignore the obvious.
The sheltering our pandemic has induced has made it easier to pay attention. Our public lives are limited; we are closed off from the broader commerce of the world. We stay in touch via electronic media, but we remain rooted to our same location. That forced isolation creates an opportunity—not altogether welcome—to observe our surroundings. After all, there is not much else to do.
Smell the flowers, yes. But make time to breathe. Listen to the air going in. And out. Discipline yourself to notice what you have not seen before. Pause for effect, not just for others but for yourself.
Implementing wisdom
Implementing wisdom may be a harder nut for the reason that a good lesson requires change. As we so often hear, change is good, as long as it does not affect us personally. Adopting a new lesson is personal, a commitment to think differently, to do differently. Overcoming our shortcomings requires work to form new habits: physical (diet, exercise, rest), mental (modes of thought), and spiritual (purposeful reframing).
Acting on wisdom
How do we act on wisdom?
Work hard to understand yourself.
Pay attention.
Attend to what you have observed.
Do not fear your shortcomings.
Use them as your guides to move forward.
Take heart from your failures.
Gain lessons from your mistakes.
Forgive yourself so you can forgive others.
Demonstrate kindness to yourself as a means of expressing kindness to others.
Practice, practice, practice.
“A person's worth is measured by the worth of what he values,” wrote Marcus Aurelius in Meditations. When you value learning and the company of others who share the same value, wisdom will accompany you.
One step, one lesson, at a time.
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ca3c6719a41dbf9997803ae0bf5c65e0 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnbaldoni/2021/04/29/leaders-think-first/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter | Leaders Think First | Leaders Think First
To think is to do. getty
Make time to think!
Pause for laughter. Who are you kidding? The skeptics cry from the gallery. Who's got time to think? I am too busy doing. I don't have time to sit and contemplate the world.
Except now that's what all of us are doing, at least metaphorically. We have been locked in near isolation for over a year. While there is a light at the end of the tunnel in the form of the vaccine, we are not yet out of the tunnel.
The challenge now for leaders is to consider our future. What do we want to make the future of the workplace? Conversations I’ve had with thought leaders and doers for nearly a year believe the following will occur.
Some will work from home. Some will work in a workplace. All will work in a new kind of environment we call the hybrid, which works in an office and works from anywhere. The challenge is for us to think through our options. Consider what's best for our productivity as well as for our employees.
Think actively
Planning for the future requires thinking. And to be honest, thinking is hard, so let me offer a few ways to be more "think-ful,” coining a neologism that should never be used outside this post.
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Author and philosopher, Simon Blackburn, writes in his book, Think: A Compelling Introduction to Philosophy, that “To process thoughts well is a matter of being able to avoid confusion, detect ambiguities, keep things in mind one at a time, make reliable arguments, become aware of alternatives, and so on.” In short, as Blackburn says, thinking is our ability to make sense of our world and to engage in it fully with our minds.
Consider the following steps for thinking as a leader.
Make thinking a priority. Make time to consider where you are and where you want to go. Thinking can begin as self-reflection certainly, but from a leadership viewpoint, thinking must be outward-directed. How do you want to lead? Where do you want to lead? How will we accomplish our goals? How will overcome adversity? These questions are thought starters. Employ them to engage your thinking process.
Contemplate before you activate. Challenge your assumptions. Easy to say, hard to do. Why? Consider that assumptions emerge from data manipulated by your thinking to become the scaffold for what you do next. Assumptions are primarily theoretical and may not hold up to the rigor of implementation. Nothing wrong with that. It merely means you need to keep thinking.
Integrate thinking into your conversations. Jim Haudan, chairman and co-founder of Root, Inc., uses the term “co-think." It is an endeavor where people in his company think through issues together. Consider it collaborative thinking. As Haudan says, “To authentically engage the hearts and minds of your people, be relentless in engaging them to co-think the future versus telling them what to think!”
Co-thinking accomplishes two things. One, it enables people to collaborate as they think through problems. Two, it sends a signal that "to think" is part of what we do and is therefore essential.
Keep in mind that deep thinking is profound. Answers to your questions do not arise immediately. And if they do, then they may be options, not real solutions. However, if you habituate yourself to thinking, you will put yourself in a mood receptive to ideas that may come when you may not expect them—in the shower, on the exercycle, or maybe even in your sleep. They would not have occurred if you had not engaged in contemplation. Solutions happen when you apply your thinking process.
What’s next?
Doing all these things will make you alert to what's coming next. Our future is that what we think is an assumption. Reality will road test it. And we will make changes. And that means we will think all over again.
To think is to consider.
To ponder and to wonder.
As well as to challenge.
Thinking requires effort.
Although work is never without effort,
Forethought makes it seem so.
Thinking truly is our work as we ask:
What’s been done? Or left undone?
Answers provide our next steps.
Steps that lead us to know more and do more.
Note: Inspiration for this post comes from a consultant colleague Jim Kerr who posed a question about thinking in a recent LinkedIn post.
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2138de6af4598ddeb2692559f795f28c | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnbbrandon/2019/10/08/there-are-now-15000-deepfake-videos-on-social-media-yes-you-should-worry/ | There Are Now 15,000 Deepfake Videos on Social Media. Yes, You Should Worry. | There Are Now 15,000 Deepfake Videos on Social Media. Yes, You Should Worry.
Elon Musk in a deepfake video. TheFakening
It’s getting easier than ever to create deepfake videos.
That’s because the software to make these fake videos (which fool you into thinking President Obama is calling President Trump names or that Elon Musk is a baby) is widely available. Anyone can download the apps on the Dark Web.
And after someone superimposes the face of a president or celebrity onto someone else’s body (often in a pornographic movie), they can upload them to Facebook, YouTube or any other social media platform.
Once removed, they tend to reappear in yet another video somewhere else.
There is some gatekeeping using artificial intelligence, although other users outside of the platform are often the ones reporting the videos. But often times, the uploaders don’t tag the videos as deepfakes, leaving no way to know how many are online and which ones are even that troubling.
Sadly, the proliferation itself is hard to track. For a celebrity or politician, or even a friend from work, the videos are embarrassing because they look so realistic. No one is able to determine how many videos are out there or if the problem is getting worse.
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Now a company called Deeptrace has found the answer.
Analyzing videos from around the Web, the company has determined there are almost 15,000 deepfakes in existence (14,678 to be exact), which is a significant increase from just 7,964 they found a year ago. That is a whopping 84% increase.
And the problem is getting worse.
One of the questions with gatekeeping on social media is that the companies housing the content are also proponents of free speech, so they don’t want to be perceived as blocking anything (even content that is unlawful and should be blocked).
There is a balancing act between allowing free expression and allowing the harmful material. At a recent tech conference, investor and book author Ellen Pao noted how the public square of social media has descended into a cesspool.
As she explained to the audience:
“I don’t think that’s an ethical decision. I don’t think that’s a values-driven decision. I don’t think that’s creating a good public square. I don’t think that’s doing a service for your users who are from the groups that are being hated on. I think you really have to think about your whole community. You have to think about the types of conversations you want to have.”
For now, deepfakes challenge the notion of speech. Many deepfakes are obviously harmful to the person depicted in the videos. They have no intent other than to cause embarrassment. And, the algorithms used by some of the social media companies can’t detect them.
Deepfakes will continue to proliferate, but the good news is that AI will eventually keep up, as Mark Zuckerberg noted last year.
Bots will roam around on social media platforms and will soon be able to detect illicit content like deepfake videos before they ever reach the masses.
Maybe the question we should ask ourselves then is who will control the bots.
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5144f13d4f62ffdc3b56785f9250926f | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnbbrandon/2020/03/04/67-million-people-just-mentioned-the-coronavirus-on-social-media-in-one-day-heres-why/ | 6.7 Million People Just Mentioned The Coronavirus On Social Media In One Day. Here’s Why | 6.7 Million People Just Mentioned The Coronavirus On Social Media In One Day. Here’s Why
SHOHAM, ISRAEL - MARCH 04: Central Election Comittee member wearing protective gear holds a Blue ... [+] and White Party ballot as she counts votes cast by israeli voters under Coronavirus concerns on March 4, 2020 in Shoham, Israel. 4076 Israelis in home Quarantine due to COVID-19 concerns voted in isolated tents for the Israeli general elections. (Photo by Amir Levy/Getty Images) Getty Images
Social media has become a giant data analytics engine for anyone who is interested in trending topics. Using apps that measure total mentions and hashtags across the entire planet, you can find out very quickly what people are talking about and what is driving the public conversation.
As you can guess, the coronavirus is the hot topic of the day. And for good reason — the virus has now infected over 94,000 people worldwide and is to blame for over 3,200 fatalities. (To keep track of the statistics, a teenager named Avi Schiffmann created a good data-tracking website.) It has invaded every continent except the arctic and has now been discovered in New York and Chicago.
With better information, we can make better decisions about what to do and how to plan. However, on social media, that is sometimes difficult. There is a constant stream of opinions and fake news. The trolls are winning by constantly posting misinformation and attacking users right and left.
Fortunately, one app I discovered recently can help cut through the noise. Sprinklr is a customer experience management company that provides reports on social media and digital mentions (they often analyze news reports and blogs in addition to Twitter and other platforms). One recent report supplied directly to Forbes.com found that 6.7 million people mentioned the coronavirus in one day (on February 28).
By far, most of the mentions were on Twitter.
You might wonder two things — why that particular day and why does it matter?
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As far as the high number of mentions, there are a few possible reasons. Sprinklr reps suggested the main impetus was that the World Health Organization announced the risk of exposure is now “very high” on that day. Just two days earlier, another announcement said that infections in places like the U.S. were “inevitable,” which is a word people don’t like to hear. Another factor is that an infection was reported in San Diego that day.
These are only theories, though. When 6.7 million people mention the same topic in one day, there must be more to it than a news announcement. My theory is that the coronavirus became a worldwide topic on social media that day, with much higher mentions than other days. (On February 10 there were 657,000 mentions according to Sprinklr, mostly due to the mounting number of infections.)
Tracking these mentions is a way to get some clarity about topics on social media beyond celebrity news and whatever it is Elon Musk is tweeting about.
We know they are “hot” and popular with the general public, we know people have opinions, but tracking mentions and comparing them provides a much more robust picture of what the world cares about the most.
I’ve also wondered about other topics like climate change and the world economy and if they are trending as much as I suspect, especially on social media. Just because Twitter says it’s trending doesn’t mean it is. I want to know — how much?
By analyzing the metrics on social media, you develop more than a gut feeling. The actual data helps you understand what is of utmost concern. You sense more than a vibe on social media and you can track actual stats and see what has caused the biggest impact worldwide. It’s about scope more than trends.
Do you agree? Post on my social media feed if you have an opinion about how the stats can help us understand our times with more precision and background data.
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812c6bc08f5ed6c41c89e9923e9a39c5 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnbbrandon/2020/03/16/millennials-please-mobilize-each-other-on-social-media-to-address-coronavirus-spread/ | Millennials: Please Mobilize Each Other On Social Media To Address Coronavirus Spread | Millennials: Please Mobilize Each Other On Social Media To Address Coronavirus Spread
coronavirus,3d render Getty
For anyone who is aged 22 up to 40, here is a call to action:
Stop the spread of the disease COVID-19 by spreading the news on social media.
Here’s why that message is so important. You are likely in good health. I know you work hard and you’re stuck renting an apartment. There are a lot of concerns in life and you are vocal about them. Your student debt is mounting. Home prices are soaring. These are real, long-term, and almost insurmountable issues.
Can you set them aside for the time being?
As Millennials, you are tech-savvy and know the difference between a post and a story on Instagram. You are powerfully equipped to spread accurate information about the coronavirus. You have the ability to inform and educate.
And, there are a few things you can do right now.
One is to inform people that it’s not wise to congregate in public. I won’t get into the actual health-related specifics, because the data is readily available from the CDC, but the basic summary is: stop going to bars and restaurants. Chipotle can wait. The chain will survive just fine. Also, stay six feet away from people when you do go in public for now. Don’t go out at all if you feel sick.
This is not just about elderly people, who tend to become infected more easily. Those who have immune deficiencies are also susceptible, and they can be any age.
This is also not about blaming people for going out in public when that is obviously not smart. This is about taking up a new cause. Will you help spread accurate information on social media right now to inform others? How about a video on TikTok? An Instagram story? A few tweets?
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Literally anything you can do helps.
And to show that I’m going to address this problem myself, I’m going to start using my own Twitter and LinkedIn feeds to raise awareness as well. In fact, from now on I plan to avoid posting any articles or other content (e.g., jokes) and focus on news and information about blocking the spread. I plan to post daily.
My question for you is — what matters more right now? Social media is a colossus. It has incredible power to sway opinions, to impact elections — to help others.
Forget hashtags and quirky posts. I’m talking about long captions encouraging your followers to stay home and why that’s important. I’m talking about sharing links so that all of your followers won’t miss the facts.
They might not check CNN, but perhaps they will see your tweet.
Maybe you are too busy. I get that. I’m concerned about family members right now and I’m distracted. I don’t want to see the economy crumble, either. And yet, what really needs to happen is for millions of Millennials (and Gen Z) to talk to each other. To educate each other. To inform and enlighten. Make it impossible for people in your age group to avoid this topic.
It starts now.
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53d7141b121603ee240d3021ed09e089 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnbbrandon/2020/06/24/heres-my-plan-i-dont-ever-want-to-use-zoom-again/?sh=de7fb48619c2 | Here’s My Plan: I Don’t Ever Want To Use Zoom Again | Here’s My Plan: I Don’t Ever Want To Use Zoom Again
Family and friends happy moments in video conference in lockdown quarantine. Getty
With apologies to Zoom investors, I have a confession to make.
I hate Zoom.
Every square inch of the screen, every setting — if I had my way, I’d never use this app again.
It’s not that there's anything wrong with it. In fact, the main reason Zoom is so popular is that it’s easy to use and, due to the low latency, the video chats look smooth and life-like. I love the virtual backgrounds. Recently, I chatted with a new business contact who looked like he was in an ultra-modern kitchen (it looked believable, at least on my miniature iPhone screen).
Lately, every Zoom call has reminded me of what we’re all missing. It’s called reality.
My reason for feeling this way requires a little explanation.
A few years ago, I stopped playing video games on a regular basis. Originally, back when the game Doom first debuted, I was hooked because of the visuals — I loved the idea of exploring a strange new alien world. I loved the art.
I still remember specific scenes from games like God of War and, from way back in the annals of time, Myst on the PC. Those of you who follow video games might remember a waterfall scene from Ico, a true classic. It’s quite stunning.
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I’ve told this story before, but there was one pivotal moment for me when it all hit home. I was playing the game Forza with my son. We were pretty excited because we had finally unlocked a Chevy Corvette. Now, I happen to test cars as part of my job as well, and we started joking about this false sense of accomplishment. You see, I happened to also have a Corvette in the garage at the time. A real one. We set down the controllers and we never looked back. (Okay, he still plays video games and I’ve been known to de-stress after work with NBA 2K.)
My point is — I’ve experienced major Zoom fatigue, and I can’t quite envision the solution or how I’ll find a way to recover anytime soon. A collection of pixels is no substitute for a real person in the same way a virtual Corvette is nothing like driving the sleek and sporty speed demon in the real world. You can’t smell the exhaust. You can’t truly sense the speed.
Curiously, it’s getting worse, not better. It’s not like I dread Zoom calls. I know it’s the only way to communicate during the coronavirus pandemic, especially since close contact in a small office is not exactly a good idea. I regularly participate with as much eagerness as possible. I know the alternatives like Slack and email are even worse in terms of personal connections. But here’s where I start worrying.
A few years ago, brain scientists started openly questioning what happens to all of us when we use our phones all day long. They know there’s a dopamine hit when we receive an email, see a “like” on social media, or click a check on a task. It’s not reality. The sense of success you feel when you rack up some likes on Facebook is not actual success. Our brains don’t seem to know the difference, though. It’s a societal change, and there might be long-term effects. Our screen time is getting scary.
With Zoom, it’s been about four months and counting now. There’s no way to read body language. People smile into a camera and only reveal parts of their lives. Social media has always been detrimental to our mental health because we post only our best moments. Flipping through the feed of a random stranger would make you believe it’s always sunny, they are always smiling, and they never have any problems. On social media, all our problems are expunged. They do not exist.
In Zoom, we portray the best moments of our lives. In a 30 minute chat, we’re presenting the best possible version of ourselves — then we turn off the chat and go back to reality. Technology hasn’t been able to figure out real emotions and deal with real digital fatigue.
I’m not sure we’ll ever figure it out. Bits and bytes, pixels and fonts. They will never come close to what it’s like to sit next to an actual person in a meeting. I’d rather drive a real Corvette.
I may decide when this is finally over that I never want to use Zoom again. I might go back to Skype or use a Google product, but at least I’ll be making a statement:
I prefer reality.
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28084b51820a3d96e4864d03895f8ee7 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnbbrandon/2020/07/06/this-innovative-new-app-solved-a-typical-business-problem/ | This Innovative New App Solved A Typical Business Problem | This Innovative New App Solved A Typical Business Problem
Business concept Getty
With apologies to the entire graphic design field, having someone create a new logo for your company is not exactly an easy process.
Debate with me all you want, but I’ve tried it a few times. There’s a lot of back-and-forth, some tension about costs, and insecurity (mostly on the part of the person who wants the new logo) about how it will all turn out.
You might say it is similar to the wedding planning problem. You have lofty ambitions, but then there’s the reality check of how much it actually costs to pay a real designer to make a logo that includes all of the branding, sizes and formats, press kit, and other materials you might want.
Now, I realize some designers have figured out how to remove some of the consternation and hats off to them. In my experience, it’s not quite as smooth as it could be.
As you can guess, technology has improved to the point where there is an answer to almost every problem you might encounter in business. The one I tried out recently is called 99designs, and it proved to be an amazing experience (with only a few small caveats). You submit a proposal and run a contest to see hundreds of possibilities and can pick the one you like.
I started with a simple logo design contest. Prices start at about $299 for a basic logo, but you can run a contest for an entire branding project or even to design a T-shirt.
I like how the wizard works in guiding users through the process of explaining what you need and the parameters. It was also clear that this is all about the contest and that you can decide to stop the process if you don’t like the initial results. There’s a money-back guarantee.
Here’s what I liked about how it all worked. Because there were so many submissions, I was able to provide detailed feedback on at least a dozen designs and ask for changes. In one case, a few logos looked pretty good but I didn’t like the font or the logo design. In a few cases, a logo that seemed okay at first evolved into something that looked much more professional. I can imagine the designers include everyone from professionals who do this for a living to people who just want to work hard and have a visual flair (but might be accountants by day).
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I zeroed in on a small handful and asked for more tweaks, but it became pretty obvious at this stage that one particular designer had created what looked like a final design. Once he made a few last tweaks, he delivered the logo in multiple sizes and formats.
I do think 99designs is a good fit for our current situation. I might have liked meeting with a designer in person to talk about my needs. In my case, it was just a logo for a side hobby, but I could see a small business or even a larger company trying to create some new branding wanting to do an in-person meeting. That’s not possible now. I am not sure if my designer could have chatted over Zoom at some point, but it didn’t matter — the result was just right.
As for the costs, there are various packages available ranging from $299 for a simple logo all the way up to several thousand for a complete corporate identity package. I was quite pleased with how it all worked. The reason it worked is because there were so many submissions. Any tension about a designer who wasn’t quite up to the challenge was removed.
The pricing was clear from the beginning. In terms of the tech, it was all online and the images were sized and formatted correctly. I used the app several times to review logos and gave feedback like I was texting someone on my phone. It worked like a charm.
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7df85bf822c75dea0740470730609559 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnbbrandon/2021/02/12/jeff-bezos-has-a-simple-rule-for-building-a-business-according-to-this-new-book/ | Jeff Bezos Has A Simple Rule For Building A Business, According To This New Book | Jeff Bezos Has A Simple Rule For Building A Business, According To This New Book
Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos speaks after receiving the 2019 International Astronautical ... [+] Federation (IAF) Excellence in Industry Award during the the 70th International Astronautical Congress at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, DC on October 22, 2019. (Photo by MANDEL NGAN / AFP) (Photo by MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images) AFP via Getty Images
What does it take to make it in business?
That’s a question I’ve been asked many times. Years ago, a college student asked me about all of the elements of starting a company including invoicing, customer service, sales and marketing, and even the subtle factors like employee morale.
“You just have to do everything perfectly and you’ll be fine,” I said at the time.
Many decades before that, Jeff Bezos also had a simple rule for doing customer service and meeting customer needs, according to a new book about the phenomenal rise and continued dominance of Amazon. “It has to be perfect,” he said circa 1999.
Interestingly, innovation and perfection go hand in hand. To build any business, you have to be perfectly innovative. Create the exact product people need at the perfect time (and throw in at the right price as well). Companies fail because they are imperfect at innovation. Yet, it goes much further than that. You can build an average company that is not quite perfect, but having a long and fruitful career in business, running a marketing department or catalyzing employees at a startup to think differently about a new product, or gaining the unparalleled brand recognition of Amazon requires something far greater. Perfection has to touch every corner.
I’ll give you one example. When it comes to email communication, I’ve seen employees who make frequent foibles. I’m not talking about grammar. They come across as a bit rude or condescending, they treat customers poorly, or they're too abrupt. Do that over a few years and eventually the recipients of those emails (also known as the people who send you money) start to view your organization as a bit average or even toxic.
The chain of events tends to occur on this progression: A handful of toxic emails leads to a slight perception of toxicity which then leads to customers who don’t want to do business with you anymore. You could say toxicity at a company starts with one imperfect email.
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And then, expand out from there. The accounting department fudges on a few expense reports. No big deal! We’ll correct it next year. The marketing department doesn’t stick religiously to brand dogma and lets a few things slip. Your shipping department is not that concerned about a few delays here and there.
In terms of how technology plays a role and how innovative companies either thrive or dive, the imperfections are even more obvious. Using outdated technology because it’s “good enough” for now. Letting security holes stay wide open for years because plugging them would take up too much time and effort.
Now, I’m not sure other great companies like Apple have followed this advice since their inception. You could argue that Apple really had a desolate period after Steve Jobs left. (I recall attending an Apple event once where the air was thick with desperation and a fatalistic vibe.) Yet, you could also say the company has been close to perfect since about 2007.
The question is how to maintain this level of perfection over long periods. I don’t have an easy answer to that. Also, I’ve never built Amazon. If I ever get a chance to interview Bezos, it will be one of my first questions. Most of us are dealing with some imperfections here and there.
The good news is that there is also an opportunity for a restart. In your career, at your company, or even in life. I’m using the word perfection here but what I really mean is a commitment to perfection, to living and working with utmost excellence in mind. As we all know, Bezos is not perfect. But Amazon is a great company and continues to grow and expand.
I can only speak for myself in this regard: Excellence is not always at the top of my mind. I need to constantly evaluate my tasks and projects to determine whether I’m letting anything slide. At the end of the day, this constant self-analysis and adjustment is all mere mortals can do.
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547b318f132ade894930ab9e021da491 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnbbrandon/2021/02/16/heres-what-a-new-social-media-app-from-donald-trump-might-look-like/?sh=e9e7dcc2891e | Here’s What A New Social Media App From Donald Trump Might Look Like | Here’s What A New Social Media App From Donald Trump Might Look Like
US President Donald Trump speaks before boarding Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on ... [+] January 20, 2021. - President Trump travels to his Mar-a-Lago golf club residence in Palm Beach, Florida, and will not attend the inauguration for President-elect Joe Biden. (Photo by ALEX EDELMAN / AFP) (Photo by ALEX EDELMAN/AFP via Getty Images) AFP via Getty Images
Now that Donald Trump has been acquitted after his impeachment trial, there are new rumblings about what he might do next.
One idea? Start a new social media company.
It makes sense because the former world leader was booted off Twitter and has no social media platform. Say what you will about the politics of this, the alternative apps available, and how it might all pan out for his future, the writing is on the wall: Trump will definitely do something. I think it will be a social media app.
My guess is the platform will look a bit like a news channel. In fact, I can imagine an app development company pitching the idea: “What if Fox News built a social media app?” Emphasis on video, engagement, and insider posts.
As you may know, Facebook is already a news aggregator, a video channel, and about 100 other things now. The platform that Mark Zuckerberg envisioned way back when is nothing like the current incarnation. It’s a messaging app, a photo archive system, a group discussion portal, and might even take on the Clubhouse app with a drop-in audio feature soon.
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A Trump social media empire might look a lot like a television empire. Users might be able to submit their own news broadcasts, something like a politically conservative version of YouTube. Throw in status updates similar to Twitter, and it might be a gargantuan app that people with like-minded views use to congregate, share their opinions...and help launch his reincarnation.
Mark my words on this one: I’d say a good 10 million people will sign up in the first month. They are waiting for a place to air their grievances ever since Twitter went dark. There’s only one problem.
The technical requirements for a brand new social media platform like this could prove insurmountable, starting with the security requirements but branching out into the legal ramifications of a new app that caters to one segment of the population. Companies like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are more and more concerned about how their platforms have incited people, spurred radical conspiracy theories, and encouraged troll-like behavior.
The one major shift we’ve seen in the social media space lately is that the major platforms are cracking down on fringe views, usually by blocking users or removing the content altogether. Starting about six months ago, I started seeing more and more notices about posts that do not adhere to the terms of service or do not pass a litmus test. You can still click to see the post, but it’s obvious this crackdown will continue for the foreseeable future.
What would a Trump social media network do to skirt these impediments and avoid constant legal trouble? That’s not clear, especially since any new app would be entering the space without much of a track record. While I might be correct that 10 million people would sign-up right away, it could also take years and years before more like 70 million people registered, and even longer to reach 2.8 billion users that are currently on Facebook.
Then there’s the issue of monetization. Trump likes to make money. I’m still not sure how Twitter plans to radically increase revenue, even if they start charging for a subscription. Will advertisers flock to the Trump platform? Will users agree to a social media fee? Could the portal become a springboard for Trump rallies, business properties, and other business opportunities?
Those are all questions we might need to ask soon enough.
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8dfd58cd8f7b55023c1ffb68557dd1df | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnbbrandon/2021/03/24/this-book-author-just-explained-why-trolls-are-running-rampant-on-social-media/?sh=26bc2f9f35f3 | This Book Author Just Explained Why Trolls Are Running Rampant On Social Media | This Book Author Just Explained Why Trolls Are Running Rampant On Social Media
Black and Yellow warning sign attached on a fence. The sign stating “Warning - Do not feed the ... [+] trolls”. getty
After only 10 years of using social media, it might be time to take stock of whether we have learned how to effectively communicate with one another on these nascent platforms.
One reason for this? The trolls are out on hunting parties on Twitter and the disinformation campaigns are running wild on Facebook.
Just the other day, I saw my first angry comment on Instagram (which is surprising because I’m mostly just posting pictures of my book writing process).
In terms of the emotional intelligence I’ve seen from people who express themselves using digital bits on social, we’re in an infant stage. To make things more civil, it will take more than a few emojis here and there.
What’s often missing is actual emotional cues that signal to each other whether we have gone too far with a comment or a hurtful post.
Recently, I talked to Ethan Kross, the author of Chatter: The Voice in Our Head, Why It Matters, and How to Harness It. The book is about how we process the daily activities and experiences of life in our heads, adjusting our responses and (hopefully) calibrating what we say and do.
In our chat, Kross mentioned how social media in particular has not really addressed the problem of rumination and filtering when it comes to posting nastygrams to each other.
“What is missing from social media are those cues that humanize the person we are speaking with,” he says. “It is much harder to reject someone to their face and say something nasty to them than it is over social media. We have gone so far away from that it makes it easier to express ourselves without any filtering.”
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An example I was thinking about has to do with the nuanced discussions I’ve seen. In recent months, I’ve watched Facebook discussions devolve quickly into name-calling and exaggeration over the vaccines, in some cases turning into a digital fistfight.
It’s easy to share a grin emoji or a sad face once in a while, but it often isn’t nearly enough. We don’t see how people are reacting in real-time, and the quick access on our phones means we don’t think through how a comment might make someone feel when they read it.
What Kross is recommending is more emphasis on the human element, especially now that we have so much data and a legacy of posts on all of the major portals.
He says we’ve had thousands of years to learn, in his words, “how to profitably navigate the world offline. Now might be the right time to take what we’ve learned to teach people how to navigate the online environment.”
This “socialization” of social media could include more verbal and visual cues.
“We can enhance our responses and become more sensitive to these interactions. We are learning so much about social media, we are in a much better position than we were 10 years ago. We are going to learn more and become more refined,” says Kross.
So, how might that work? Facebook offers some rudimentary tools that can spot things like death threats or harsh assaults. I like how the new Kindli app addresses this. If you try to post something hyper-critical and rude, the app blocks the post.
A next step might be to give users a rating of perception. The platforms could analyze the tone and offer some feedback about how the post or comment might be perceived, based on a long history of previous discussions on social media.
Another idea: I like how the Checkmarq app requires that you share your actual passport or identification to prove who you are.
When people do that, they are revealing some of their humanity. We have been ruminating for thousands of years which is helpful in the real public square, but we’re in the stone age on social media. More cues will certainly help.
“Social media has not learned the lessons [about emotional cues] yet. We don’t have the collective knowledge to navigate the space. We are only now developing it,” he says. In my mind, reforming the trolls can’t come soon enough.
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a749ba95b468e64d2236e432588755f8 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnbbrandon/2021/04/12/facebooks-hotline-is-the-clubhouse-killer-no-one-needs/ | Facebook’s Hotline Is The Clubhouse Killer No One Needs | Facebook’s Hotline Is The Clubhouse Killer No One Needs
YICHANG, CHINA - APRIL 7, 2021 - A mobile phone shows the Facebook interface, Yichang, Hubei ... [+] province, China, April 7, 2021. The data of more than 530 million users of Facebook, the US social media platform, has been revealed to have been compromised. Facebook said on Monday that hackers had "snatched" personal information from more than 500 million users in 2019. (Photo credit should read Costfoto/Barcroft Media via Getty Images) Barcroft Media via Getty Images
Facebook is planning a Clubhouse rival called Hotline, and I couldn’t be less interested.
I’ve written a few times now about how I’m a fan of Clubhouse because it’s an app that attempted something new (namely, an audio chat that feels like an interactive podcast). My favorite convo so far was probably the one with a group of social media influencers who shared some surprisingly candid details about what having influence even means.
I’ve now interviewed authors, held a few pitch sessions, and even joined a panel to talk about emerging entrepreneurship. It’s a fun, easy, and useful app that takes up a prominent place on my home screen. I’ve been known to use it while driving around (sometimes doing a reverse commute, hands-free of course) and, in a few cases, dropped in unannounced and joined a few people to chat about publicity for books (like the one I’m working on right now).
I don’t like when imitators try to steal the thunder of a rising star, especially when they are side projects of major companies like Facebook. Stick to the baby photos, okay? Clubhouse is trying to carve out some new territory, and when the imitation app like Hotline encroaches on that space too soon, it slows the growth cycle.
You could argue that imitation is a form of flattery, but I’d rather watch and see how Clubhouse evolves without a massive corporate monolith stealing the show.
Hotline is in a private beta but purports to offer several innovations that trump Clubhouse. You can speak to an audience and take questions, either by audio or video. The app lets you record the session and, presumably, you might be able to sell the recording to people who missed it. The dark and mysterious user interface, at least on the launch site, is trendy and cool. In fact, it might even be a better app and has more potential, but I still plan to stick with Clubhouse.
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One reason is that Hotline isn’t really serving the audience. Influencers don’t need to segment even more. Clubhouse is trying to gain massive market share and I would say it’s a rocky period. People are fussy. The app is new and novel, but that could also mean it loses momentum with the blink of an eye.
With apps like this, the goal is to build up an audience and keep them engaged. If they drift off to another app or the market splinters too much, everyone loses. This includes the people trying to build up their followers, the audience looking for rich content and engaging conversations, and even the startup firms trying to create new features. It’s not so flattering to have an imitator come along and watch as the user counts start to slide downward.
It is also true that this competition is going to fuel innovation. I thought of a good definition of innovation the other day, and it applies here. To me, it almost always means building something none of us knew we needed. I am thinking of social media itself, or livestream services, or a way to pay for products with our phones. Forget the lightbulb moment. It’s more like you are in a dark room and someone finds the light switch. Suddenly, we can see in the dark. It’s innovative because it’s newly useful.
For me, Clubhouse is like that.
I’ve been able to find new connections, learned a thing or two about book authorship, and discovered new products after my pitch sessions. Hotline might even be the better app, but really? Let’s at least give Clubhouse a chance first.
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2a81f1b5150a27c6d3456fb8c955dbaa | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnbbrandon/2021/04/13/elon-musks-the-boring-company-is-starting-to-look-like-a-dumb-idea/ | Elon Musk’s The Boring Company Is Starting To Look Like A Dumb Idea | Elon Musk’s The Boring Company Is Starting To Look Like A Dumb Idea
BERLIN, GERMANY DECEMBER 01: SpaceX owner and Tesla CEO Elon Musk poses on the red carpet of the ... [+] Axel Springer Award 2020 on December 01, 2020 in Berlin, Germany. (Photo by Hannibal Hanschke-Pool/Getty Images) Getty Images
What if you could bore a hole in the ground to get to work? Like a mole, you’d furrow through the earth, straight to your destination. And what if you could drive a car through the tunnel?
Seems interesting at first, but it also means sitting in your car even more. There’s barely enough space to fit the vehicle, so it’s claustrophobic. Also, there’s no way to use the bathroom.
If this sounds like a terrible idea, the reality is even worse.
Recently, Elon Musk showcased a tunnel in the Las Vegas area. It’s a 1.7-mile loop, called the Loop, that might eventually connect underground to the airport.
In case that sounds familiar and you are picturing a subway, that’s because it is exactly like a subway, except that you drive in a Tesla.
The idea for The Boring Company started as a tweet back in 2016 and it still feels about as fleshed out as 140-characters (at the time) would allow.
Musk often tweets out jokes and memes, some of them directed at specific companies. He even tweeted at one of my articles many years ago. This was one of those rare instances when he seemed to be joking but then actually created the company.
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My contention here is that Musk should have left it as a meme. I read this all as: “Let’s bore a tunnel in major cities at an incredibly high cost under the existing highway system we already use in hopes that few people will discover the idea or we’ll have to deal with congestion.” If you’re an investor and that’s the pitch, you’d run for the hills. More likely, you’d drive away without having to lower yourself into a tunnel.
That congestion problem is interesting. The business concept hinges on the hope that few people will use this single-lane tunnel. If they did start commuting this way and we all started boring tunnels under most major cities, you’d have to wait for your car to enter the single lane or pay extra for the privilege. Meanwhile, sane people would just use the existing highway system.
In my area, there’s a similar transport that leads from the metropolitan airport to a major shopping mall a few miles away. It’s called a tram. I’m sure there must be other technical reasons why The Boring Company exists, but it smacks of elitism. “I deserve my own tunnel and to drive my own car.”
The Boring Company refutes a few things on their site, including any comparisons to a subway: “Loop is an express public transportation system that resembles an underground highway more than a subway system. If a subway line had 100 stops, a train would typically stop at each station, so the trip between Stop 1 and Stop 100 would be long. In contrast, Loop passengers travel directly to their destination, anywhere between Stop 1 to Stop 100, without stopping at the intermediate stations.”
When I read that, I just think about being in an enclosed tunnel for way too long. The site mentions earthquakes, Covid-19 safety, and a few other things. The actual tunnel in Las Vegas, though, involves a fleet of 62 vehicles (the Tesla Model 3 electric cars), humming along silently. For safety reasons the cars can’t go anywhere near as fast as the suggested 125 MPH or previous 150 MPH estimate. It’s only about 35 MPH for now. Apparently, instructing the driver about where to drop you off is complex and confusing. Also, you read that correctly: Even though the Tesla is capable of driving autonomously and there seems to be little danger of driving off the road or hitting a tractor-trailer, there’s still a driver involved.
The FAQ posted at The Boring Company used to say 10,000 people an hour (the link is currently not active). The recent claim is that the tunnel can transport 4,400 people per hour around the convention center. I’d be surprised if that’s possible. First you need 4,400 people per hour willing to do that after the disco lights fade. The monorail system in Vegas transports about 5 million people per year using multiple cars and has been running for decades. If The Boring Company transports 4,400 people per hour all day, that would be almost 20 million people per year.
Maybe there’s more to it. No emissions? That’s true of many monorail systems. The cool factor? Not sure how cool it is to ride in a tunnel at low speeds. Avoid congestion? That is exactly what a train is for, minus the annoying factor of using individual cars that can hold fewer people and cost much more to build and operate.
It’s glitzy and high-profile, with a catchy and clever name that might be a little too prescient for its own good. Maybe it should be called The Ridiculous Company.
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28af17a182a0db76cba6bd2c966297af | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnbbrandon/2021/05/02/this-book-author-says-we-should-analyze-slowly-but-act-quickly/ | This Book Author Says We Should Analyze Slowly But Act Quickly | This Book Author Says We Should Analyze Slowly But Act Quickly
Choosing the key to success from hanging keys concept for aspirations, achievement and incentive getty
Getting stuck is not fun.
With technology, in business, or with a marketing campaign, it also doesn't feel productive. In fact, it feels like you're spinning your wheels and going nowhere.
One reason for that is because of how long it takes to get anything started. Think of an innovative new tech product like the iPhone or the entire Android platform.
In the early days, getting started took forever. Even the late Steve Jobs didn’t quite realize that the original iPhone was going to become so popular and go well beyond a music player that makes phone calls. Android was stuck in tech purgatory before it actually launched and took hold with the masses. I remember meeting an Android developer early on at Google headquarters as he lamented the slow start.
For anyone in business, if you have an innovative idea, it’s important to analyze your market. Think through the logistics, but then move quickly through the launch phases.
According to author and pastor Keion Henderson, the main reason people question their decisions and get stuck is because they wonder if they can really move forward. It’s rampant and persistent self-doubt. The former NCAA basketball player wrote a book called The Shift: Courageously Moving from Season to Season that is all about the seasonal change in our lives.
In fact, the book itself launched right before the pandemic and Henderson had to shift his entire approach in terms of how he connected with readers. I recently chatted with him on Clubhouse (the drop-in audio app) and asked him why shifting is so important in business.
“You have to count what you already have to see if there is enough equity in your current sphere to make the decision,” says Henderson. Also known as opportunity costs, his idea is to see if there is enough opportunity within your influence to make a decision and finish a task, but then to act quickly.
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Successful people spend the time to think about a decision, but then they make decisions without hesitating. They contemplate, says Henderson, then act.
“The moment you know you have to move or move on, you have to do that pretty quickly,” says Henderson. The reason is that the extended rumination and double-thinking after you decide is what slows people down, especially when it comes to career changes or starting a company.
I’ve experienced this many times. I’ve been working on a book lately and there were times when I had to make tough decisions about it. Which chapters to include and exclude, which sections to revise. It wasn’t easy, but when I was able to analyze it and then make the decision, I could then move ahead and implement the changes. I ripped out entire chapters with one click of the delete key and never looked back.
With technology and business, there’s a similar scenario where the “getting stuck” part after a decision is what really causes most of the problems. Namely, other innovators breeze past you and find success. A good idea languishes.
With my book, I’m also aware of how quickly things need to happen. I built a website in only a few days (on my own) because I knew it needed to launch quickly. It’s meant to be a landing page for people to find out more about the book anyway. It didn’t need to be fancy. I plan to follow Henderson’s idea, which he explained on the Clubhouse chat, about doing virtual meetings and I may even pivot to doing a podcast about the book. I researched forever, now I want to launch quickly.
Slow analysis and fast decisions makes sense.
I plan to put that into practice with most of my endeavors.
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1db5acbeba629788c1fd91e8d2abc98f | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnberlau/2016/03/31/metlifes-victory-also-good-for-fintech-innovators/ | MetLife's Victory Is Also Good For Fintech Innovators | MetLife's Victory Is Also Good For Fintech Innovators
MetLife decided the burdens outweighed the benefits of being "too big to fail," and it prevailed.... [+] (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)
Insurance giant MetLife won a big victory Wednesday as a district court rescinded the government’s designation of the firm as “systemically important.” Though not immediately apparent, this was also a victory for Fintech firms as well, from big online “marketplace lenders” to small startups to firms not yet formed.
It’s a great win, in fact, for all innovators wishing to create an alternative to the established banking order. The ruling limits the government using its power arbitrarily to fit non-bank financial firms into the banking regulation hole.
Despite MetLife’s protests that it was not systemically important – and its wishes to have neither the regulatory burdens that come with such designation nor the benefits of being designated by the government as essentially “too big to fail” – the Financial Stability Oversight Council still labeled the firm that way with very little empirical data. Though Judge Rosemary Collyer’s ruling is still under seal, based on her public order, she seems to have rejected the FSOC’s paltry justification for such action.
Proponents of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act enacted in 2010 claim it ended bailouts. But the law’s creation of FSOC shows the opposite is true. FSOC, a secretive council of regulators from the Treasury Department and various banking and financial agencies, has the power to designate both banks and non-banks as “systemically important financial institutions” (SIFIs).
Being designated a SIFI means the firm is largely seen as too-big-to-fail by policymakers and will be at least temporarily propped up to forestall a normal bankruptcy. This aspect likely confers a benefit on firms with this designation. It’s no wonder that many firms, including bailout recipient American International Group , have not only not fought this designation, but embraced it.
But the designation usually also comes with bank-like capital rules that may be totally inappropriate for non-banks firms, like MetLife. Banks have deposits that can be withdrawn at any time, whereas life insurance firms have policies that in most cases won’t pay out for years. As my fellow Forbes contributor and Adam Smith Institute senior fellow Tim Worstall writes today, MetLife “is not inherently fragile: because it’s not a bank and isn’t borrowing short to lend long.”
MetLife decided the burdens outweighed the benefits of being a SIFI, and it prevailed. In its legal brief, MetLife’s argument paralleled some of those of a lawsuit from my organization, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, about how FSOC violates the Constitution’s separation of powers through its unusual structure that evades both congressional and judicial constraints. (The FSOC challenge is no longer part of that case, though the lawsuit is continuing against the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Click here for more info on that case.)
Again since the case is under seal, it’s unclear what Collyer’s reasoning was in stopping FSOC from designating MetLife a SIFI. It’s also unknown whether MetLife will prevail if the government appeals. But Collyer’s decision at least puts a break on FSOC and other regulatory agencies having unfettered power to decide which firms are “systemically important.”
And this is why Fintech entrepreneurs should cheer. As innovators, they are creating models different – and in many cases more sustainable – than banks, but regulators in a bank-like mindset still show inclinations to shut down first and ask questions later. But knowing that they could still be checked by the judicial system should be a good incentive for these regulators to at least sit down and discuss issues with the FinTech players.
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cf5dad725f892c8b393919ddcb43c424 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnberlau/2018/08/27/let-middle-class-investors-join-the-accredited-club/?sh=779e4f6d4641 | Let Middle-Class Investors Join the 'Accredited' Club | Let Middle-Class Investors Join the 'Accredited' Club
NEW YORK, NY - AUGUST 27: Traders and financial professionals work at the opening bell on the floor... [+] of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), August 27, 2018 in New York City. Thanks to heavy-handed regulation, there are fewer public companies trading on U.S. exchanges than at anytime since the 1970s, and middle-class investors are locked out of opportunities to grow their wealth. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images) With the increasing focus on inequality and cronyism on both Left and Right, one would think that politicians and bureaucrats would rush to get rid of any policy that explicitly reserves privileges for the rich. Yet when it comes to the ability to invest in promising private companies, this is exactly what federal securities law does. Under current rules, an adult must be an “accredited investor” to buy shares of stock in most of these firms. And the sole qualification for becoming “accredited” is being a millionaire or earning hundreds of thousands per year. So only wealthy Americans have the opportunity to grow even wealthier with the startup that could become the next Uber or Facebook. The “accredited investor” rules have existed for decades and when first implemented actually helped the economy and entrepreneurs. This is because the securities laws of the 1930s were vague as to what constituted a “private offering” not required to register with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and startups were uncertain as to whether they would face SEC red tape when they raised initial capital. As former Cato Institute scholar Thaya Brook Knight (now Counsel to SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce) has written, "it was initially left to the courts to decide what would qualify." With the rationale that wealthy folks were better able to “fend for themselves” if an investment went sour, the SEC in 1982 created the safe harbor in which firms would not have to register if most of its investors were “accredited,” which the SEC defined as having annual income exceeding $200,000 ($300,000 with a spouse), or having a net worth exceeding $1 million. Just as inflation was allowing slightly more investors to enter this “millionaire’s club"in the new millennium, the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010 excluded primary residences from the net worth calculation, ratcheting the wealth threshold even higher. Through the ‘80s and ‘90s, the “accredited investor” rules had minimal impact on ordinary investors. Most firms still launched initial public offerings (IPOs) as they were growing, after which the stock was freely traded. In the 1990s, 80 percent of IPOs – including those of Starbucks, Cisco Systems, and Amazon – were smaller than $50 million. Middle-class investors who bought shares shortly after these companies went public would share in the wealth as the firms prospered. What really created the inequality of privilege was ever-growing red tape on public companies that began with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, which was rammed through Congress and signed by President George W. Bush in the wake of accounting scandals at Enron and Worldcom. SOX, as it is called, broadly mandated that public companies audit all “internal controls.” By forcing the documenting of this minutiae, SOX quadrupled auditing costs and made it prohibitively expensive for new firms to go public. Thus, most companies going public today are large, dominant firms. Facebook, for instance, did not go public until it had a market valuation of $104 billion, so wealthy “accredited investors” were the only ones who prospered during its early stages of growth. Further, the number of public companies on US exchanges is at its lowest point in nearly 50 years. According to Bloomberg, there were just 3600 firms listed at the end of 2017. That’s a lower number than even that for the “bear market” year of 1975, when U.S. publicly traded firms numbered more than 4700. Moreover, this decline is a purely U.S. phenomenon, as foreign stock listings rose 28 percent from 1996 to 2012, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research. This is an alarming trend, as capital ownership is a central plank of a thriving free-market democracy. It gives people a source of income to complement their work, and a stake in dynamic capitalism and ongoing productivity growth. It’s also a problem, because a greater variety of investment options is not only necessary for economic freedom and choice, but is also crucial to building diversified portfolios that theory and evidence show offer higher returns at lower risk. Fortunately, there is some good news for middle-class investors and entrepreneurs. The U.S. House of Representatives recently took a step in the right direction by voting almost unanimously to expand the criteria that qualify one as an accredited investor. The JOBS and Investor Confidence Act, which passed the House in July with a vote of 406-4, provides for registered brokers and investment advisers, as well as those with “demonstrable education or experience” relating to an investment, to meet the “accredited investor” standard to buy shares in private companies. By providing for greater flexibility when assessing investor sophistication, this bill takes a needed first step to reforming what has become an outdated paternalistic intervention into the economic freedom of Americans. There are now 4.6 million Americans earning more than $200,000 per year, according to the Census Bureau. According to Federal Reserve surveys, 10.9 million Americans had net worth above $1 million as of 2016. Since the two categories surely overlap, we can be confident that less, and likely far less, than 6 percent of American adults currently qualify as accredited investors. The bill passed by the House would increase the number of such investors by the 630,000 brokers and advisers presently registered, plus an indeterminate but almost certainly larger number of people with relevant education and experience. This number would vary depending on the activity and sector of the issuing firm, but it would in most cases add millions of prospective individuals to the potential investor base of any private offering. This JOBS and Investor Confidence Act would increase investment opportunities for millions of Americans, while expanding the pool of capital to which entrepreneurs can appeal for funding.. The Senate should pass it immediately to give the middle class a step up on the ladder of wealth. John Berlau is a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. He thanks Diego Zuluaga, a policy analyst at the Cato Institute, for comments and suggestions.
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c25ec0b096f00d2e6ade1628560f51c8 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnbrinkley/2014/11/11/u-s-and-china-agree-to-tariff-free-technology-trade/ | U.S. and China Agree to Tariff-Free Technology Trade | U.S. and China Agree to Tariff-Free Technology Trade
The United States and China took a big step toward an even bigger trade relationship yesterday; they signed an agreement to eliminate tariffs on a range of technology products.
The agreement comes under the WTO’s Information Technology Agreement (ITA), which took effect in 1997. It’s kind of a big deal in that the ITA is stringent in what it allows – it has to be all or nothing. That is, tariffs have to be eliminated – not reduced, eliminated – on all products included in the ITA Declaration. And the list of products includes just about every electronic device ever invented.
It’s also notable – surprising, even – in that China has been protecting its semiconductor industry with high tariffs to help it grow.
The only wiggle room the ITA allows is that parties to a deal can in some cases phase out tariffs rather than eliminate them all at once.
The US-China agreement has to be approved by the 68 other ITA members in Geneva.
“At a time when there have been a lot of FTAs and regional arrangements, the WTO hasn’t actually cut tariffs in 17 years, and the ITA represents the first opportunity to do that,” Froman said in Beijing.
What he didn’t say, but is no doubt what the Obama administration is thinking, is that this agreement will serve as a test of China’s willingness to play by the rules.
Its past in that regard is, shall we say, checkered.
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f26bbbedfbbf33bd1010ffc023c6b96c | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnbrinkley/2015/01/08/no-fast-track-no-free-trade-agreement/ | No Fast-Track = No Free Trade Agreement | No Fast-Track = No Free Trade Agreement
Let’s get something straight about the whole fast-track/free trade debate: without the former, you can’t have the latter.
About a dozen Democratic House members, accompanied by union leaders, environmentalists, association representatives, faith groups, LGBT groups and others, held a press conference this morning to rail against the prospect of granting the Obama administration Trade Promotion Authority for the Trans-Pacific Partnership, now under negotiation between the United States and 11 other Pacific Rim countries.
Trade Promotion Authority – better-known as fast-track – is legislation that says Congress cannot amend a free trade agreement that the administration sends to it for ratification. The House and Senate can vote on it – yes or no – but they can’t change it. Take it or leave it, in other words.
The House members and their allies said that was fundamentally unfair and undemocratic. It said it deprives them – the true representatives of the people – the right to make sure a free trade agreement doesn’t harm their constituents, as they say NAFTA and other FTAs have done.
Here’s the thing: without fast-track, ratifying the TPP or any multi-lateral FTA would be impossible. It would mean that after years of pain-staking negotiations between the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and its counterparts from 11 other countries, and arrival at an agreement among them, Congress could tear the whole thing apart. USTR would then have to start all over again.
If that were the process, it’s hard to imagine why those 11 trade ministers would even bother negotiating with us.
The anti-fast-track legislators also complained that the TPP was being negotiated in secret and they were being kept in the dark.
“If it’s so awesome, let us see it. But we can’t,” said Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota.
“We need to be able to scrutinize the text of these deals, page by page, line by line, word by word,” said Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, who organized and led the press conference. “We need to read this bill, just as we do with any other piece of legislation.”
Perhaps she’s forgotten that she’s already done that. DeLauro read the then-current TTP text on March 27, 2014. Any member of Congress at any time can call USTR and ask to see the negotiating text and USTR will deliver it to his or her office. Only four members of Congress have availed themselves of that privilege. They were all at today’s press conference, claiming they had no idea what was in the TPP.
Since 2009, when the TPP negotiations began, USTR has consulted hundreds of times with members and staff of the House Ways and Means Committee, the Senate Finance Committee, and about ten other committees.
USTR also consults regularly with dozens of so-called cleared advisors representing businesses, labor unions, the environmental community and other interests. One of the cleared advisors is AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, who was at this morning’s press conference complaining about a lack of transparency. Cleared advisors can see the agreement’s negotiating text anytime they want.
Celeste Drake, the AFL-CIO’s trade and globalization policy specialist, said in congressional testimony in August 2013 that “this administration deserves to be commended for the outreach in which it has engaged. The cleared advisors for the AFL-CIO and its affiliates have spent dozens of hours discussing with administration negotiators the specific issues that are involved in the TPP talks and offering concrete recommendations. We have appreciated the spirit of cooperation and dialogue exhibited by the administration at all levels.”
DeLauro, et al, also forgot to mention that Congress can effectively amend an FTA via a fast-track bill. They can write a bill that says they won’t consider the TPP unless certain conditions are met, such as rigid safety standards for imported foods. Congress has written conditions into every fast-track bill it has ever passed. However, with the House and Senate under Republican control, Democrats aren’t likely to get much of anything they want into a TPP fast-track bill.
An inconvenient coincidence for the anti-fast-track, anti-TPP folks: the Pew Research Center released some poll results today that showed Americans actually kind of like trade – and Democrats like it more than Republicans do.
Pew reported that 71 percent of Democrats say that “trade is good” compared with 68 percent of Republicans. And 59 percent of Democrats say that “TPP is a good thing” compared with 49 percent of Republicans.
It seems that DeLauro, her colleagues and their allies are fighting a losing battle.
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111018063a80587442bb836d6a7127d0 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnbrinkley/2018/09/17/on-trade-trump-keeps-doing-the-same-thing-over-and-over-expecting-a-different-result/ | On Trade, Trump Keeps Doing The Same Thing Over and Over, Expecting a Different Result | On Trade, Trump Keeps Doing The Same Thing Over and Over, Expecting a Different Result
The United States has 14 trade agreements with 20 countries.
Each one was arrived at through negotiations that were, for the most part, cordial. The U.S. and the other parties to most of these agreements were at least as interested in their geopolitical benefits as their economic ones. None of those other parties agreed to negotiate those agreements under duress or out of fear that the U.S. would punish them if they didn’t play ball.
Linda McMahon, administrator of the Small Business Administration (SBA), center, speaks as President... [+] Trump, right, and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, left, listen during a meeting of the President's National Council for the American Worker at the White House Sept. 17. Trump said he'd make an announcement after U.S. financial markets close Monday, after complaining about Chinese trade practices. Photographer: Oliver Contreras/Pool via Bloomberg
President Trump is trying a new approach, exemplified by his remarks about trade negotiations with Canada.
“I don’t want to do anything bad to Canada,” he told reporters aboard Air Force One. “I can. All I have to do is tax their cars. It would be devastating.”
Not just devastating, he said, but the “ruination” of Canada.
“Actually, on some countries, including Canada, a tax on cars would be the ruination of the country,” he said. “That’s how big it is. It’d be the ruination of the country.”
Imposing a tariff on imports of Canada-made cars would not even come close to ruining the country, but that’s not the point. The point is that this is his approach to negotiating with America’s closest friends, so it’s fair ask what it’s gotten him so far.
It got him a modified trade agreement with Mexico, a relatively poor developing country that depends on exports to the U.S. for its economic survival. It had no choice but to give in to Trump’s threats. The Mexicans may be vulnerable, but they’re not stupid. They know that the principal concessions they made – that 75% of a Mexican-built car’s parts must be sourced from within North America and that 45% of that car be built by workers earning at least $16 per hour – will be extremely difficult to enforce. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency probably won’t even try.
Canada is another story. Presiding over a developed country with a strong economy and low unemployment, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is not intimidated by Trump’s belligerence. He and his foreign minister, Chrystia Freeland, have stood firm, although one can only imagine what they say about him in private.
Not only do Trump and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer want concessions from the Canadians, they are reportedly unwilling to give any in return. Their philosophy, if you want to call it that, is that Canada has been taking advantage of the poor little United States for decades and it’s time to put a stop to that.
The Canadians aren’t dumb either. They know the U.S. Congress will not accept a US-Mexico trade agreement that excludes Canada. They also know that the Congress that convenes in January 2019 is likely to have a democratic majority. And that will mean lights out for Trump’s bumbling efforts at renegotiating NAFTA, along with anything else that requires Congress’ approval.
China, which has the world’s second largest economy, is not willing to be pushed around, either. So far this year, Trump has imposed tariffs on more than $60 billion worth of Chinese imports and China retaliated immediately with tariffs on $60 billion of U.S. imports.
That was in April. Beijing and Washington held two rounds of trade talks in May and June and got nowhere. In August, the Trump administration fired another barrage – $16 billion worth of tariffs, and China again responded in kind.
Perhaps expecting a different result, Trump reportedly is about to hit China with another $200 billion in tariffs, taking the total to about $267 billion. Beijing said it would again match the U.S. tariffs and would refuse Washington’s offer to hold another round of talks.
Given all this, a reasonable person might conclude that Trump’s strategy isn’t working. But Trump doesn’t see it that way.
“Tariffs have put the U.S. in a very strong bargaining position, with Billions of Dollars, and Jobs, flowing into our Country,” he said Monday on Twitter.
Even if that were true, a strong bargaining position isn’t worth much if no one is willing to bargain with you.
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2b7403bf294503250d9075ec79ffe7d2 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnbuckingham/2017/01/10/forget-dow-20000-how-about-dow-40000-by-2030/ | Forget Dow 20000, How About Dow 40000...By 2030 | Forget Dow 20000, How About Dow 40000...By 2030
No doubt, the big event of the past week was the Dow Jones Industrial Average coming oh so close to hitting the 20000 level. The popular market gauge was less than half a point away on a couple occasions on Friday, though it could not quite pierce the psychologically important figure. Of course, the Dow has little meaning for most professional investors, given that it is a price-weighted index with Goldman Sachs nearly 8 times as important as General Electric even though the latter is more than twice as big a company from a market cap perspective.
And, it is critical to understand that simply looking at changes in the Dow does not tell the full story when it comes to measuring investment performance. Indeed, none of the popular indexes, for that matter, include dividends or their reinvestment, in the simple price calculations. For those who don’t believe that this makes much of a difference, take a look at the actual returns earned by investors from 1929 to 1954, a period when the Dow started at 300.00 and ended at 280.89,…
…or 1966 to 1982, which started with Dow 962.25 and ended with Dow 875.00. Incredibly, Value Stocks, like those that we favor, returned more than 13% per annum during those 16 years!
The quest for 20000 has also provided another lesson in the Miracle of Compounding, as Alliance Bernstein Chief Investment Officer Seth Masters is now being hailed for a “bold” call he made back in July 2012. At the time, the Dow was 12,500, and Mr. Masters predicted that the index would reach 20,000 by the end of the decade. Obviously, it is right at that round number more than three years early, but it was hardly like the prognosticator was going out on a limb with his prediction, even as Mr. Masters recently said, “It really hit a nerve. People were so pessimistic back then.”
To be sure, as the table above illustrates, all the Dow had to do to rise from 12500 in 2012 to 20000 in 2020 was to appreciate by the same 5.4% rate that has been the historical average since 1896. And, though Mr. Masters has been in the investment game for 26 years, less time than yours truly, he had little interest in making a Dow 40000 prediction, saying recently, “It’ll be my successor who writes that one.”
Well, if historical averages hold, the Dow would double from the current level in about 13 years. There you have it – I’ve called Dow 40000 by 2030, the second time I’ve made such a long-term prediction. The first was back in August 2010 when I wrote…
It looks like TV host Ellen DeGeneres has it right when she laments, “Our attention span is shot. We’ve all got Attention Deficit Disorder or ADD or OCD or one of these disorders with three letters because we don’t have the time or patience to pronounce the entire disorder.”
Not surprisingly, investment commentary has had to become much more provocative with outrageous prognostications necessary to grab much in the way of attention. To be sure, playing on the twin emotions of fear and greed is nothing new as the latter was targeted with the infamous book Dow 36,000: The New Strategy for Profiting from the Coming Rise in the Stock Market published in 1999. These days, fear is easier to tap into as last month we heard that at least one follower of Elliott Wave Theory projects a triple-digit Dow (yes, a loss of more than 90% from here) by 2016 and that an investment newsletter based on astrology actually questions whether capitalism, democracy, humanity and even Earth will survive the ‘Cardinal Climax’ that began on July 26.
While readers are well aware of our optimism for the long-term prospects of our broadly diversified portfolios of undervalued stocks, we know that there are plenty of headwinds facing the economy and the equity markets, including high unemployment, weakness in housing, massive budget deficits and looming tax increases. Of course, despite all of the uncertainties, our benchmark index, the Russell 3000, has risen in 13 of the past 17 months, with July returning 6.9%. And while fear levels have subsided, we like that contrarian indicators, such as investor sentiment, mutual fund flows and consumer confidence are in ‘buy’ territory. Also, corporate profits in Q2 handily beat expectations, valuations remain reasonable and interest rates are still very low. Weighing everything, then, we think it prudent to focus on inexpensive, larger-cap, less-volatile, generally-more-stable-in-terms-of-cash-flows, dividend-paying stocks. Not a shocking strategy, perhaps, but we think it the right way to tread.
That being said, perhaps we could spice things up by tweeting a ‘2016 by 2016 on the S&P 500’ proclamation.
As always, please note that payment of dividends cannot be guaranteed, and past performance does not guarantee future returns.
Opinions expressed are those of John Buckingham, Chief Investment Officer of Al Frank Asset Management, a division of AFAM Capital, Inc. and editor of The Prudent Speculator newsletter.
037-AFAM-1/23/2017
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23fab63b3267e558f2ea80e3a5bb6f40 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnbuckingham/2021/03/15/no-value-stocks-on-the-arkk-but-they-are-starting-to-buzz/?sh=1437e6221722 | No Value Stocks On The ARKK, But They Are Starting To BUZZ | No Value Stocks On The ARKK, But They Are Starting To BUZZ
Value Stocks are Starting to BUZZ getty
With total assets in the flagship ARK Innovation Fund (ARKK) ARKK having grown more than 11-fold over the past 12 months, treasure seekers certainly have beaten a path to Cathie Wood’s door. Indeed, the flagship exchange-traded fund (ETF) from ARK-Invest has attracted plenty of interest AFTER gaining a whopping 152.8% in 2020. After all, assets in ARKK have risen some $7 billion this year alone, even as performance has cooled considerably, given that the ETF had to stage a substantial rebound this past week just to make it back into the black year-to-date.
Time will tell whether folks will stampede off the ARKK as quickly as they boarded, but history shows that fund flows often follow performance. Nowadays, more than a few investors are starting to tiptoe into Value-oriented strategies, given the year-to-date outperformance of the Value indexes. Incredibly, as of March 12, 2021, the S&P 500 Pure Value index has enjoyed a total year-to-date return of 24.8%, compared to a 0.8% decline for the S&P 500 Pure Growth index, while the Russell 3000 Value index had topped its Growth counterpart by more than 1100 basis points (12.5% to 0.6%).
We are not surprised that Value has led the charge this year, given its historical propensity to outperform coming out of recession, in rising interest rate environments and in increasing inflation expectation scenarios. Of course, as students of market history, we also know that Value has outperformed Growth by a wide margin over the long term: 13.1% vs. 9.9% per annum from 6.30.27 to 1.31.21, per the latest data available from Professors Eugene F. Fama and Kenneth R. French.
As such, we think the tide has only just begun to turn in favor of the kind of stocks we have long championed in the pages of The Prudent Speculator. Keeping in mind the massive $7 billion of net inflows into ARKK this quarter, the Invesco S&P 500 Pure Value ETF (RPV) RPV has seen assets increase by just $700 million in 2021 from $1.1 billion to $1.8 billion, with a fair chunk of that growth due to a 24.6% year-to-date return. Interestingly, the Invesco S&P 500 Pure Growth ETF (RPG) RPG now sits with $2.6 billion of total assets, despite a -0.9% YTD 2021 return. It is a similar story with the iShares Core S&P 500 U.S. Value and Growth ETFs (IUSV and IUSG), where the former boasts $9.0 billion of assets and the latter $10.4 billion, despite respective YTD returns of 11.4% and 1.0%.
Certainly, we realize that returns over the last three and five years have dramatically favored Growth, but we think another sign that the times may be changing is the launch on March 4 of the VanEck Vectors Social Sentiment ETF, championed by Barstool Sports founder, Internet celebrity and philanthropist Dave Portnoy.
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With an apt ticker symbol of BUZZ, the Social Sentiment ETF is intended to “track the performance of the 75 large cap [and mid cap given a $5 billion minimum size requirement] U.S. stocks which exhibit the highest degree of positive investor sentiment and bullish perception based on content aggregated from online sources including social media, news articles, blog posts and other alternative datasets.”
BUZZ is a small player in the ETF space, with total assets of $383 million as of March 12, but we are pleased to find that 22 of its members are Prudent Speculator recommendations. Who knew that undervalued stocks could be Internet darlings!
Prudent Speculator BUZZ Members Kovitz
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04ed2d03470ed5f968a42e7bea12eda9 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johncaplan/2020/07/01/learning-from-women-owned-small-businesses-the-most-important-sector-of-our-economy/ | Learning From Women-Owned Small Businesses: The Most Important Sector Of Our Economy | Learning From Women-Owned Small Businesses: The Most Important Sector Of Our Economy
The number of women-owned businesses is growing two times the rate of all businesses nationwide, now ... [+] representing 42 percent of all businesses. What’s more, women of color are starting businesses at a remarkable 4.5 times the rate of all businesses. Necia Boston
Eight years ago, Necia Boston founded her own business, BAABS Beauty, a Greenville, North Carolina-based beauty bar offering spa services and a full line of hypoallergenic and cruelty-free cosmetics. Necia is a pro: a determined, straight-talking, clear thinking, and effective leader. She comes from a family of women and men business builders, so striking out on her own after college felt natural: “I was lucky to have family members, women in business, so there was no question of can I or should I. It was simply a matter of how I can get it done.”
Necia is not alone. According to the 2019 American Express State of Women-Owned Businesses Report, the number of women-owned businesses is growing two times the rate of all businesses nationwide, now representing 42 percent of all businesses.
What’s more, women of color are starting businesses at a remarkable 4.5 times the rate of all businesses. While the number of women-owned businesses grew 21 percent from 2014 to 2019, firms owned by women of color grew an astounding 43 percent and Black women-owned firms grew even faster at 50 percent. As of 2019, women of color account for 50 percent of all women-owned businesses, and make a significant economic impact: an estimated 6.4 million women of color-owned businesses employ nearly 2.4 million people and generate $422.5 billion in revenue.
At the same time, the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic has been brutal on women-owned businesses. According to the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), patterns across gender, race, and immigration status reveal that Black business owners have experienced the largest losses, eliminating 41 percent of Black-owned businesses. Female-owned businesses were also disproportionately hit, closing down a quarter of their businesses.
It is within this context that I have been interested to go beyond the statistics and speak to women like Necia who are on the front lines of the entrepreneurial journey. I want to better understand how gender influences entrepreneurship and learn more about the advice that women owners in particular have to share as they build and flourish.
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As a Black woman, Necia described the challenges of under-the-surface racism and sexism that she encounters in business. There are laws in place that prevent outright abuse, but some of the behavior she’s experienced from vendors, bankers, landlords, and even commercial neighbors, have all had the hallmarks of insidious and offensive racism and sexism.
For example, when the pandemic hit and the Small Business Administration started distributing Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans, funds were being directed at the discretion of the banker and Necia says that she “never got a call, never.” Contractors, meanwhile, have tried to overcharge her for unnecessary work because they assume her to be less knowledgeable. And when she’s been buying supplies with a male friend, salespeople often assume he is her boss.
When I asked Necia for her top tips for women starting a business, she advised:
Know More: Always be the best-informed person in the room. Focus: An expert can create value where a generalist cannot. Enlist mentors: Asking for advice can help you grow your business exponentially.
Shirley Plummer, the founder of Inpro Workspaces, a Langhorne, Pennsylvania-based office furniture manufacturing business, has experienced similar issues, and has her own tips. “For a woman starting a business, WBENC (the Women's Business Enterprise National Council) is a must,” she advises. “They connect you face-to-face with the diversity procurement people at every Fortune 500 company.” She continues: The smartest thing to do before reaching out to a company is to do your research. Find out their goals, and what’s important to them. Don’t just start off and say who you are and what you’re about. Gear your sales pitch to their interests.
Shirley also emphasizes being willing to approach situations creatively: “I was the only woman at every subcontractor meeting in my industry. I had to be more persistent, make more calls, and get in front of people a lot more. Eventually, we started doing work in the Caribbean because my installers were Spanish speaking, and that helped immensely with developing a client base.”
At the end of my recent conversation with Necia, she shared something that I found particularly powerful. When I asked her who her professional heroes are, she thought for a moment before naming Pamela Booker of Koils by Nature and Tara Darnley of Darlyng & Co. — women who started small at home and are now national brands with distribution in Target, CVS, and other national chains.
The challenges facing women small business owners are real, as biases still exist in the workplace and society. Each person has the responsibility to work through our conscious and unconscious biases, and we can each make an impact by supporting women- and other minority-owned businesses who make up such an important sector of our economy, but are being disproportionately affected by the health and economic crisis.
If you’re an entrepreneur trying to navigate today’s challenges, seek out resources, such as organizations like WBENC, Women Impacting Public Policy (WIPP) and WEConnect International, mentors that will advise and support you from your local business community or through SCORE, or from companies like Alibaba.com where we offer daily educational and inspirational articles, fireside chats and livestream events through B2B Today - a major awareness and education initiative for U.S. small-and-medium-businesses. Women business owners like Necia and Shirley have shown us that grit and perseverance will always win.
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0738e024189a715d39a22b5486a35fe8 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johncaplan/2021/05/03/ecommerce-has-been-a-lifeline-for-small-businesses-during-the-pandemic-where-do-they-go-from-here/ | E-Commerce Has Been A Lifeline For Small Businesses During The Pandemic. Where Do They Go From Here? | E-Commerce Has Been A Lifeline For Small Businesses During The Pandemic. Where Do They Go From Here?
More than a year has passed since the first Covid-19 case was identified in my hometown of NYC, and in what felt like no time at all, the city quickly became the country’s initial epicenter of the pandemic. Small businesses in NYC and throughout the U.S. were hit particularly hard as the global health crisis caused sudden and devastating fallout in the form of reduced revenues, temporary lockdowns, mass layoffs, and supply chain disruptions, forcing hundreds of thousands of businesses to close their doors. Economists at the Federal Reserve recently found that around 200,000 more U.S. establishments permanently closed as a result of the pandemic than in a typical year.
In the face of this extreme uncertainty, small business owners made commendable efforts to survive, demonstrating tremendous resilience and adaptability, rethinking traditional ways of doing business, and rapidly pivoting to meet the needs of their customers, which had quite literally changed overnight. Most notably, across all sectors, businesses accelerated their digital transformation efforts in both their internal operations and customer- and supply-chain interactions by three to four years, according to a recent McKinsey study. With that in mind, I spoke to business owners throughout the U.S. about the benefits of going digital, as well as insights and lessons that other leaders can adopt as we all move forward into this new normal.
Small Businesses Turn to E-commerce
Diversifying revenue streams for resilience
Small businesses everywhere had to rapidly adapt when statewide lockdowns went into effect followed by partial reopenings—and for many, that meant focusing on establishing an e-commerce presence and building out digital channels. In the B2B sector, 93% of companies are now conducting some portion of their business online, up from 90% in December 2019, and 43% are utilizing e-commerce, an 8% increase in the same time period, according to an Alibaba.com study. For service businesses, diversifying revenue streams by incorporating an online component became critical to mitigating business interruptions when they couldn’t operate at full capacity and provide their primary services in-person.
“We had a statewide mandate here in North Carolina in March of 2020 to stay closed until June,” says Necia Boston, the founder of BAABS Beauty, an allergen-free cosmetics company based in Greenville, North Carolina. “However, I wasn't comfortable re-opening for services yet, so we stayed closed for another month. When we did reopen in August, it was only at 40% capacity on our service side. I am so grateful that we have the product side of the business, which we were able to sell through e-commerce to sustain us while the salon was closed.”
BAABS Beauty, an allergen-free cosmetics company based in Greenville, North Carolina BAABS Beauty
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Maintaining staff employment
Expanding an online presence also allowed some businesses to keep their staff working during a time of record unemployment by shifting their responsibilities.
“Because of the way we train our staff, they were able to work in different areas of the business during the shutdown,” said Boston. “Our front desk and service staff were still able to come in and help with behind-the-scenes work on our e-commerce business, like photoshoots, inventory, and website order fulfilment. And because we’re still not at 100% capacity on the service side, some of our staff is still working partially on the e-commerce side, providing customer service on our website. We’re not seeing the same number of shoppers face-to-face, but our digital presence has definitely picked up and maintained since the initial lockdown.”
Embracing digitization of products and services As I always emphasize, digitization even in the best of times is critical to the success of small- and medium-size businesses. Right now, in the late stages of the pandemic, flexibility is integral to that success more than ever. The ability to follow the customers’ lead and pivot to meet them where they are—online—will ultimately position small businesses to grow amid uncertainty.
“Before the pandemic, I was splitting my time 50/50 with in-store and online sales, and now it’s closer to 75/25,” said Boston. “We’ve even been calling our customers to encourage them to shop online, and have been doing more online one-on-one sessions and classes with customers about how to use our products. Nowadays, clients are much more open to virtual sessions.”
Leaning into the silver linings
For certain industries, stay-at-home orders translated to increased sales. As people stayed close to home, they started turning more and more to services and products such as workout equipment, education software, and games and entertainment. Forward-thinking businesses that had already established an e-commerce presence were better prepared to benefit from this surge in demand, and are much closer to figuring out how to keep it going when the pandemic eases.
“When people couldn’t go to bars, concerts, or other social events, we saw a major uptick in the purchases of boats, and people also wanting to try the relatively new sport of wakesurfing,” said Casey Heim, the founder of WAKE 10, a watersports accessory company based in Kansas City. “During the pandemic, we launched two new products and we had to place multiple orders last summer because our sales were so high. Not only did our sales increase, but our product reviews quadrupled, which will help us long term as customers continue to visit our site. Because of shipment delays, we’ve had to stay on top of ordering and are now much further ahead, which will help our supply chain as we continue to scale in the future. We’ll stay focused on this so we don’t run out of inventory or not have our new products ahead of any of our major selling seasons.”
WAKE 10, a watersports accessory company based in Kansas City WAKE 10
Putting data and insights to work
By growing their online presence, small businesses are no longer limited to a local customer base and are able to expand their audience of potential customers. A notable benefit of this shift is the ability to gain more data and insights into customer shopping behaviors and needs.
“One silver lining of the pandemic is that we are able to see what our customers want from us on the e-commerce side,” said Boston about her growing e-commerce line of products. “Before the pandemic, our business was half online and half in-person, but when we were shut down, we were operating completely online. That gave us the tools to get near real-time insights into what our customers wanted. Thanks to going digital, we’re now able to anticipate and plan for what our customers want. The pandemic definitely had pluses and minuses, but we were able to learn more about our customers and clients and will be able to use that going forward to plan out how we interact with them in the future.”
And the future is starting to look bright. Heim and Boston’s optimistic sentiments are seemingly echoed broadly by small business owners, whose optimism rose in March, with more than half surveyed saying they were hiring, according to NFIB’s Small Business Optimism Index.
Small Businesses are Accelerating Digital Transformation
We’re no longer in fight or flight mode—so where does that leave America’s small businesses? Now is the time to shift from surviving to preparing for the future. Bolstering digital channels can drive sales, widen customer bases, and provide businesses with valuable data and insights into what customers want and don’t want. The impacts of going digital will only get stronger with time and business owners and leaders should prepare for customers’ preferences and expectations to continue to shift toward e-commerce.
As companies look to the future, following the tips from the business owners I interviewed can help them navigate next steps:
“Get your e-commerce systems up and running if you haven’t already. Over the past year, the bulk of retail walk-ins have declined, and companies now have employees in the back rooms packing boxes and shipping out e-commerce orders. People still and always will want to purchase products, but the route they’re going to purchase them is switching to online. Small businesses in today’s market need to find the e-commerce platform that works for them and has the functionality they need to help them improve. There have been supply chain hiccups—as often is the case with manufacturing—so prepare for any delays, whether you’re purchasing from overseas or in the U.S.” – Casey Heim, Founder of WAKE 10. “The best advice I can give is to diversify your offerings and streams of income. In the beauty industry, we unfortunately saw many salons and barbershops suffer tremendously during the shutdown because they were solely service-based. You should focus in your area of expertise and try different models within that area, like a retail line or educational side for your customers. It’s about diversifying your income so that if one part of your business isn’t doing well, you can still survive. And it’s important to get your cost of goods as low as possible without sacrificing quality—that’s what will give your business the longevity to sustain itself.” – Necia Boston, Founder of BAABS Beauty
E-commerce is here to stay. Customers who weren’t already regularly shopping online have had more than a year to familiarize themselves with e-commerce, realize its convenience, and form habits around it. The numbers speak for themselves: U.S. consumers spent 32% more online in 2020 than in the year prior, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce. In the fourth quarter alone, e-commerce sales hit $245 billion, up from $185 billion in the fourth quarter of 2019, with $1 in every $5 spent on retail purchases happening online. And a similar shift is underway in B2B trade with an 18% jump in B2B sourcing and selling conducted online between late 2019 and late 2020, according to Alibaba.com’s survey of 5,000 B2B companies, largely driven by e-commerce platforms.
Although vaccines are becoming more widely available and folks are returning to stores and offices, it’s clear that the pandemic has made a lasting impact on accelerating the preference for e-commerce. And as small businesses navigate their way to the new normal, they’ll need to recognize that e-commerce is an expectation customers will have from businesses big and small.
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6d993cffa1f4635f089b4dbc95ca0b6b | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnchisholm/2013/09/10/as-entrepreneurs-keep-reminding-us-they-lied-to-us-in-econ-101/ | As Entrepreneurs Keep Reminding Us, They Lied To Us In Econ. 101 | As Entrepreneurs Keep Reminding Us, They Lied To Us In Econ. 101
Can theoretical, scientific study of complex systems inform the hardscrabble world of start-ups?
Yes.
To see how, meet the Santa Fe Institute (SFI). [1] Founded 30 years ago in Santa Fe, NM by Nobel laureates in physics and economics, SFI is the worldwide epicenter of complexity science. SFI first recognized that the environment, the human brain, the economy, and other complex systems have much in common:
Order in them emerges not from top-down command and control but bottom-up from the interactions of large numbers of interconnected elements. These elements may be individual species creating sustainable ecosystems; neurons creating thought patterns; or buyers and sellers creating business cycles and wage and price levels. Those interconnected elements also form feedback loops that can produce unpredictable and often extreme results (e.g., peacocks’ tails, fads, best-sellers, cancer). Diversity tends to grow with the number of combinations of elements, that is, exponentially with the number of elements (e.g., the Cambrian explosion and the Industrial Revolution). Diversity tends to enhance robustness (e.g., genetically similar crops are more vulnerable to parasites; identical PC operating systems, to viruses). Unintended consequences arise if you try to control such systems top down (e.g., drug wars foster organized crime; draining of wetlands cause flash floods and droughts; rent control reduces the quantity and quality of housing and thus may drive up rents). The systems are dynamic and never at equilibrium.
So what do complex systems and SFI tell us about entrepreneurship?
1) Passion and perseverance form a feedback loop. Whenever you see results or performance that is far above the norm – in entrepreneurship, sports, the arts, science, innovation, business, or investing – passion (an attitude) and perseverance (a behavior) are most likely positively reinforcing each other.
Designing sailboats, calling on customers, or writing specifications until you are so good that you grow to love that activity are examples of perseverance driving passion. As you improve, you more and more enjoy that activity, driving you to greater proficiency and further building your perseverance. Similarly, being so deeply engaged in fashion, aviation, or mastering Python that you become unaware of the passage of time are examples of passion driving perseverance. As you spend time in the activity, you refine your skills and deepen your knowledge, further building your passion. For someone to be willing to spend 10,000 hours in a discretionary activity, a figure often cited as a threshold to achieve exceptional performance, a combination of passion and perseverance is almost certainly at work.
2) Opportunities grow with every new product or service on the market. Occasionally I hear it said that all the best opportunities have already been addressed. Nonsense. Just the opposite: every new solution introduced creates new opportunities – new needs – in at least three ways:
The solutions themselves can be improved upon (e.g., laptops and smart phones can be made smaller, lighter, and more powerful; software can be made faster, easier to use, and more reliable) The providers of those solutions have needs (e.g., sales, marketing, accounting, software, equipment, customer and competitive intelligence) New solutions create new needs (e.g., cars need navigation systems, back-up cameras, and keyless entry systems; video games need virtual money; electric vehicles need re-charging stations; smart phones need bandwidth).
Think of solutions as combinatorial: every new one can be combined with all others that already exist to address potential new opportunities.[2] As technology advances at an ever-increasing pace, new opportunities are being created and addressed ever faster. For some of these opportunities, you are almost certainly the best person in the world to satisfy them. The reason: the number of opportunities exceeds by many orders of magnitude the number of people in the world. Successful entrepreneurship is in large part a task of finding the opportunities that you are best suited to satisfy.
3) Seek novel combinations of technologies. To find opportunities, my business partner and Chief Technology Officer Dickey Singh and I make lists of the new technologies either he or I know about. Examples might include GPS, natural language processing, 3D printing, fluid mechanics, polymerase chain reactions, image processing, and computer graphics. Then we list all of the pairs of those technologies and look for novel combinations. If I know three technologies and Dickey knows seven we have ten total, of which there will be 45 unique pairs. Is any combination novel, say GPS and 3D printing? If so, it might enable new solutions that no one has considered before.
The total number of combinations grows exponentially with the number of technologies. If you consider all combinations in this example, including groups of three, four, and five technologies and so on up to ten, there are over a thousand combinations. The vast majority of these will not be useful today. But a few of them almost certainly will be.
4) Cognitive diversity trumps ability. Diversity in how members think about problems and make decisions makes a team stronger. Some people are abstract thinkers, others are concrete; some are high risk-reward oriented, others risk averse; some are more relationship-oriented, others are more transactional when interacting with others. Scott Page, professor of complex systems at the University of Michigan, reports that teams with diverse problem-solving perspectives and heuristics outperform more skilled teams who rely on homogeneous perspectives and heuristics.[3] For each team member who thinks much the same way you do, the value of adding someone who thinks differently increases.[4]
5) Culture is emergent. As CEO, you hugely influence company culture by how you treat people and make decisions, and many in your company will look to your behavior and copy or adapt it. But you cannot control culture: it emerges from the actions of everyone in the company. The first few team members that you hire are critical; after you, they most influence norms and behaviors of those who come after them. If your and others’ actions demonstrate a belief that employees are important, for example, employees will recognize, appreciate, and respond to that; if not, they are likely to resent and rebel against you, no matter what you officially announce or promulgate. Influencing culture is more akin to tending orchids than running machinery: trying to control it top down leads to unintended consequences.
6) Keep your options open. Customer needs, your resources, and competition are always changing. Just as your product becomes a market hit, customer needs may shift, your advantage disappears, and you suddenly have to find a new market. Or you may be automating manufacturing when new, improved components induce you to re-design products and processes.
Fine-tuning your resources too closely to current circumstances leaves you vulnerable. Options that are unattractive in an up market suddenly become more attractive than going out of business in a down market. Those less-attractive options can also help you leverage more desirable ones, if potential acquirers or customers know you have multiple options. Despite its long and lofty role in strategy, optimization is the enemy of resilience. Keep some of your resources re-assignable to take advantage of unexpected changes and opportunities.
Products and services are continually being introduced to and retired from the market; people are constantly entering and leaving the workforce; and competition and regulations are constantly changing. They lied to us in Econ 101. The truth is that nothing in business or the economy is ever at equilibrium.
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[1] I have served as trustee of SFI since 2010.
[2] See W. Brian Arthur, The Nature of Technology (Simon & Schuster, 2009).
[3] Scott E. Page, The Difference: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools and Societies (Princeton University Press, 2007). Page shows that physical and identity diversity (gender, age, race) mainly drive team performance only to the limited extent that they indicate cognitive diversity.
[4] See also Tom Kelley and Jonathan Littman, The Ten Faces of Innovation (Doubleday, 2005), which describes ten roles such as anthropologist, experimenter, and cross-pollinator that have fostered innovation at Ideo.
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e6d0e74af8a43c47dd3fecd91389d6ba | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnchisholm/2013/12/12/robots-and-software-eating-jobs-let-them-you-can-create-your-own/ | Robots And Software Eating Jobs? Let Them, You Can Create Your Own | Robots And Software Eating Jobs? Let Them, You Can Create Your Own
LinkedIn (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
New technologies are eating jobs. Big deal, you might say. After all, the steam engine, cotton gin, sewing machine, and automobile all eliminated jobs. The fact is that new technologies have long created many more new jobs than they have eliminated.
But today is different. In the past, innovation advanced slowly enough that people had time to recognize and adapt to new opportunities before many of the old jobs disappeared. Today, innovation is advancing so quickly that jobs are being destroyed and new opportunities are being created faster than many people can recognize them or adapt to them. Today, we need to recognize those opportunities and adapt to them ever more quickly. The good news is that anyone can do this, and best of all, anyone can create his or her own job. Including you. In this article, we’ll see how.
Jobs are Delicious Meat
Three noted scholars and friends of mine have written on technology eating jobs:
· In his seminal 2010 The McKinsey Quarterly article, “The Second Economy,” Santa Fe Institute’s Brian Arthur predicts that in about two decades, a “second economy” of software, servers, and sensors will rival the size of the human economy, in value added if not in revenue. This autonomous economy is already automating formerly human tasks, such as airline passenger management (reservations, check-in, security, baggage, and billing) and international shipping (registration, tracking, and forwarding).
· In Race Against the Machine (2011), MIT’s Erik Brynjolfsson observes that software and automation are eating away at low- to mid-level desk jobs like accounting and customer service, a trend that will eventually extend to high-skilled professions like medicine and engineering, on the one hand, and trades like hairdressing and plumbing, on the other. Google driverless cars will replace human drivers, and IBM Watson-like technology with sensors will replace physicians’ medical diagnoses.
· Most recently, in Average Is Over (2013), George Mason University’s Tyler Cowen writes that the above trends will lead to stagnant or falling wages for much of the United States. Future employment will require skills to collaborate with and complement machines to avoid competing with and being replaced by them.
The Oxford Martin School concurs, concluding that 45% of American jobs are at high risk of being taken by computers within the next two decades.[1] Most vulnerable are jobs in transportation/logistics, production labor, and administrative support; next are services, sales, and construction; last will be management, science and engineering, and the arts.
Reports of Employment’s Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated
In the early 19th century, the automated loom, famously protested by the Luddites, took jobs away from weavers. Later, electricity and the light bulb took away jobs from wood-burning stove and candle makers. The automobile took away jobs from buggy makers. Digital computers and switches took jobs away from their human counterparts. But in each case, new technologies provided many more jobs than they eliminated, in two ways. The first, more modest way was through the development, manufacture and maintenance of the new technologies, be they looms or light bulbs. The second, more significant way was through the leveraging and combining of the technologies in new, often unexpected applications and business arrangements that could not have existed without the technologies. The cotton gin and automated loom enabled large-scale production of soft, comfortable clothing, making it affordable for millions of people for the first time. Steam engines and railroads enabled goods to be shipped to distant markets, which in turn made Sears & Roebuck mail order catalogs and later department stores possible. Electricity enabled the global power grid and electrical appliances. Digital computers and switches enabled IT, telecommunications, software, the Internet, and mobile applications.
We can see easily when jobs disappear, but creating jobs takes work: it means recognizing, exploring, and adapting to needs and opportunities. As I discussed in my last column,[2] every new product or service (i.e., solution) not only satisfies a need, but also creates new needs in three ways:
1. The new solutions themselves can be improved upon (e.g., shoes can be made more comfortable; laptops and smart phones can be made smaller, lighter, and more powerful; software can be made faster, easier to use, and more reliable)
2. The providers of those new solutions have needs (e.g., sales, marketing, accounting, software, equipment, customer and competitive intelligence, food and cleaning services)
3. New solutions create new needs around them (e.g., mobile phones need holsters; cars need navigation, keyless entry, and camera systems; video games need virtual money; electric vehicles need re-charging stations).
In his modern classic, The Origin of Wealth,[3] Eric Beinhocker estimated the number of individually coded products[4] available to New York City residents in 2006 to be on the order of tens of billions. With this mushrooming range of products and ever-faster pace of innovation, needs and opportunities are coming at us faster than we can recognize or adapt to them.
To become or stay employed in this environment, we’ll first see how to land an existing job (one someone else has created); then, how to create your own job.
Landing an Existing Job
Rather than recount job search techniques here – leverage LinkedIn, research companies you are interested in, network, adopt good grooming habits – let’s see how to make innovation work for, rather than against you in landing a job:
1. Master the very technologies that are eating jobs. Someone has to design, implement, test, build, maintain, market, sell, and apply that software and automation. That someone could be you. MIT/Harvard edX, Coursera, Udacity and CodeCademy offer free Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) in programming, AI, machine learning, and databases.
If you are new to IT, HTML and Javascript are a good place to start.[5] Knowing these languages will let you create and maintain simple web sites, help you market yourself online and find full-time or part-time work, even if your career plans are outside of software development. CodeCademy has free courses.
To start a career in software development, consider Python. It’s interactive, exposes and introduces you to essential programming concepts, and easily integrates into existing web services, enabling you to leverage others’ work. Job opportunities abound: see www.python.org/community/jobs/.
Next, consider developing a web service to demonstrate your skills or to offer to others. See www.programmableweb.com/apis/directory for examples. This will require using a server-side language, likely Python, PHP, Ruby on Rails, or if you are more ambitious, Java or C++, then deploying it on one of the cloud computing ecosystems such as Amazon Web Services or Google Cloud Services. Yet another path is creating a mobile app for iPhone or Android and connecting to your own or others’ web services.
Veteran software developer Ervan Darnell, who has worked for both Facebook and Google, reiterates that free tools and courses are available for all of the above, and further notes that the software industry weighs talent more heavily than titles or university degrees. That’s good news. Titles and degrees require entrance qualification exams and tens of thousands of dollars for tuition and expenses. In contrast, MOOCs are free and open to everyone. Increasingly, all you need to get a quality education is initiative, self-discipline, and hard work.
2. Become an early adopter of new technologies and apply them in your work. With the accelerating pace of technology, adopting new technology even slightly ahead of the mainstream of your field will give you more and more of an advantage in productivity and competitiveness. If staying one year ahead gave professionals a 10% advantage in 1992, doing so might give them a 20% advantage in 2014.
This principle applies to all trades and professions. Electricians can use new meters and testers that improve their efficiency and accuracy, and learn to install and maintain computer networks in addition to wiring and components. Plumbers can apply technologies such as SeeSnake, a video camera for inspection and diagnosis of clogged pipes. Dentists, hairdressers, and auto repair shops can use free online software to enable their clients to self-schedule for appointments. Taxi drivers can use GPS to efficiently combine deliveries with passenger service. Real estate agents can use Google Maps to customize displays of listings for clients. These innovations free up time to make trades people and professionals more productive, allow them to offer higher-quality or differentiated services, or both.
ACA (“Obamacare”) incentivizes employers to convert many jobs from full-time to part-time. Fortunately, new online services empower even those without technology skills to find part-time work, for example, as drivers for Lyft, or running errands with TaskRabbit. Going still further, Amazon Mechanical Turk is enabling those in the world’s poorest developing countries to earn income by performing simple tasks (like responding to surveys or tagging everyday items in photos) from wherever they are and whenever they are able.
3. Choose a career in strong demand. Liberal arts are vitally important, but if you are in college, landing a job after graduation is almost certainly urgent. You have a lifetime to learn about arts and the humanities, but only two to four years to prepare to support yourself. Besides IT and automation, fields generally in demand include bio-tech, nursing, network security, welding, medical technology, and analytics. Find out which are both in greatest demand and most interest you. Far more people are studying the arts and the humanities than will find jobs in those fields. If you choose arts or the humanities and find yourself underemployed or unemployed, see 1 or 2 above, and “Create Your Own Job” below.
21-year-old Daniel Trujillo, a student at NCP College of Nursing in Hayward, CA, is learning how Google Glass can provide real-time, mobile, hands-free patient charts and histories bedside. He will be among the first generation of hospital practitioners using wearable IT. By learning leading-edge technology in a highly demanded field, I predict he will easily find a job.
Create Your Own Job
Muhammad Yunus, Nobel Peace Prize winner, micro finance pioneer and founder of the Grameen Bank says:
All human beings are entrepreneurs. When we were in the caves, we were all self-employed…finding our food, feeding ourselves. That’s where human history began. As civilization came, we suppressed it. We became “labor” because they stamped us, “You are labor.” We forgot that we are entrepreneurs.[6]
Anyone who wants to can create his or her own job. Our ancestors – hunters, gatherers, farmers, craftspeople, and traders – knew no other options. If we were all entrepreneurial once, we can still invoke that inner strength today.
Creating your own job lets you do what you are passionate about; lets you make a long-term investment in you, your own business and brand rather than someone else’s; and lets you address opportunities that are unique to you—no one else has your unique combination of skills, knowledge, relationships, and strengths. So why don’t more people create their own jobs today? It is not that they can’t. In some cases, other paths are easier or have shorter-term pay-offs, such as landing an existing job or going on unemployment. In other cases, regulation raises major hurdles to addressing opportunities, as I discussed in a previous column.[7] I don’t promise that creating your own job will be easy. I do promise that it will expand the boundaries of your world, and possibly profoundly enrich your life.
Here is one approach to creating your own job. Choose any product or service in an area you are passionate and knowledgeable about. The area may be aerospace, boats, cars, cooking, education, electronics, fashion, fiction, films, fitness, gadgets, gardening, health, history, math, merchandising, music, politics, scuba, space, sports, statistics, travel, woodworking, you name it. Now think of limitations of the product or service you selected. For example:
· My running shoes don’t tell me how far or fast I have run, nor details of my stride or gait.
· None of the pharmacies in my neighborhood make home deliveries.
· Arthritis can prevent elderly people from using an iPhone or iPad.
· Airline ground crews lack real-time information during boarding about how many and which overhead bins have open space, sometimes requiring that bags be checked when they could be carried aboard and stowed.
If you are passionate about the product or service, you’ll recognize its limitations before others do. Limitations are simply potential needs. If those needs are shared by many others and don’t already have solutions – both of these require research to validate – bingo! – you have identified an unsatisfied customer need. That’s the first step towards creating a job for you.
Next, brainstorm possible solutions, ideally with your potential customers, that you could provide in whole or in part using the resources at your disposal. Acquiring knowledge of new technologies in the field will expand your possibilities. With whom could you team up or partner, if necessary, to enable the solution? Answering those questions is the second step towards creating your job.
Next, can you get a customer to pay you for your solution, even if rudimentary, incomplete, or unpolished, possibly on the understanding that their early payment will enable you to develop and deliver the full product or service to them? That’s the third step. If so – you have created a job! Assume that you won’t get paid for some or much of the time and effort you invest to win this first customer. After you have successfully delivered what you promised and created your first satisfied customer, find other customers you could similarly serve, refine your solution based on what you have learned, and repeat.
My video Unleash Your Inner Company has many more suggestions for creating your own job and starting your own business. Now imagine tens of millions of people throughout the U.S. and the world similarly searching for unsatisfied needs in areas they are passionate about, assessing which needs they are best suited to satisfy in whole or in part, and designing and building products or offering and delivering services that satisfy those needs. Suddenly, tens of millions of jobs are being created. Many of these efforts will take a second, third, or fourth attempt before they are successful. Every attempt increases your likelihood of success; perseverance is a necessary part of success. A small percentage of these businesses will create not just one but many jobs. This bottom-up approach to satisfying needs and creating jobs is scalable, sustainable, and has hugely raised living standards and quality of life over the decades.
So software and robots are eating jobs? Not yours.
# # #
[1]Programme on the Impacts of Future Technology. See also www.technologyreview.com/view/519241/report-suggests-nearly-half-of-us-jobs-are-vulnerable-to-computerization/)
[2] “As Entrepreneurs Keep Reminding Us, They Lied To Us In Econ. 101,” September 10, 2013, Forbes.com
[3]The Origin of Wealth: Evolution, Complexity, and the Radical Remaking of Economics, Eric D. Beinhocker, Harvard Business School Press (2006). This magnificent work marries economics and complexity science and imparts deep understanding of the current state and future of economics. I think of it as a modern-day Wealth of Nations. It deserves a wide audience and a prominent place in any economics library.
[4]Stock keeping units (SKUs).
[5] Lifehacker’s “Which programming language should I learn first?” discusses pros and cons of the many different paths you can follow.
[6]The Start-up of You, Reid Hoffman, Ben Casnocha, Crown Publishing (2012).
[7]6 Ways To Save U.S. Startups And Jobs From Death By Regulation, August 8, 2013, Forbes.com.
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6b3c132ae70212b486badfd3e7bf101e | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnclarke/2012/03/05/yahoo-makes-move-for-olympic-broadcast-rights/ | Yahoo Makes Move For Olympic Broadcast Rights | Yahoo Makes Move For Olympic Broadcast Rights
Image via CrunchBase
Thanks to lowball bids to broadcast the 2014 and 2016 Olympics in Canada, Yahoo is making a move to poach broadcasting rights from TV networks and bring the Games to the Internet.
The International Olympic Committee rejected two bids in February from the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. and BCE Inc. to broadcast the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, Russia and the 2016 Summer Games in Brazil. Now, the rights are up for grabs.
"CBC and CTV have had two lowball bids rejected now," an IOC consultant told The Daily and Mail. "There are other options out there, Yahoo is just one more."
According to The Globe and Mail, the two networks came up short because of the uncertainty of whether National Hockey League players will settle negotiations with the IOC and participate in the Games. In addition, there's the nine-hour time difference between Russia and Central Canada which poses a challenge to viewership numbers.
The Canadian battleground is ripe for Yahoo. The Internet giant is growing its audience and ad dollars in Canada faster than the United States, with 60 percent of Internet users visiting its sites monthly. Yahoo also recognizes it's potential Olympic reach after the Vancouver Olympic Winter Games when it drew more than 40 million unique users. Those Olympics were broadcast on by CTV and Rogers Communications Inc.
Meanwhile, many say, the days of TV broadcasting dominating sports coverage are numbered. Techcrunch declared that multi-billion dollar network licensing deals will soon be worthless. "Governing bodies of sporting codes need to look beyond their multi-billion exclusivity deals and start accepting the reality of change," wrote Ruslan Kogan on Techcrunch. "In doing so, they’ll quickly discover the technical precision this new format allows them, and soon start making more money than ever before, while giving consumers and sports lovers around the world an even better viewing experience."
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eced66a23b11b1206e2e219992a9cf39 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnclarke/2012/05/22/guess-how-much-u-s-olympic-committee-execs-make/ | Guess How Much U.S. Olympic Committee Execs Make? | Guess How Much U.S. Olympic Committee Execs Make?
Recently released tax documents show arguably bloated salaries for United States Olympic Committee's highest paid execs, including 83 employees receiving six-figures per year.
The filings for the 2011 tax year (shown below), showed 14 USOC employees earned from $238,910 (Mitchell Poll, marketing managing director) to $742,367 (Scott Blackmun, the CEO) in salaries and bonuses, reports the Chicago Tribune.
Blackmun also received $160,610 in "other compensation from the organization and related organizations." According to USOC communications director Patrick Sandusky, that includes health care benefits, savings and company matches of savings. Blackmun's total compensation, $902,977, included a base salary of $456,211 and a long-term performance bonus of some $140,000 he is scheduled to receive in 2014. The earnings list includes $655,219 for former chief operating officer Norm Bellingham, who worked full-time for the USOC less than two months in 2011 (he was a consultant through the end of the year), and $365,178 for Sandusky (4th highest compensated.)
Tribune reporter Philip Hersh noted 83 employees received reportable compensation of $100,000 or more from the USOC in 2011. "That is four more six-figure payouts than the year before, he writes. "Meanwhile, athlete medal bonuses ($25,000, $15,000, $10,000) have not increased for more than a decade."
A rep defended USOC, saying its executive salaries are on par with similar jobs at major college sports programs.
"The USOC is dedicated to excellence and demands a great deal from USOC executives. In order to recruit and retain the very best in the business, we provide market-based compensation," Sandusky said in an email to The Trib. "However, independent research has shown that these salaries are well in-line, and often less, than salaries at other top sports organizations throughout the country.
"In addition, at every position where we have made a new hire over the course of the last 2-plus years (i.e. the CEO, CAO, CCO, etc) the person we have recruited has been paid a salary that is less than what we paid their predecessor."
For the whole list, click here. Then click on "2011 tax disclosure" and look at Section VII of the Form 990.
Add outrage.
Compensation for the 11 highest paid U.S.Olympic Committee employees in 2011. Three others earned... [+] from $238,000 to $256,000 (U.S.Olympic Committee's 2011 tax filing. May 18, 2012).
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e925e5ab62546e3569fe9e58ef468ce7 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnclarke/2012/08/02/u-s-gold-medal-swimmer-missy-franklin-could-lose-millions-after-london-olympics/ | U.S. Gold Medal Swimmer Missy Franklin Could Lose Millions After London Olympics | U.S. Gold Medal Swimmer Missy Franklin Could Lose Millions After London Olympics
(Image via Ralph Lauren)
U.S. gold medal swimmer Missy Franklin could swim her way to endorsement gold, just like Michael Phelps. Instead, she stands to lose millions in endorsement deals.
The 17-year-old swimmer from Colorado said she does not want to go pro. Instead, she prefers to remain an amateur, go to college and compete in the NCAA. Experts say this will cost her millions.
Bob Dorfman, executive creative director of Baker Street Advertising, told USA Today that Franklin would have been looking at a seven-figure salary, if not a couple million dollars.
Evan Morgenstein, another agent who has represented dozens of U.S. Olympic athletes including swimmers Dara Torres and Janet Evans, said Franklin could be looking at payout with a bottom range of around $700,000 and as high as $2 million.
"The money will be there in four years" Morgenstein says. "In my experience, most of the corporations will come after her about 12 to 18 months before the next Olympics. Rio is in 2016 so it would be sometime after her sophomore year (of college). I think they'd come after her with a vengeance to sign her up for Rio."
Reports CNBC:
The reality is the post-Olympic endorsement window for athletes is short. In the weeks if not days after the Olympic torch is extinguished U.S. sports fans will turn their attention back to the pennant races in Major League Baseball or the start of the NFL season. The result of the short attention span by sports fans? All the attention and money for today’s Olympic medallists now comes in the in the period leading up to the next Olympic games, not immediately following the London Games. While Franklin will be heavily sought after in the lead up to the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics, she may not even have to wait that long to cash in if she doesn’t want to.
“Going into the World Championships in 2014, she’s going to be the best swimmer on the planet and that’s going to create a new set of financial opportunities for her” Morgenstein continued. “At that point it makes more sense because she has a few years to work on her corporate responsibility and her corporate etiquette.”
Experts also say this gives Franklin time to "focus on her swimming and avoid the distractions of corporate appearances, motivational speeches and a demanding travel that could take a costly toll for collection all those endorsement riches."
Follow me on Twitter @johnmclarkejr or e-mail me at johnmclarkejr@gmail.com. Find more coverage of the London Olympics on Forbes.
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4883e1bf83f2b943e13853a43e9c018e | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnclarke/2012/09/18/after-arrest-olympic-snowboarder-shaun-white-apologizes-for-unwise-choices/ | After Arrest, Olympic Snowboarder Shaun White Apologizes For 'Unwise Choices' | After Arrest, Olympic Snowboarder Shaun White Apologizes For 'Unwise Choices'
Shaun White (Getty)
Shaun White went public today for the first time since the two-time Olympic gold medal snowboarder was arrested at a Nashville, Tennessee hotel Sunday on charges of vandalism and public intoxication.
"I want to apologize for the unwise choices I made over the weekend and for any inconvenience it caused my family, friends, business partners, the hotel and their guests," White wrote on his Facebook page Tuesday.
What happened? He was celebrating, he said.
"I was celebrating a happy occasion with a ton of family and friends and got carried away," he added. "I'm truly sorry for my poor behavior."
According to the Nashville Metro Police Department, White was arrested shortly before 2 a.m. at Loews Vanderbilt Hotel after pulling a fire alarm, forcing authorities to evacuate the hotel.
Police say White appeared “extremely intoxicated and smelled strongly of alcohol” when he attempted to flee the hotel in a cab. While making the exit, White got in an altercation with a bystander, fell and hit his head, resulting in a trip to the hospital.
White was arrested on misdemeanor charges and was released Monday night on his own recognizance.
Calls to White’s publicist were not immediately returned.
The Nashville arrest was not White's first hotel incident. According to ESPN, he also was cited by Breckenridge, Colo., police in December 2007 for discharging a fire extinguisher in a hotel. Police identified White after seeing him on the surveillance video footage.
White, who has multi-million endorsement deals with Kraft, Burton, Red Bull, Target, Oakley, Ubisoft, was one of the highest-earning athletes competing at the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver.
White's worth an estimated $20 million, and currently earns a reported $2 million per endorsement deal.
Follow me on Twitter @johnmclarkejr or e-mail me at johnmclarkejr@gmail.com.
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ebcf9c65a1046fd2778c5e131de70adb | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johncoleman/2018/07/30/the-johnson-treatment-pushing-and-persuading-like-lbj/?sh=147aa2bb4201 | The Johnson Treatment: Pushing And Persuading Like LBJ | The Johnson Treatment: Pushing And Persuading Like LBJ
Lyndon Johnson signing the Civil Rights Act on July 2, 1964, as Martin Luther King Jr. looks on.... [+] (Photo by: Photo12/UIG via Getty Images)
For many Americans, the presidency of Lyndon Johnson is a distant memory marked by tragedy—the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Bobby Kennedy, the Vietnam War, the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. and social turmoil. But it was also one of history’s most legislatively active presidencies. President Johnson was essential to the passage of the Civil Rights Act, Medicare, the Voting Rights Act and even the Public Broadcasting Act. Whether one views all this legislation as positive or not, its very volume and scale highlight the influence of a man who rose from the poverty of West Texas to become a Congressman, the youngest Senate majority leader in history and ultimately, president.
How did he do it? There is a wonderful photo of Lyndon Johnson and Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas. Johnson is towering over Fortas, smiling and invading his space as the jurist uncomfortably leans back and clinches his arms to his chest. That photo has become emblematic of what became known as the Johnson Treatment—Lyndon Johnson’s persuasive tactics described by Mary McGrory as “an incredible, potent mixture of persuasion, badgering, flattery, threats, reminders of past favors and future advantages.” As a participant in the Presidential Leadership Scholars (PLS), a leadership development program sponsored by four presidential libraries or centers, I had the opportunity to spend a weekend learning about the Johnson presidency at the LBJ Ranch and the LBJ Library. And I learned a great deal more about the 36th president’s approach to persuasion. It’s not for everyone—leadership styles are different—but it often worked for LBJ and is worth understanding today.
So how did LBJ persuade? First, he’d establish a vision and a purpose. In Mark Updegrove’s Indomitable Will: LBJ in the Presidency, Jack Valenti recounts how, the evening of Kennedy’s assassination in Dallas, Johnson sat at home with his team and spent five hours mapping what would become the Great Society agenda. “He knew with stunning precision the mountaintop to which he was going to summon people,” Valenti recalled. That vision for his presidency became the purpose and focal point of his persuasion. Often in seeking to persuade people we lose sight of the end goal—where we’re headed with our persuasion. But Johnson knew that vision and purpose are foundational to persuasion.
With a vision in mind, Johnson would master the details. In Johnson’s case this applied both to the facts of the case and the process needed to drive change. During the PLS program in Austin, Bill Moyers noted that Johnson regularly told his team, “Your judgment is only as good as your facts.” And former Johnson aide Tom Johnson (no relation to the president) noted, “It’s impossible to overstate his consumption of information.” He’d immerse himself in the facts of a situation—reading hundreds of pages on a topic and speaking to everyone he could about it—so that he could make the most persuasive case possible. Then he’d obsess over the process of making the change. He knew the rules of government, the personalities and motivations of public officials, and the flow of the legislative process better than anyone. This mastery of detail was a hallmark of Johnson’s effectiveness.
He also knew to identify and mobilize the right people. Making the right arguments isn’t enough to persuade. You have to rally those who can effectively influence a decision. Johnson did this consistently, particularly in the run-up to passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. He called the Washington Post’s Katharine Graham, and pushed her to publish reportage and editorials advocating for a vote on the act. Knowing the influence of the United Steelworkers, he persuaded Dave McDonald, their president, to have his team lobby for the act, even having Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. join this call with him in 1963. Realizing he needed Republicans, he partnered closely with Senate minority leader Everett Dirksen, appealing to him to honor the heritage of his home state of Illinois as the “land of Lincoln.” And he worked closely with Dr. King and other civil rights leaders. Johnson knew that persuasion takes the work of multiple constituencies and always thought carefully of whose influence to employ.
Perhaps the most defining element of President Johnson’s persuasion was the Johnson Treatment itself—he was willing to push people. For better or worse, he would harangue, threaten, flatter and bully. This was evident in Johnson’s dealings with his mentor, longtime Georgia Senator Dick Russell. In establishing the Warren Commission—which was responsible for investigating the Kennedy assassination—Johnson knew Russell didn’t want to serve, but announced Russell’s involvement before asking him then bullied him into it in a phone call. As recorded in Indomitable Will, he then pushed past Russell—a dedicated segregationist—to get Civil Rights Act passed, telling him, “Dick, I love you and I owe you. But....I’m going to run over you if you challenge me on this civil-rights bill.” He did just that—leading to Russell boycotting the Democratic convention in 1964. Similarly, after Bloody Sunday in Selma, Johnson summoned George Wallace to a meeting at the White House [DOC] in which he physically loomed over the man and badgered him for hours on subjects from voting rights to protecting demonstrators. He made people uneasy. He invaded their space. And he kept after them. This kind of persistence is uncomfortable for most of us but essential for LBJ.
Finally, he would make it personal. As recorded in Indomitable Will, Leon Jaworski wrote of Johnson, “This man makes the most persuasive talk to a small group of anyone I have ever known.” And at the LBJ Library in Austin, Tom Johnson, highlighted his interpersonal persuasiveness noting, “[H]is ability to talk one-on-one. It was miraculous to see what he could achieve in that context.” He loved the telephone—as evidenced by the remarkable archive of his telephone conversations—and at his “Texas White House” ranch outside of Austin, he had 72 phone lines installed for use. Johnson also took to understand each person he was dealing with—their pressures, values, personality traits and motivations—so that his message and technique were tailored to them. In the digital age, Johnson’s person-to-person approach may be even more powerful because it is so rare.
President Johnson’s legacy isn’t perfect. Whether in foreign or domestic policy, many of his actions were and remain controversial. His personality could be grating, crude and difficult. But he got things done. And while his style of persuasion may not be suited to every person or circumstance, it’s worth understanding.
This article is part of a six-part series on leadership lessons from presidents that includes “Searching For The Right Leadership Style,” “The Power Of Relational Leadership,” “The Simple Power Of Connected Communication,” “How A President Makes A Decision That Matters,” “The Johnson Treatment: Pushing and Persuading Like LBJ” and “Life Is Worth Living In Three Dimensions.”
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92b30b52aab347b45d3caf2a6a0e553f | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johncumbers/2019/09/04/synthetic-biology-has-raised-124-billion-here-are-five-sectors-it-will-soon-disrupt/?sh=717c1eee3a14 | Synthetic Biology Has Raised $12.4 Billion. Here Are Five Sectors It Will Soon Disrupt. | Synthetic Biology Has Raised $12.4 Billion. Here Are Five Sectors It Will Soon Disrupt.
As synthetic biology goes from R&D to real products, the number of companies and funding have grown ... [+] dramatically. Food, consumer packaged goods, and agriculture are all being transformed by biology. SynBioBeta
Biotechnology is accelerating. Nowhere is this more evident than in the frontier of synthetic biology, which views DNA as a programming language for creating new goods like petroleum-free plastics, spider silk jackets and perfumes with the aroma of extinct flowers.
In the past ten years, the synthetic biology industry has seen investment in excess of $12 billion. This includes close to $4 billion in the last year alone, with major funding coming from established biotechnology firms like Bayer and Novartis, heavy-hitting investment groups such as SoftBank, DCVC, and a16z, and startup accelerators Y Combinator and IndieBio.
In the coming weeks, I will be breaking down synthetic biology’s broad sectors and interviewing many of its key players. Until then, here are five sectors of this fast-moving industry that you need to know about:
1. Food and Agriculture
Synthetic biology is poised to change what we eat and how we grow it.
One of the dirtiest secrets in agriculture today is the $212 billion fertilizer industry. Making synthetic fertilizer consumes between one and two percent of the world’s total power, and massive fertilizer runoff is poisoning rivers, lakes and oceans the world over.
MORE FOR YOUThe Latest Hot Marketplace, Material Bank, Raises $100 Million To Source Architectural And Construction Products—With Help From RobotsHow A Former Fashion Model Designed Concealed-Carry Running Shorts For WomenUS Manufacturers Can’t Stop Americans From Buying Chinese-Made Goods. Here’s What They Can Do
This fertilizer facility in Vijapur, India, relies on high-pressure tanks at temperatures that would ... [+] melt lead to make food for plants. Welcome to the new bioeconomy. Natfert / WikiMedia
Synthetic biology has a fertilizer alternative. Pivot Bio, based in Berkeley, California, has pioneered a new way of fertilizing crops at scale without relying on a polluting chemical process. The firm has harnessed the power of soil microbes to create a living product that farmers can apply to soil alongside seeds. Once planted, these microbes take nitrogen that’s freely available and give it to plants.
Pivot Bio microbes provide farmers with a sustainable alternative to petroleum-based nitrogen ... [+] fertilizer. Using these microbes can help lessen the environmental footprint of agriculture. Pivot Bio
Late last year, Pivot secured a $70 million Series B from Breakthrough Energy Ventures, a collective backed by Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and many others. Joyn Bio, which is developing a similar bio-based solution, also secured a $100 million series A in 2018 from its parent companies, Bayer and Ginkgo Bioworks.
Synthetic biology is unlocking new food options, too. Since launching in 2011, the plant-based meat company Impossible Foods has raised over half a billion dollars. Finless Foods and Memphis Meats are remixing biology even further by growing animals cells without the animals; the first is looking to save our oceans by growing fish tissue indoors, while the latter is taking on the highly polluting beef and leather industries.
2. Consumer Goods
The market for consumer goods in the United States alone is estimated to exceed $600 billion per year. Synthetic biologists are making inroads with innovative products across a number of sectors.Take Geltor. This California-based startup is creating advanced proteins for the beauty market. It launched HumaColl21™, a skin-care collagen product, in Korea earlier this year. The product contains actual human collagen, bio-designed and grown via fermentation. This new form of collagen is the first of its kind, eliminating the need for animal harvesting.
“The product is beating the expectations by almost 200 percent,” said Geltor CEO Alex Lorestani. “But beyond that, it was a big hit with the bloggers and influencers who love the fact that we’re replacing animal products with a sustainable solution.”
Geltor co-founders Alex Lorestani and Nick Ouzounov are applying biology to the personal care ... [+] product market, producing collagen skin products that are engineered for better performance. Geltor
Synthetic biology’s innovation in the consumer goods sector is more than skin deep. Zbiotics has launched a biodesigned probiotic hangover cure. Conagen is working toward a new generation of alternative sweeteners. Codexis is also rolling out new zero-calorie sweeteners, as well as a broad portfolio of enzymes that its customers are using across the food, beverage, and biopharmaceutical sectors. As of July, Codexis’ annual product revenue was up 68 percent.
3. Chemicals and Materials
A surprising fraction of the materials and chemicals sold around the world are still derived from petroleum, but a new generation of biomaterials is coming online to replace them.
Japanese biomaterials company Spiber, which is growing spider silk via precision-engineered microbes, has raised close to $200 million, making it one of the countries best-funded startups to date.
In the US, startups like Ecovative are partnering with giants like IKEA and Dell to deliver sustainable, biologically derived packaging material. As researchers become more adept at building with biology, thousands of new goods with smaller carbon footprints and enhanced physical properties will emerge.
4. Automation (Lab & Organism)
Automation is a key enabler of the synthetic biology industry’s rapid growth. With it, even small companies are doing more with less.
Automation in synthetic biology takes two forms: the standardization of complex laboratory workflows, and the introduction of robots and other machines to faithfully carry them out.
Two giants who are taking the guesswork out of biological design are Ginkgo Bioworks, valued at $1.4 billion, and Zymergen, which secured $400 million from the SoftBank Vision Fund in late 2018. Both help customers bring products to market faster by standardizing the “design-build-test” of industrial microbes.
If synthetic biology is the picks and shovels of the biotech gold rush, then companies like Ginkgo ... [+] Bioworks are the picks and shovels of synthetic biology itself. They build the systems that design, build, test, and learn about biology at an accelerating rate. Ginkgo Bioworks
Robotics firms like OpenTrons and Berkeley Lights are also popping up to service the synthetic biology sector. Most of the work inside a synthetic biology laboratory boils down to moving small volumes of liquid from one container to another — robots can do this faster and more accurately than humans.
“Biotechnology can solve some of the world’s biggest problems, but not enough people have access to the tools needed to work with it. That’s what we aim to change,” says OpenTrons CEO Will Canine.
5. Reading, writing and editing DNA
Nearly every application of synthetic biology requires reprogramming the code of life. That is why breakthroughs that make it cheaper, easier and safer to read, write or edit DNA reverberate throughout the entire industry.
Twist Bioscience, which went public last year and since doubled in market value, is fueling the industry with cheap and plentiful DNA. They recently partnered with researchers at Microsoft to work out whether genes could someday replace hard drives. Other firms, including Molecular Assemblies, are in hot pursuit as they develop whole new ways of stitching together As, Ts, Cs and Gs. Colorado-based Inscripta is about to launch a high-throughout, CRISPR-based genome engineering machine. With it, hurdles to wide-spread gene editing will begin to shrink.
These and other breakthroughs make the synthetic biology space a must-watch.
Disclaimer: I am the founder of SynBioBeta, the innovation network for the synthetic biology industry. Some of the companies that I write about sponsor the SynBioBeta conference (click here for a full list of sponsors).
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d32195ec36e85655523fc1515c50d6a8 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johncumbers/2019/09/17/would-you-buy-a-bag-made-of-mushroom-leather-a-jacket-made-with-spider-silk-the-future-of-the-fashion-industry-is-here-and-its-made-with-biology/?sh=3f7b12c83ed2 | Would You Buy A Bag Made Of Mushroom Leather? A Jacket Made With Spider Silk? The Future Of The Fashion Industry Is Here And It’s Made With Biology | Would You Buy A Bag Made Of Mushroom Leather? A Jacket Made With Spider Silk? The Future Of The Fashion Industry Is Here And It’s Made With Biology
Companies Evrnu, Bolt threads, Spiber, Modern Meadow, Mycoworks and Ecovative Design are biotech ... [+] companies reinventing the fashion industry by introducing innovative materials and production methods. Getty
Synthetic spider silk? Leather brewed from mushrooms? These are just two examples of how synthetic biology is changing the fashion industry.
Second to the oil industry, the fashion industry is the world’s largest polluter. The major contributors to the fashion industry’s pollution are water contamination and consumption, carbon emissions and harmful chemicals. As a result, consumers are in growing numbers asking for sustainable fashion items, putting pressure on the fashion industry and textile manufacturers. These recent demands are causing companies to search for solutions, and it so happens that synthetic biology has the answer. Six frontrunners, Evrnu, Bolt threads, Spiber, Modern Meadow, Mycoworks and Ecovative Design are biotech companies reinventing the fashion industry by introducing innovative materials and production methods.
A Breakdown of The Leather Industry SynBioBeta
1.Brewing leather made from mushrooms
With their 100% biodegradable materials, MycoWorks is challenging the conventional leather industry by turning fungi and agricultural byproducts into leather. The process of turning skin into leather (tanning) dates back to 2200 BC and has not evolved much since, except for in the 19th century, when chrome tanning, an alternative to the conventional vegetable tanning was invented in order to streamline the manufacturing process. Today the leather industry has a huge negative impact on our environment through its massive energy consumption and the effluent of harmful chemicals and byproducts. In the production of livestock, tremendous amounts of fossil fuels are consumed and leather derived from cows has nearly three times the negative environmental impact in comparison to synthetic alternatives, including polyurethane (PU) leather. With MycoWorks’ technology leather production can be done in a fraction of the time, with a fraction of the resources in a sustainable, customizable and natural way.
2.Biofabrication: Building materials with biology
From 3D-printing human tissue for medical use, to biofabricating new sustainable materials, the possibilities of synthetic biology appear limitless to CEO and co-founder Andras Forgacs. After raising approximately $54 million, Modern Meadow is tapping into nature’s toolkit to create biologically advanced materials that signify a new era: The Biofabrication Age. The company’s Zoa technology allows for the possibility to customize structural and aesthetic properties of materials through the editing of DNA, resulting in the production of distinct characteristics. The biofabrication process consists of engineering the DNA of yeast to produce collagen protein which is then fermented and eventually assembled into materials. In 2017 Modern Meadow proudly demonstrated their biofabricated prototype T-shirt featuring leather made from yeast.
On average, Americans throw away 81 pounds of clothing every year. Close to 95% of used textiles can ... [+] be recycled, 85% lands in the trash Getty
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3.From discarded clothing to fibers to new clothing
On a mission to make single-use textiles into multi-life resources, Evrnu is introducing a new kind of engineered fiber with extraordinary performance and environmental advantages. On average, Americans throw away 81 pounds of clothing every year. Close to 95% of used textiles can be recycled, 85% lands in the trash, meaning that 21 billion pounds of recyclable clothing ends up completely unused each year. In a simplified five-step process Evrnu’s NuCycl technology turns discarded clothing into new material through gathering, disassembly/breakdown, material/fiber engineering, spinning into yarn and finally weaving into fabric. In a joint effort to make sustainable sportswear, Evrnu, BoltThreads, Adidas and fashion giant Stella McCartney launched an eco-conscious hoodie and a tennis dress prototype. With the technology of synthetic biology, companies such as Evrnu are able to demonstrate the possibility of creating new products using materials that are made with nature, which, at some point, can also return to nature in a sustainable manner.
4.Synthetic spider silk, a material 340 times tougher than steel
For the first time in the world, Japan-based Spiber succeeded to develop the technology required for mass production of synthetic spider silk. The material has about the same strength as carbon fiber but has 40 times the toughness making a material with unlimited possibilities. The technology behind such a product? Synthetic biology, of course. Through analyzing the spiders silk-producing DNA, scientists are able to identify genes and with genetic engineering synthesize a new optimized gene, with greater strength and elasticity, thereby allowing for more industrial applications. In collaboration with The North Face, Spiber released the Spiber Moon Parka, the world’s first coat made with synthetic spider silk (this parka is up for grabs in a lottery ending at the end of October). Spiber believes that in the future, proteins will be widely used as a basic industrial material, just as metals, glass, and plastics are used today
5.Developing materials for a better future
Bolt Threads are using nature as an inspiration, cutting-edge biotechnology as a tool and endless innovative ideas to make sustainable materials for a better world. With their spider silk, mushroom leather and silk proteins the company is tackling the problems of our resource-constrained world. With the global fashion industry valued at approximately $3 trillion and consumers asking for sustainability and higher transparency there is much to gain in the synthetic biology biomaterials industry. With their technology and collaboration with Adidas and Stella McCartney the company is already taking the fashion industry by storm.
Mycelium is the thread-like vegetative part of a fungus. It is being used in many ways to create ... [+] biosustainable materials Getty
6.Fungus for a sustainable future
Bacon, packaging materials, skincare and sustainable foam, these are some of Ecovative Design’s innovative Mycelium products. Mycelium is the thread-like vegetative part of a fungus and using Ecovative’s technology it can be grown into designed forms to make a sustainable product. The process of growing mycelium yields very little (mostly compostable) waste, it is fast growing and it uses limited energy consumption making it a promising solution to current materials. The biodegradable material comes at a cost however, a square foot of mycelia material costs about $50 to make whilst other materials such as plastic, wood and cork can be produced at a much lower price. But with Ecovative’s MycoComposite™ material being flame resistant, hydrophobic and biodegradable it provides additional advantages that conventional packaging materials cannot. Ecovative also has a textile platform in which they make sustainable “leather”. Ecovative’s products are sustainable, biological alternative to plastics and animal agriculture, the key drivers in the world’s pollution.
There is no doubt that synthetic biology has endless possibilities. The pressure on our planet’s resources is giving innovators the opportunity to pave the way towards a more sustainable future. So far, we have only uncovered the tip of the iceberg. With more cross-disciplinary initiatives and globalization, now is the time to critically examine our current ways. Synthetic biology is a facilitator in allowing nature to help us solve our problems on earth.
Thank you to Stephanie Michelsen for additional research and reporting in this post. Stephanie is a Biotechnology Masters student at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. Please note: I am the founder of SynBioBeta, the innovation network for the synthetic biology industry, and some of the companies that I write about are sponsors of the SynBioBeta conference (click here for a full list of sponsors). I am also an investor in the company Modern Meadow.
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2b515204b5f1f87fda2a10aa84a6bd55 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johncumbers/2020/01/21/an-interview-with-ginkgos-reshma-shetty-on-co-founding-synthetic-biologys-first-unicorn/?sh=1bc4ed11a56a | Ginkgo Bioworks’ Reshma Shetty On Co-Founding Synthetic Biology’s First Unicorn | Ginkgo Bioworks’ Reshma Shetty On Co-Founding Synthetic Biology’s First Unicorn
In co-founding Ginkgo Bioworks, Reshma Shetty has helped enable the entire synthetic biology ... [+] industry while inspiring a generation of new biological engineers. Here’s what she told me about starting a biotech company. SynBioBeta
Dr. Reshma Shetty is no stranger within the synthetic biology community. In 2008 she co-founded Ginkgo Bioworks—a company you’ll definitely hear about if you haven’t already—along with fellow MIT grad students Austin Che, Barry Canton, and Jason Kelly, and their graduate adviser, Professor Tom Knight. They started with a simple but revolutionary goal: help people design and build organisms. A decade later, Ginkgo achieved “unicorn” status—a private company valued at over $1 billion—and it finds itself at the fore of the synthetic biology revolution with customers seeking to build organisms for use in fields as diverse as health, food, agriculture, cosmetics and materials.
Shetty has been through the whole journey and has been a major influence in the synthetic biology community. She had a major role in the first International Genetic Engineering Machine (iGEM) Competition with her co-founders. In 2008, she was named one of ‘Eight People Inventing the Future’ by Forbes and, in 2011, one of the ‘100 Most Creative People in Business’ by Fast Company.
Shetty is an upbeat talker. If there’s any stress or jadedness from navigating a company from birth to unicorn over a decade, it doesn’t show. There is a sincere enthusiasm in her voice, especially when we discuss the science. When I caught up with her a few weeks back, one of things I wanted to know was: what do you do when you realize you’re riding a biotech unicorn?
What was the moment when you realized that Ginkgo was going to be big?
“It was when we closed our Series B financing. It was a $45 million round or roughly speaking, so that was more dollars dumped into our bank account at one instance than we ever had before.”
“My thought was, ‘well pretty serious people with serious capital are choosing to take a bet on us’.”
This was confirmed for her in 2017 when Bayer chose to work with Ginkgo on engineering biologicals for agriculture, proving the intrinsic value of their platform and cementing Ginkgo as a platform company.
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“It proved three things at the time. One, that engineered microbes in the environment could be a thing, that [they] could be a product category. There are serious people taking serious bets that we're going to be able to release engineered microbes in the future. Two, that Ginkgo’s platform had value even in areas that we hadn't previously been in. Three, it proved to the world that Ginkgo was really a platform company, that we weren't simply going after a few products in the industrial biotech market.”
It wasn’t easy sailing for Gingko from the start though. Right after the company was founded, the global economy took a nosedive.
“I think we incorporated in July of 2008 and, like literally, within the next month or two, the fiscal crisis hit,” says Shetty.
In many ways this was not the ideal time to be starting a business and looking for investment, leading to creative thinking in getting the company going.
What did you learn in those early days that biotech companies could benefit from?
“At the time everybody said that the way to start a biotech start-up is to go raise money immediately because you need some amount of money to be able to start a lab and get going. The thing I had to learn and realize was that no, actually, it is possible. If you're creative enough, savvy enough and patient enough, then you can in fact bootstrap even a biotech start-up.”
Shetty stresses the importance of having the space to figure out their technology platform and business model and ask themselves how to take it forward. Having Knight and his wealth of experience on the team certainly helped.
“Tom always said ‘Oh, it’s a good idea to bootstrap in the early years’ regardless, based on his prior experience starting companies. But circumstances certainly reinforced that and I think that was really helpful that we spent the first few years bootstrapping the company.”
Was it natural having your former advisor on the team?
“Yeah, very natural. Tom, he’s a pretty low-key guy, but he's also been very ahead of his time when it comes to thinking about the technology and technology trends. Early on it was great because Tom has started and run a company before and there were some obvious pitfalls that he could help us avoid and talk a bit about options.”
And your other co-founders, what is it about them that makes them special?
“I think probably for me the biggest thing is that we've now been working together for almost 20 years,” says Shetty, referencing their time at MIT in the years before Ginkgo.
“And even now, if I'm struggling with something or I'm trying to dig through how to solve a problem, I would want to talk to Tom, Barry, Austin, and Jason. I always come away having learned something or clarified my thinking or somehow changed how I was approaching a problem. To me, that is the real hallmark of excellence.”
Despite all those shared experiences, they still learn from one another and solve problems together. Shetty considers her colleagues to be mentors too, saying she’s benefitted from them as much as from her supervisors through the years.
“Anybody can be a mentor,” she says.
They are all engineers at heart, so the most exciting things for the Ginkgo team are around potentially world-changing technologies that can jump quickly from dream to reality.
What are the engineering challenges you’re most excited about these days?
“Bayer and Ginkgo, through our joint venture in Joyn, are going after nitrogen fixation. It has long been a dream of folks. Could we reduce fertilizer usage by using biological nitrogen fixation instead?”
This project has been close to Shetty since her academic days, but therapeutics and Ginkgo’s collaboration with Synlogic, who develop bacteria as living medicines, has also piqued her interest.
“There's all these areas of metabolism that lead to devastating diseases and the idea that you could engineer microbes to basically treat them is a cool idea!”
Is there any particular problem you’d like to solve through engineering biology?
“How do you think about leveraging biology to make a positive impact on the environment? That's one I think has been on our wish list for a while.”
Enabling the future of synthetic biology is a big part of how Ginkgo operates, even since the early days. The founders were involved in establishing iGEM and their platform is well suited to collaborative efforts.
How do you see Ginkgo’s role to give back and enable the next generation of synthetic biology?
“I think one thing that has been a longstanding ask from folks in the community is how are we going to open up our cell programming platform to more people? Early on, that seemed crazy to even think about,” she says, citing the skill set required to use and build it. “I think we've come a long way since then so we can say actually maybe we get started thinking about opening up the platform to more folks.”
Shetty says initial collaborations like Joyn, (Ginkgo spin-out) Motif, and Synlogic mean they can learn how to open their platform better. Relationships with accelerators like YCombinator and Petri are the next steps. They acknowledge that opening their platform will only benefit and accelerate biological engineering.
Our conversation then moves onto a more human element of running a company, a reminder that it’s never all about the science.
Do you have any mistakes or regrets in how you’ve done things?
“The biggest regret I have is actually not thinking consciously about diversity and inclusion issues earlier in Ginkgo’s history. We started thinking about them seriously in about 2015 or so, when we were still relatively small, about 30 people. But we could have thought about diversity and inclusion even earlier.”
Shetty reveals it’s easier to change the balance in a company when it’s just a handful of people.
Can we be doing better on diversity as a whole?
“I would say that synthetic biology as a field has always been pretty good in that it thought about issues outside of just the science and engineering itself. I think the field always fosters that broader perspective. So I think it's been more natural and more normal to think about diversity and inclusion issues in the synthetic biology community as a result,” says Shetty, “We're by no means beyond reproach … but there's more of a willingness to talk about these issues and really try to take proactive steps.”
Do you have any advice for those starting a company?
“The thing I like to tell people is that, if you're going to start a company, don't do it for the money. There are a lot of easier ways to make money in the world. Start a company because you think a company is really the best way to go tackle a problem that you're passionate about.”
Any final thoughts?
“I think that we've come a long way in terms of our ability to engineer biology, but we still have a long way to go. Fundamentally, biology is still not yet a predictable engineering discipline and it’s important to remember that. Because it’s still not yet predictable, we have to iterate through different designs and search for a functional design whenever we're trying to engineer a GMO. We have more work to do to bring down the cost of doing genetic engineering so that we can explore more and more of design space.”
Follow me on twitter at @johncumbers and @synbiobeta. Subscribe to my weekly newsletters in synthetic biology and space settlement.
Thank you to David Kirk and Kevin Costa for additional research and reporting in this article. I’m the founder of SynBioBeta, and some of the companies that I write about — including Ginkgo Bioworks — are sponsors of the SynBioBeta conference and weekly digest — here’s the full list of SynBioBeta sponsors.
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ad5a9c7ba0d6f690e5d8b2711ab9182f | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johncumbers/2020/01/23/on-india-trade-mission-california-lt-gov-eleni-kounalakis-seeks-to-grow-the-economy--and-protect-the-environment/ | On India Trade Mission, California Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis Seeks To Grow The Economy — And Protect The Environment | On India Trade Mission, California Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis Seeks To Grow The Economy — And Protect The Environment
California Lieutenant Governor Eleni Kounalakis told delegates at the Raisina Dialogue in New Delhi ... [+] that India and California can strengthen ties that nurture both business and the environment. Observer Research Foundation (ORF)
California and the San Francisco Bay Area-Silicon Valley want to deepen economic ties with India, a growing global economic powerhouse. And they want to do it while doing good for the environment.
That was the takeaway from a trade mission to India I took part in last week, led by the Bay Area Council. One of the key participants was California Lieutenant Governor Eleni Kounalakis. She chairs Governor Newsom’s International Affairs and Trade Development Interagency Committee and previously served as the U.S. Ambassador to Hungary under President Obama. Kounalakis came in part to promote trade and tourism with India, which is already California’s 13th largest trading partner, buying more than $600M of California almonds alone. And Indian tourists spend over $1.1B in California each year.
“We have great universities, easy access to capital, and a government that's transparent and works for the people,“ Kounalakis said during the mission.
Tech, bio, and climate: California leads the way
But she's most proud of the fact that California does what most people said was impossible: grow a healthy economy and take care of the environment at the same time. California has led U.S. environmental policy for decades, and its ambitious goals are global in nature. Former Governor Jerry Brown even put a plan in place for the state to be carbon neutral by 2045.
California may be experiencing something anticipated by Al Gore: sustainability as history’s biggest investment opportunity, having “the magnitude of the industrial revolution but the speed of the digital revolution.”
While in India, Kounalakis also spoke at the Raisina Dialogue, a conference of world leaders hosted by India Prime Minister Narendra Modi and committed to addressing the most challenging issues facing the global community. There, Kounalakis spoke about California’s ambitious climate change plans, and how India can help California lead global climate action.
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The Indo-California kinship
If California and India want to strengthen ties, they’re sure starting from a good place. A recent report from the Bay Area Council is chock full of data showing the strong trade relationship between the greater San Francisco Bay Area and India. From a cultural perspective, 667,000 Indians live in California, half of them in the Bay Area. Companies like Google, Microsoft, Adobe, Sun Microsystems, Memphis Meats, and Perfect Day are all linked to prominent current and former leaders of Indian origin.
John Cumbers
“India’s technology, scale, entrepreneurial energy, and cultural ties to the region link it powerfully to the Bay Area and Silicon Valley,” said Jim Wunderman, President & CEO of the Bay Area Council. “These linkages present opportunities for the Bay Area and its Indian partners not just in IT and tech but also in fields like synthetic biology, healthcare and renewable energy — fields where the Bay Area excels and India’s needs and capacities will grow.”
These cultural ties are complemented by economic parities. India’s $2.7 trillion economy is the closest national economy in comparison to California's $3.0 trillion economy. And although they are very different in population (1.3 billion versus 40 million), India and California share deep economic roots in both agriculture and technology.
But as tech meets bio and both economies bloom, what happens to emissions? California reported in 2019 that the carbon intensity of its economy declined by 4.5% even as its GDP grew 3.6%.
On the other hand, India’s emissions grew 4.8% in 2018, along with a big 7.0% jump in GDP. In fairness, India’s per capita emissions were slightly below the global average and contributed 7% to the global carbon dioxide burden. The U.S. was responsible for 14% of the world’s carbon emissions — that’s twice the carbon for one-quarter the number of people.
Regardless, more action is needed to achieve both economic and environmental success on a global scale. And every industry is going to face distinct challenges and opportunities to replacing fossil energy with other, more sustainable sources.
Air travel—jet fuel, in particular—might just be one area radically transformed by synthetic biology in the not-so-distant future with the aim of achieving that goal.
Consumers pushing airlines for green biofuels
Also on the trade mission with us was Janet Lamkin, California President of United Airlines. United was touting its new direct flight between San Francisco and Delhi, but Lamkin also said she is aware of the flight shaming that's going on in protest of carbon pumped out of jet planes. Airline customers, particularly in the Bay Area and California, are asking United and others to do more about climate change.
“At United, we have a vision to decarbonize commercial air travel, and we believe sustainable aviation fuel is the critical path to achieving this vision,” Lamkin told me. United was the first U.S. airline to use commercial-scale volumes of sustainable aviation fuel for everyday operations, and daily flights out of Los Angeles continue to use these low carbon fuels. “There is still much more progress to make towards decarbonization,” she said.
To that end, United has invested $30 million in California-based Fulcrum BioEnergy, which provides United with 90 million gallons of low-carbon jet fuel annually, derived from household waste. The two companies are also jointly developing waste-to-jet fuel plants across North America.
India’s largest company is thinking exactly along these lines.
India’s biostrategy for fueling the world
Reliance Industries Limited is India’s largest private business. Known best as a petroleum giant, it has recently grown to encompass food, electronics, fashion, and more. I visited the city of Jamnagar, home to the largest oil refinery in the world and run by Reliance. The refinery processes more than 1.3 million barrels of oil every day, producing carbon dioxide as a waste by-product.
Can the largest petroleum refinery in the world go green? Yes, if forward-thinking companies in ... [+] India and California have their way. Reliance Industries Limited
It may seem paradoxical for a petroleum giant to seek fossil fuel alternatives. But like California, Reliance understands that what’s good for the environment is usually good for business. So it created a synthetic biology program of 150+ scientists and researchers to seek such solutions. That group recently developed a technology program called “algae to oil” that combines the carbon dioxide waste from its petroleum refineries with algae and sunlight to produce a bio crude oil. Reliance says it can make this bio-crude for about $100 a barrel without subsidy. That’s a little higher than petroleum crude ($60 a barrel), but the algal oil is superior in that it uses carbon that would otherwise pollute the environment.
Mukesh Ambani, leader of Indian mega-conglomerate Reliance Industries Limited, is taking his ... [+] business directly into synthetic biology, where tech and bio are converging to provide green solutions even for the petroleum industry. Forbes India
Reliance already supplies conventional jet fuel to a number of airlines through its refueling station network in India. Once the biocrude program scales up, then bio-based jet fuel could be on the way and the distribution channels are already in place, potentially giving airlines like United and its customers more of the climate change action they are demanding.
I met with Mukesh Ambani, the Chairman of Reliance, who sees growth in the company’s synthetic biology program and diversifying into other products beyond fuel. “Biology in the next 20-30 years will lead the world,” he said.
Bioeconomic realities
The transformation of our global economy from fossil fuels to more sustainable bio-based sources is an ongoing battle. For the foreseeable future, it's probably going to be cheaper to pump oil out of the ground and refine it, rather than capture and distill existing carbon dioxide into something of value.
But technology isn’t the only tool available to us. Economic incentives such as cap-and-trade programs also play a critical role. The elegance of cap-and trade-systems like the one in California is that they incentivize business practices that use sustainable carbon by awarding carbon credits, and discourage carbon-emitting practices by taxing them. These and other policy levers can give technologies like synthetic biology the edge needed to scale up solutions and ultimately tip the economic scales in favor of cleaner alternatives.
“California has already invested about $25B in clean energy and clean transportation,and has a robust cap and trade program,” said Kounalakis. “We welcome new carbon capture businesses to set up shop in California.”
If Reliance were to establish a facility in the U.S., then United Airlines would have a local biofuel supplier, meaning their new direct flight to India could be a carbon-neutral ride. That would be good for the economies of India and California. Perhaps more importantly, it would be great for the environment.
Follow me on twitter at @johncumbers and @synbiobeta. Subscribe to my weekly newsletters in synthetic biology and space settlement.
Thank you to Kevin Costa for additional research and editing in this article. I’m the founder of SynBioBeta, and some of the companies that I write about — including Reliance Industries Limited — are sponsors of the SynBioBeta conference and weekly digest — here’s the full list of SynBioBeta sponsors.
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40c2f9ff2df2a9388f58b1911f3b5322 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johncumbers/2020/02/11/bio-nylon-is-the-new-green-how-one-company-is-fermenting-your-future-materials/?sh=27fedff14030 | Bio-Nylon Is The New Green: How One Company Is Fermenting A $10 Billion Market | Bio-Nylon Is The New Green: How One Company Is Fermenting A $10 Billion Market
In the inevitable shift away from fossil fuels, Genomatica announced the first commercial production ... [+] of bio-based nylon. Companies that seize the economic and environmental advantages of biomanufacturing stand to lead the way, whether it’s fabrics or face creams. Kristian Egelund on Unsplash
In the inevitable shift away from fossil fuels, Genomatica announced the first commercial production of bio-based nylon. Companies that seize the economic and environmental benefits of biomanufacturing stand to lead the way, whether it’s fabrics or face creams.
When we think of biotechnology, it’s easy to think just about pharmaceuticals. Even the broader term ‘bioeconomy’ may only bring to mind things like agriculture, forestry, and food.
But the bioeconomy is best thought of as turning biomass into business, plants into products. What we call the bioeconomy today made up most of our economy before the 20th century, when petrochemistry and synthetic chemistry gave rise to a revolutionary material that became ubiquitous worldwide: plastics.
In the 21st century, consumers are increasingly demanding products that reflect their more sustainable values and lifestyles. Chemistry is giving way to synthetic biology, and engineered organisms—using the same kind of fermentation we use to make wine, bread, or kombucha—can now make the chemical building blocks for shoes, cars, and carpets.
There is just one question: Which producers will have the foresight to lead this biomanufacturing revolution?
Recently, a bioengineering company called Genomatica reached a milestone that epitomizes this shift from fossil fuels to biology. Genomatica announced it had made a ton of the chemical building block that industry relies on to make nylon-6—using a renewable fermentation approach. Here’s why that matters.
Why does bio-nylon matter?
First, it’s an economic opportunity. The nylon industry is worth $10 billion globally. That’s a huge potential market to tap into. Nylon became famous in the 1940s as a textile fiber in stockings. Today, it is found in everything from clothes to packaging.
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Second, it’s an environmental necessity. As with most plastic production today, nylon-6 usually starts with crude oil. In this case, the molecule caprolactam is refined from crude oil and made into nylon. Every year, the world makes five million tons of nylon-6, which results in an estimated 60 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions. Producing nylon creates nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas that is 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Manufacturing nylon also requires large amounts of water and energy, further contributing to environmental degradation and global warming.
Using a synthetic biology approach, Genomatica engineered microorganisms to ferment plant sugars to produce caprolactam, and therefore nylon, in a 100% renewable way. Christopher Schilling, CEO of Genomatica, thinks this is good for business and our planet.
“There’s this idea that in order to be sustainable, you’ve got to find some totally novel material,” said Schilling. But by producing the very same chemical precursor that industry would normally get from fossil fuels, he believes Genomatica can have a much bigger, more rapid impact on sustainability. “As this product continues to scale, and the economics become more obvious, companies will begin to ask themselves: why would we source it any other way?”
Name brands are going bio-based
Genomatica wants to deliver sustainable nylon to brands like H&M, Vaude, and Carvico via its partnership with Aquafil, one of the largest producers of nylon in the world. Aquafil’s ECONYL brand of nylon takes old fishing nets, textile scraps, and other forms of nylon waste and transforms them into new yarn that’s as good as virgin raw material. Aquafil sees this regeneration process as a new opportunity for the fashion and furniture industries, and a way to protect the environment.
“It was important to us to establish a real connection point with consumer brands,” said Schilling. As a technology innovator, Genomatica felt that the success of the product depended on being accepted at all points in the value chain. Aquafil was the best partner for that, “where we could share a great story that consumer brands could latch on to and ultimately champion.”
Schilling says that the initial one-ton production of the chemical precursor is a small but important step, and its next goal is to reach commercial-scale levels of 30,000-100,000 tons per year.
Bio-nylon’s sustainable forerunners
“One of the things that’s really differentiated Genomatica is our ability to scale, to know how to take something all the way from ideation to commercial realization,” says Schilling.
Nylon is Genomatica’s third big synthetic biology product to come to market, and its previous experience in this space is sure to help accelerate the transition from the lab bench to the marketplace.
Since 2016, Italian bioplastics company Novamont has been producing the bio-BDO at a rate of 30,000 ... [+] tons per year. Novamont / Genomatica
Genomatica’s first big success was with 1,4-butanediol, known more colloquially as BDO. This chemical is used to make plastics, elastic fibers, and polyurethanes, and it’s found in everything from plastic bags to spandex. The world produces about 2.5 million metric tons of BDO every year, and at about US$2,000 per ton, the market is in the billions.
In 2012, Genomatica delivered a chemical engineering breakthrough by producing bio-based BDO with a cost-competitive fermentation process at a commercial scale. Bio-BDO is 100% bio-based and biodegradable, and can be found in athletic apparel, running shoes, electronics, and automotive applications.
A second big success came with a chemical named 1,3-butylene glycol. Few realize it, but many of our everyday personal care and beauty products are derived from crude oil. In early 2019, Genomatica announced the first commercial production of Brontide—its brand name of the chemical—made with natural plant-based sugars. As more and more of us strive to choose products that are in line with our personal values, those made with Brontide rather than fossil fuel derivatives offer consumers a choice that is kinder to the environment.
Taken together, there are now bio-based alternatives for the chemicals used to make everything from fuels to electronics, from shoes to cosmetics. It’s a reminder of just how dependent we are on petrochemicals in our everyday lives.
Are bio-based drop-in chemicals inevitable?
“On the performance side, our first goal is to make sure that the material delivers exactly the same performance features as you would get from conventionally or petroleum sourced nylon. That’s the same thing we did in BDO and butylene glycol,” explains Schilling. He adds, “When you have these large existing markets, you have to make sure you hit the spec to deliver the same quality.”
Bio-based alternatives can offer another advantage over their fossil-based cousins: in some cases, they perform better. With butylene glycol, for example, heavy metals are a catalyst used in processing the ingredient from crude oil. In the final product, trace amounts of heavy metals remain. But with biomanufacturing, no catalysts are needed and there’s no chemical processing, says Schilling. “There are also different purity levels that we’re able to hit very effectively,” he says.
The argument for sustainable, bio-based approaches to material precursors is a strong one. Through relatively simple fermentation processes, biology has shown time and again that it can make whatever we can pump out of the ground, offering precision, renewable production of key compounds. Bio-based caprolactam is another proof point.
The sticking point, as ever, is industry adoption. Industry leaders across the value chain need to seek out and support the scaling of sustainable and renewable bio-based components to speed their integration into a diverse array of end-products. Consumers want them, manufacturers can use them, and most importantly, the planet needs them.
Follow me on twitter at @johncumbers and @synbiobeta. Subscribe to my weekly newsletters in synthetic biology and space settlement.
Thank you to David Kirk and Kevin Costa for additional research and reporting in this article. I’m the founder of SynBioBeta, and some of the companies that I write about are sponsors of the SynBioBeta conference and weekly digest — here’s the full list of SynBioBeta sponsors.
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e7116e43f5f89ea2f2924cfb14aeba20 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johncumbers/2020/02/18/the-new-space-race-meet-the-investors-building-a-new-space-settlement-industry/?sh=15f083d6b58b | The New Space Race: Meet The Investors Building A New Space Settlement Industry | The New Space Race: Meet The Investors Building A New Space Settlement Industry
The same technologies that will enable humans to settle in space will also improve the quality and ... [+] sustainability of life on Earth. These venture capital firms get it. NASA
Fifty years have passed since Neil Armstrong stepped foot on the moon. That feat, and many other space milestones over the past half-century, were carried out by huge government projects, the US and Soviet Union chief among them.
Those days are gone. With decreasing costs of spacecraft development, as well as improved remote sensing and data analytics capabilities, more and more space exploration and investment activities are undertaken by private space companies.
From 2009 to 2018, a total of $18 billion was invested in space start-ups, with $3.25 billion invested in 2018 alone. Forward-looking investors are bullish on a range of space technologies. These include spacecraft that deliver people and payloads to space for research, industry, and recreation; high-resolution Earth imaging for environmental monitoring; satellites for communications and data sharing on- and off-planet; and mining the solar system for precious metals. These technologies enable humans to settle in space in the future and also improve the quality and sustainability of life on Earth.
“Commercial space is a large and rapidly growing market that will be worth trillions of dollars over the next decade. This is a unique moment in history to invest in an exciting and rapidly growing sector,” according to space VC firm Space Angels.
These lucrative opportunities—together with the falling costs of space exploration—make the space bioeconomy an attractive investment option for venture capitalists. As investors continue to fund space start-ups at an accelerating rate, the meteoric rise in venture capital investment in the space industry is expected to continue.
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Here are five exciting space VC firms to keep your eye on.
Space Angels
Space Angels is the leading space VC firm in 2019, with 22 deals since 2010. Satellite technology, Earth imaging and environmental monitoring as well as telecommunication applications feature heavily in the New York-based company’s portfolio. Space Angels has backed Kepler Communications, which provides connectivity and communication solutions with the goal of providing in-space connectivity through a network of satellites. Two start-ups in the portfolio—Flurosat and GHGSat—provide Earth imaging and environmental monitoring services. Through analysis of imagery, agronomic models, weather and IoT data, Flurosat provides insights about agriculture while GHGSat monitors global greenhouse gas emissions from satellite imagery. Space Angels has also funded NanoRacks, a start-up which delivers payloads such as research equipment to the International Space Station for microgravity research. Through SpaceX and World View Enterprises, Space Angels holds stakes in spacecraft manufacture and space tourism respectively.
CosmiCapital
The new kid on the block, CosmiCapital is a VC fund focussed exclusively on investing in space and related applications to transform businesses on Earth. It is the first European VC fund supported and sponsored by the French space agency CNES. Established in April 2018 with a target of €100 million, CosmiCapital aims to grow a portfolio of diversified space start-ups, including launcher and satellite manufacturing, ground and communication services as well as other space-related businesses, thus unlocking the potential of space. CosmiCapital started operations in 2019 and the first investments are expected to start in 2020.
DCVC
Data Collective (DCVC) specializes in investing in high end deep technology such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), cybersecurity and synthetic biology. Like Space Angels, satellite technology features prominently in its geospatial portfolio. DCVC has invested in Capella Space, Descartes Labs and Planet, which provide satellite technology for high resolution Earth imaging. In 2018, DCVC led a $3.1 million seed funding round to fund Akash Systems which invented a breakthrough synthetic diamond microchip to make the world’s fastest satellites for affordable delivery of broadband data to every corner of the Earth. In the same year, DCVC backed Rocket Lab – a space start-up which launches small satellites to low Earth orbit using specially designed rockets – in their $140M Series E to scale up rocket manufacturing and satellite launches.
Disclosure: I’m an operating partner at DCVC where I mostly invest in synthetic biology startups, but my colleagues invest in space startups.
Khosla Ventures
Khosla Ventures focusses on investing in environmentally-friendly tech, internet, computing, mobile and silicon tech. Founded by Vinod Khosla, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, Khosla Ventures aims to back start-ups with high impact technology or business model innovation in large markets, either existing or newly enabled by present innovation. Satellite technology and its related applications comprise the investment portfolio at Khosla Ventures. The company has inked deals with Akash Systems, Rocket Lab, and Earth-imaging start-up Terra Bella /Skybox Imaging which was acquired by Planet in 2017.
Founders Fund
Two primary interests are listed in the San Francisco-based firm’s manifesto – finding ways to support technological development and earning outstanding returns for investors. Founded in 2005, Founders Fund and its partners have a portfolio of prominent technology companies, including PayPal, Facebook, SpaceX and Palantir Technologies. Unlike many VC firms in Silicon Valley which focus on early stage ventures, Founders Fund invests in companies across all sectors, stages and geographies. From 2010 to 2019, the firm closed 9 deals with space start-ups. Also in their portfolio is Moon Express, a space start-up with a mission to mine the Moon for valuable natural resources. By 2020, Moon Express plans to launch their lander to bring lunar samples back to Earth.
Looking ahead, the future is biology
From the examples above, you can see that space venture capital today has a big focus on the immediate transportation, communications, and other hard-tech infrastructure needed for off-planet living. Previously, I’ve written about other needs within the space habitation industry that space investors like Jeff Bezos should care about, including food, manufacturing, and water/waste. In the coming weeks, I’ll be writing about some other biotechnology areas needed to sustain humans over the long term. In particular, I will share stories of how some unconventional thinkers are engineering solutions to nourish us in outer space—in some cases, making food from thin air.
Follow me on twitter at @johncumbers and @synbiobeta. Subscribe to my weekly newsletters in synthetic biology and space settlement.
Thank you to Daphne Ng for additional research and reporting in this article. I’m the founder of SynBioBeta, and some of the companies that I write about, including DCVC, are sponsors of the SynBioBeta conference and weekly digest — here’s the full list of SynBioBeta sponsors.
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3e4b542aa9f83079d27e2943ae251cdf | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johncumbers/2020/09/08/could-fermentation-power-the-future-of-plant-based-foods-motif-foodworks-thinks-yes/ | Could Fermentation Power The Future Of Plant-Based Foods? Motif FoodWorks Thinks Yes. | Could Fermentation Power The Future Of Plant-Based Foods? Motif FoodWorks Thinks Yes.
Motif FoodWorks is leveraging the power of microbe engineering and fermentation to revolutionize the ... [+] future of plant-based foods. Motif FoodWorks
What is the future of food? Looking at what’s on shelves and in freezers during a quick trip to the local grocery store, it’s easy to see that we are quickly moving towards a future of plant-based foods.
While they provide consumers more environmentally friendly food choices, many still have questions about the nutritional merits of these products. Are plant-based foods actually better for you? Can they meet the flavor standards of animal-based foods? Could they even be optimized to exceed the nutritional benefits of traditional products? Jon McIntyre, CEO of Motif FoodWorks, shared his company’s strategy for revolutionizing plant-based foods through microbes and fermentation and his views on the future of food and synthetic biology.
Taste, texture, and brain chemistry: what makes food good?
The data on consumer preferences for plant-based foods indicates that people would eat more plant-based foods if they were given more creative, delicious options. Bridging the taste gap is the first critical step in revolutionizing the plant-based space. To do this, Motif is taking an atypical deep-dive into the science and analysis of food.
The company is studying food through rheology, the science of how solids and liquids physically transform under stress and pressure. “This type of work is more like polymer science and soft matter physics than traditional science,” McIntyre explains. This approach lends itself to Motif’s research about how food is processed orally, exploring changes in texture and release of flavors and aromas to build a proprietary characterization of the complete sensory experience of taking just one, mouthwatering bite of food.
But the science behind savoring food isn’t limited to taste and texture; chemical reactions in the brain play a pivotal role in creating that “mouthwatering” experience. Motif is talking with prospective partners in the neurobiology space to examine the brain’s biochemical reactions while eating. This kind of brain mapping of the eating experience would be beyond even the most connoisseur of taste testers.
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For McIntyre, these unique research avenues are valuable because traditional approaches to food science have hit a wall.
“Modern tools like molecular biology, fermentation, physical sciences, and neurobiology are needed to understand how to make plant-based foods that people really crave, versus, ‘I know I should eat this,” he says.
Making plant-based food craveable
Craveable plant-based food is one component of advancing a future of more sustainable food. However, craving a particular food doesn’t mean it’s healthy; in fact, it’s often the exact opposite. Solving this challenge in parallel is central to Motif’s mission. “Motif exists to make plant-based food taste better,” McIntyre says, “but also to make it more nutritious.” This foundational tenet directly addresses current consumer preferences, marked by increasing awareness about how the human body processes food and the connection between nutrition and overall health and longevity. In conjunction with creating a better eating experience, Motif aims to make plant-based foods a central component of the 21st-century food market — and it’s science of the 21st century that is moving them closer toward this ideal.
Leveraging synthetic biology platforms to create new forms of food
Fermentation and microbial engineering are two of the most versatile tools in the synthetic biology toolbox, and the power of these techniques lends itself to limitless possibilities for the future of food — including entirely novel menu items. “Could there be ‘center-of-the-plate’ new options with plant-based diets which are either plant protein forward or even GM [genetically modified] plant protein forward?” suggests McIntyre.
To achieve the company’s broad vision, Motif has partnered with synthetic biology giant, Ginkgo Bioworks, to leverage their biofoundries and discovery platforms. For McIntyre, this partnership sets Motif apart from other companies in the plant-based space, enabling unparalleled food innovation.
It’s one thing to engineer a microbe to improve plant-based burgers or plant-based cheese. But what else could this microbe do? What additional value could it bring to the table, so to speak? This question is critical for McIntyre, both in Ginkgo’s partnership and in his role as CEO. “Ginkgo is creating some great tech for us. Our job as food experts is to make it as valuable as possible and as impactful as possible,” says McIntyre.
Synthetic biology, meet food science. Food science, meet synbio.
Historically, it’s been somewhat taboo to talk about food and biotechnology together, GMOs being a primary example. But as McIntyre sees it, that paradigm may be changing.
“We’ve been working on food technology since the beginning of time. Fermentation [for beer or yogurt, for example], using salt to dehydrate foods… It’s okay to talk about food and science in the same breath,” he maintains.
At the same time, McIntyre thinks synthetic biology has a branding problem. He believes consumers may be more comfortable talking about optimizing fermentation microbes than using synthetic biology in their food. “The term ‘synthetic biology’ could create negative feelings akin to those around GMOs,” he says.
Beyond consumer sentiment, there are cultural differences between the food industry and the biotech community. McIntyre, who has years of experience in both of these spaces, believes that the food industry needs to better wield the potential of the controlled engineering of microbes to produce ingredients that are valuable for taste, nutrition, and sustainability — and entirely new food experiences.
Biotech innovators also need to understand that the food industry is conservative; change is slow and new brands rarely disrupt industry mainstays. For example, when plant-based foods first arrived and began to get market share, it was newer nontraditional food companies like their emergence was rooted in nontraditional, newer food companies— The major players in the industry didn’t develop their own offerings until plant-based products were firmly established. It’s a pattern that can be seen with plant-based meat: it took Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat to nudge Tyson Foods TSN and Hormel HRL to develop their own product lines. Even today, only half of major food brands have plant-based departments.
Where do we go from here?
The synthetic biology industry is dedicated to learning from nature and leveraging it to solve some of the greatest challenges facing our species. For McIntyre, it’s critical that the future of food also follows this path.
“I don’t know of anything more important than food and nutrition,” he says. “Why wouldn’t we use every tool possible to understand and give ourselves the best opportunities?”
The framework certainly exists. And if the food and biotechnology industries can effectively synergize their efforts, aspirations for healthier, more sustainable food, craved by consumers and producers alike, could truly become a mainstay of the future.
Follow me on Twitter at @johncumbers and @synbiobeta. Subscribe to my weekly newsletters in synthetic biology. Thank you to Fiona Mischel for additional research and reporting in this article. I’m the founder of SynBioBeta, and some of the companies that I write about are sponsors of the SynBioBeta conference and weekly digest. Here’s the full list of SynBioBeta sponsors.
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7a3af6e4fc128f3e30de190d0f7ddc1e | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johncumbers/2020/10/23/carbon-negative-food-made-from-thin-air-this-science-fiction-idea-may-be-a-reality-sooner-than-you-think/ | Carbon-Negative Food Made From Thin Air? This Science Fiction Idea May Be A Reality Sooner Than You Think | Carbon-Negative Food Made From Thin Air? This Science Fiction Idea May Be A Reality Sooner Than You Think
Physicist, entrepreneur, and Kiverdi CEO, Lisa Dyson seeks to transform carbon dioxide into ... [+] nutritious, sustainable meatless meat proteins. Photo Courtesy of Lisa Dyson
Consumer awareness of climate change and animal welfare are driving a meatless meat revolution. Unlike pasture-raised meats, plant- and fermentation-based proteins are low-emission, and require very little water and land use. Transitioning away from mega-greenhouse gas-emitting foods like beef only tackles part of the crisis. Our planet is still choking on excess carbon dioxide.
With synthetic biology, it is possible to transform CO2 into delicious, life-sustaining nutrition. I’ve previously written about the forgotten space tech that could feed the world, one of its practitioners is Lisa Dyson, Ph.D., CEO of Kiverdi, whose initiative Air Protein aims to transform carbon dioxide into meat-free meat. In recognition of her work, Dyson was recently awarded the SynBioBeta 2020 Bio-Innovator of the Year Award.
“The food industry is one of the largest greenhouse gas-emitting sectors, emitting more greenhouse gases than the entire transportation sector, including cars,” says Dyson. As a whole, Kiverdi is focused on leveraging atmospheric carbon in supply chains throughout multiple industries. Air Protein uses Kiverdi’s platform and enabling technologies to develop delicious, nutritious, sustainable foods.
From physics to food
Dyson’s path to the intersection of food and climate science has been an unusual one. Her Ph.D. is in theoretical high energy physics — she is only the fourth Black woman ever to receive this degree. While physics may sound like an unusual starting point for a synthetic biologist, Dyson says that her training taught her to solve all problems through the scientific method. And in this case, the root problem is too much carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere.
“The problem we were looking at was, how do you take something destructive and use it in a positive way?” she says. In other words, could Kiverdi find a way to take CO2 out of the atmosphere and transform it into a useful resource?
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Dyson’s training as a physicist enables her to think further outside the box than perhaps a traditional biologist. She embraces the view that Earth is like a spaceship: an enclosed habitat with constrained resources. So, it made sense for Dyson to turn to the early days of spaceflight for answers. After all, NASA is the world expert in CO2 recycling for spaceships.
Farming from the air
There, Dyson found that the idea of turning atmospheric CO2 into a useful product through a closed-loop system has been around since the dawn of the space age. NASA discovered that hydrogenotrophs—single-celled microorganisms that metabolize hydrogen for energy—could convert astronauts’ exhaled carbon dioxide into a nutritious, carbon-rich crop. Dyson and her team reawakened this technology and upgraded it for the biotech age.
Just like plants, hydrogenotrophs need a carbon source. They absorb carbon dioxide from the air, use it for fuel, and release oxygen and water vapor back into the atmosphere. Plants also need water, solar energy, and nutrients from the soil like nitrogen. But with plants, the time from seed to harvest can take months. The process is relatively slow, and traditional farming demands huge amounts of horizontal land space—which is driving deforestation.
Air Protein’s process uses many of the inputs of traditional crops but on a lot less land and at a vastly accelerated rate. The company’s microbial “seeds” grow in a fermentation bath of nutrient-rich water by pulling carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The microbes convert these inputs into proteins. But rather than waiting months (for soy) or years (for cows), the proteins are ready for harvest in a matter of days. Essentially, Air Protein has the potential to improve traditional farming efficiency by 3,500 percent.
An economic niche in the supply chain
Climate change mitigation technologies are critical for saving our planet, but great technology will never succeed if it isn’t economically feasible. Luckily, Dyson isn’t just a physicist. She grew up watching her father’s highs and lows as an entrepreneur and developed her entrepreneurial skills during her time with the Boston Consulting Group. This puts Dyson at an advantage in overcoming one of the toughest hurdles for startups: the ability to scale.
One of the key scaling benefits of microbial-based proteins is they can be produced virtually anywhere on the planet, even in places whose local climate typically couldn’t support a given crop. Importantly, producing these proteins doesn’t require vast land for pastures or feedstock cultivation. Instead of building outwards in fields, Air Protein facilities can build up in the next iteration of vertical farms. As a result, technology like Air Protein can be easily introduced into supply chains worldwide. Record fires in Brazil, Australia, and now California make producing meatless protein independent of arable land and weather conditions more critical than ever.
Food tech that helps everyone
Dyson’s passion for sustainable nutrition is deeply rooted in her personal experience. After Hurricane Katrina, Dyson went to New Orleans, where her mother’s family lives, to help rebuild the city. Looking back on the storm’s devastation and the plight of refugees, Dyson connected her time in post-Katrina New Orleans with the increasingly severe disasters driven by climate change.
“As a scientist, I believe that science and technology could be a part of the solution. I wanted to really see if I can build a technology that could contribute,” says Dyson.
If our warming planet wasn’t enough, the Covid-19 pandemic has pushed the need for sustainable, easy-to-produce nutrition to the front-and-center of national and global conversations.
Even before the pandemic, over 37 million people in the United States experienced food insecurity. This burden disproportionately falls on people of color. As of 2018, 21% of African American households experienced food insecurities versus 11% of the general population. The Covid-19 crisis has further stressed already fractured nutritional supply chains.
“We see what has happened with the supply chain collapse through Covid-19, specifically around meat. We are looking to democratize access to nutritional food. Food security is a huge issue that is becoming more apparent,” says Dyson.
The future of food is near
To date, Air Protein hasn’t announced when their products will show up in supermarkets. But Dyson says she has been overwhelmed by consumers asking when Air Protein products will become available. Consumers are increasingly aware of how our grocery trips affect our planet’s future. The need for sustainable, low-land-use nutrition is clear. How else can we feed 10 billion people by 2050 without leveling our rainforests in the process?
Going forward, Dyson is excited by the growing meatless-meat sector and by the trailblazers who have helped drive consumer acceptance of these products. Now Air Protein is helping the industry take its next steps.
“We’re really focused on providing consumers with ultra-sustainable, highly nutritious products,” says Dyson. Through innovation, persistence, and a touch of space-age science fiction, Dyson and her team aim to literally pull food out of thin air—and revolutionize food for our sustainable future.
Subscribe to my weekly synthetic biology newsletter. Thank you to Fiona Rose Mischel for additional research and reporting in this article.
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0dc8e095395d0666af352a3954c20dfd | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johncumbers/2020/10/28/bill-gates-backed-ginkgo-bioworks-has-a-new-40-million-spin-out-using-synthetic-biology-to-clean-wastewater/?sh=7584bf361463 | Bill Gates-Backed Ginkgo Bioworks Has A New $40 Million Spinout Using Synthetic Biology To Clean Wastewater | Bill Gates-Backed Ginkgo Bioworks Has A New $40 Million Spinout Using Synthetic Biology To Clean Wastewater
Nicole Richards, CEO of Allonnia. Patty Connelly Photography
Nature has a remarkable ability to recycle. It can break apart complex organic materials into simpler compounds. Then nature will re-use those substances to build plants and animals.
Last week, Allonnia launched with $40 million in funding to engineer and commercialize microbes to eliminate pollutants in wastewater and soil.
"The waste problem is vast and growing, and impacts the health of our planet and everyone," said Nicole Richards who joined Allonnia as CEO after a stint at Dupont. "Luckily, nature already uses microbes to break down waste. Allonnia will be accelerating and scaling natural processes to develop new breakthroughs and increase the efficiency of waste remediation."
Allonnia is the third company to launch out of the Ferment Consortium, Ginkgo Bioworks' $350 million investment vehicle leveraging biology to solve global challenges and transform established industries. Ferment Consortium companies Joyn Bio, Motif Foodworks, and now Allonnia will utilize Ginkgo's foundry for biological engineering, its iterative codebase model, and an extensive industry network of partners and investors.
The company is also backed by Bill Gates' Cascade Investments, Battelle, General Atlantic, and Viking Global Investors.
Finding Value in Waste
Manufacturers have started looking at their waste streams differently. The business community has learned that reducing waste - including toxic waste - often means less cost. Reducing waste could also increase efficiencies and boost profits. Taking a cue from nature - where there is no waste - manufacturers are beginning to look at their waste streams as potential assets.
The potential to treat industrial wastewater and land treatment, improve oil and gas processing, impact plastics degradation, and recycle consumer goods is worth hundreds of billions of dollars globally. Richards, who last served as growth, strategy, and M&A director of Water Solutions at Dupont, saw an opportunity.
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"Waste pollution is one of the most pivotal environmental issues impacting public and planetary health. Traditional solutions have reached their limit," continued Richards. "Microbes' ability to break down substances have always made them appealing for waste remediation. Our job at Allonnia will be to accelerate and scale the natural process of breaking down waste while increasing efficiency and sustainability."
Changing Our View of Waste
Allonnia targets a class of man-made chemicals known as PFAs, which are found in a wide range of consumer products that people use daily including food packaging, non-stick pots and pans, and water repellent fabrics. Some of the most commonly used PFAs have long lives, earning the name "the forever chemicals."
Allonnia aims to change the current trajectory of waste management, by leveraging Ginkgo's platform and recent advances in protein engineering and cell design to develop microbial and enzymatic solutions that destroy environmental contaminants. Allonnia also aims to recover and upcycle critical elements found in waste streams such as manufacturing waste, catalyst recovery, and electronic components. Many of these materials are difficult to mine and costly to recycle using traditional methods. Allonnia will design biological processes to specifically and selectively recover valuable elements in complex waste streams to make them reusable for future manufacturing processes.
Richards believes Allonia has the opportunity to change how we view waste. "We consider waste to be a failure of the human imagination. Allonnia will bring the power of synthetic biology tools to revolutionize the waste markets and address problems where new approaches are badly needed. Our vision is a waste- and pollution-free world. Our contribution will be mitigating the damage that has been done and helping create a better world for the future."
I’m the founder of SynBioBeta, and some of the companies that I write about—including Ginkgo Bioworks—are sponsors of the SynBioBeta conference and weekly digest. Thank you to Karl Schmieder for additional research and reporting in this article.
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8c71a8206d5ee32a9e39ed5c3dc62528 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johncumbers/2020/11/26/keep-warm-this-winter-with-a-sweater-made-from-brewed-protein-the-breakthrough-sustainable-material-inspired-by-spider-silk/ | Keep Warm This Winter With A Sweater Made From “Brewed Protein,” The Breakthrough Sustainable Material Inspired By Spider Silk | Keep Warm This Winter With A Sweater Made From “Brewed Protein,” The Breakthrough Sustainable Material Inspired By Spider Silk
The continued collaboration between Spiber and Goldwin shows just how much synthetic biology can ... [+] disrupt the environmentally destructive world of fast fashion. Spiber
The Sweater is the latest apparel born from the longtime partnership between Spiber, a Japan-based biomaterials startup, and Goldwin, a sportswear manufacturer. While the fast fashion industry relies on petroleum-based fibers such as polyester, nylon, and spandex, Spiber has developed Brewed Protein™, a novel sustainable alternative inspired by spider silk.
Previous Brewed Protein items include a T-shirt and a parka sold exclusively at The North Face Japan. But, for the first time, this latest release will be available worldwide. Like other Brewed Protein clothing, availability is limitedーpurchase applications for the Sweater will only be accepted before November 29th.
What is Brewed Protein?
The DNA sequence that codes for Brewed Protein isn’t found in nature. Instead, it’s the result of a data-driven approach to create a protein with specific, controllable properties. This was partly accomplished by a team of researchers, fondly known as the “Material Hunting Team,” according to Ayana Nakajima, Spiber’s Communications Coordinator. The team tracked down spiders in the jungles of Japan to gather information on the silk proteins in the natural world.
Brewed Protein is produced by genetically engineered microbes in a fermentation process exactly like brewing beer. In nature, spider silk is well known for its softness and strength. These properties are also inherent in Brewed Protein. The fibers’ comfort and durability, along with their sustainability, give these polymers a significant edge against petroleum-based materials.
Spiber isn’t just tackling fast fashion. The protein powder is like a biological building block that can be sculpted for different applications. Different types of spider silk have different strengths and elasticities, so the same goes for Brewed Protein — automobile parts and medical devices made from variations of the ingredient might be on the horizon.
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Spiber Meets the Scaling Challenge
This is not your typical biotech startup. Based in the Yamagata region of northern Japan, their headquarters is bordered by beaches, mountains, and rice fields. Founded thirteen years ago by graduate students at Keio University, Spiber is strongly supported by the Japanese government. Now with their first product available worldwide, the homegrown startup is scaling up to meet the demand for commercial production. The company’s new plant is currently under construction in Thailand. According to Nakajima, this facility is expected to increase Brewed Protein production by a hundredfold.
Spiber isn’t only growing its capacity in-house. In a new partnership, synbio meets Fortune 500 as Spiber joins forces with food processing giant, ADM. Spiber will leverage ADM’s existing plants and deep expertise in fermentation technology to eventually increase its production capacity by a 1000 times current levels.
Biology is finicky and tough to predict. If Spiber can truly scale their platform, it would not only be a landmark in commercial biomanufacturing, it would also fulfill the longstanding synthetic biology dream to leverage the unique properties of spider silk for society.
I’m the founder of SynBioBeta, and some of the companies that I write about are sponsors of the SynBioBeta conference and weekly digest. Thank you to Davian Ho for additional research and reporting in this article.
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bbec765f064b622cd9ab7f1223a81edd | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johncumbers/2021/03/08/meet-the-uks-first-synthetic-biology-unicorn/?sh=660678f24731 | Meet The UK’s First Synthetic Biology Unicorn | Meet The UK’s First Synthetic Biology Unicorn
Jonny Ohlson, Executive Chairman of Touchlight Jonny Ohlson - LDC
The genetic medicine industry is growing rapidly, increasing the demand for DNA at an exponential rate. This need is being driven even higher as more companies focus on manufacturing COVID-19 vaccines and other types of mRNA products.
Synthetic biology has the potential to revolutionize this emerging industry and solve the DNA supply problem for genetic medicine. Recent advances in pure, synthetic DNA from Touchlight in the United Kingdom could be the type of disruptive technology that manufacturers need to scale.
Genetic Medicine Is the Future
Genetic medicine focuses on using DNA and RNA to deliver therapeutics. Vaccines and other products that rely on mRNA are a growing sector in the synthetic biology industry. These novel therapeutics create the possibility for safer and more effective personalized treatments.
The demand for COVID-19 vaccines has highlighted the importance of mRNA products. mRNA vaccines rely on non-viral vectors for delivery, which means they are faster to manufacture because they can be made through synthetic production.
"We are constantly being challenged by diseases. And we have to find new, efficient and safe ways to vaccinate. Going forward, mRNA vaccines will continue to be important," says Executive Chairman of Touchlight, Jonny Ohlson.
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Growing Demand for DNA
Since genetic medicine and vaccines need DNA for manufacturing, the demand for these key materials is growing. Today, if a new mRNA product goes to market, it could use up 50% of the world's current DNA supply. And there are many mRNA products in different clinical phases that will need even more DNA.
"We are speaking to mRNA manufacturers, and they need kilograms of DNA now," says Ohlson. "Some vaccine makers will need hundreds of kilograms of DNA in the future. We estimate that the world's current supply of DNA is about 3 kilograms per year." A kilogram of DNA may not sound like a lot. But considering that DNA is made up of microscopic molecules, a single kilogram of DNA represents a significant volume.
Traditional DNA manufacturing relies on plasmids and bacterial fermentation. However, this method will no longer be able to meet the supply needs of manufacturers because of its expense and slow turnaround.
Synthetic DNA's Great Potential
A scientist works in the lab at Touchlight where the company can produce up to a kilogram of DNA a ... [+] month. Touchlight
Synthetic biology offers a solution to help companies obtain significantly larger quantities of DNA. Touchlight's synthetic DNA—called dbDNA (doggybone DNA)—offers unique advantages over both plasmid and other DNA formats."dbDNA can do all the things plasmid DNA can do and a lot more. It's better, cheaper, and faster," says Ohlson.
Manufactured through a completely synthetic process in a cell-free environment, dbDNA is a linear, double-stranded DNA vector. Producing dbDNA is much faster than producing plasmid DNA, taking weeks instead of months. Additionally, the equipment to make dbDNA has a smaller manufacturing footprint than plasmids, so companies can more easily scale production.
Touchlight's dbDNA also has the benefit of being pure DNA, unlike plasmids. When plasmid DNA is amplified, it creates a product with antibiotic resistance genes, origins of replication, and other unwanted pieces. However, Touchlight uses two enzymes to amplify synthetic DNA to scale without any impurities or bacterial sequences.
Unwanted bacterial sequences are a big problem for genetic medicine because they interfere with the goals of the final product, such as a therapeutic having an unexpected immune effect. Pure DNA like dbDNA is safer and eliminates these types of problems.
Touchlight just announced a funding round of £42 million ($60 million) led by Bridford Investments Limited. The company plans to triple its manufacturing space and increase its production of DNA up to 1 kilogram per month by the first quarter of 2022.
The funds will also help the company add 11 new state-of-the-art DNA production suites for a total of 15 and create up to 60 new jobs. However, the company's unique benchtop technology means the total facility footprint will only be 7,500 square feet, which is a fraction of the space needed for plasmid DNA manufacturing.
Genetic medicine looks to be the future of therapeutics. Novel vaccines, cell and gene therapies all have the potential to transform lives. And, as many predict that COVID-19 will not be the last pandemic that requires rapid vaccinations, mRNA vaccines will continue to be of global therapeutic importance. Synthetic biology could hold the key to helping companies scale production of vaccines and other, critical DNA and RNA-based therapies.
Thank you to Lana Bandoim for additional research and reporting in this article. I’m the founder of SynBioBeta, and some of the companies that I write about are sponsors of the SynBioBeta conference and weekly digest.
Join SynBioBeta's Special Biopharma Event! SynBioBeta
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08b2f33aa507c3b290c4cf524bd313af | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johncumbers/2021/03/31/a-new-approach-to-crisprscribe-therapeutics-engineers-novel-crispr-molecules/ | A New Approach To Crispr - Scribe Therapeutics Designs Novel Crispr Molecules | A New Approach To Crispr - Scribe Therapeutics Designs Novel Crispr Molecules
Scribe Therapeutics leadership team (from left to right) Benjamin Oakes, Co-founder, President and ... [+] CEO Brett Staahl, Co-founder and VP of Platform Svetlana Lucas, Chief Business Officer Jennifer Doudna, Co-founder and Scientific Advisor David Savage, Co-founder and Scientific Advisor Scribe Therapeutics
Imagine being able to change the genes responsible for causing diseases. For Scribe Therapeutics, a gene-editing company that develops genetic medicines, this is no longer a dream but a reality. Scribe Therapeutics is one of several companies approaching genetic medicines through Crispr, the now-famous “molecular scissors” employed to cut and edit DNA. But the company is taking a new approach to leveraging Crispr technology. Instead of relying on wild-type or naturally occurring Crispr molecules such as Cas9, Scribe Therapeutics have built their own, highly-specialized varieties.
Crispr-Based Genetic Medicine
Founded by Jennifer Doudna, Benjamin Oakes, Brett Staahl, and David Savage, Scribe Therapeutics is creating an advanced platform for Crispr-based genetic medicine.
"Crispr is changing how we think about treating diseases," says co-founder, President, and CEO of Scribe Therapeutics, Benjamin Oakes. "When I finished my undergraduate degree, I shadowed doctors and realized we had no way to treat the underlying causes of diseases. This changed my career path to creating Crispr-based tools that can actually treat the underlying causes."
Scribe Therapeutics has collaborated with Biogen to create Crispr-based genetic medicines for diseases such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). The company is also studying how to use adeno-associated virus (AAV) vectors to deliver Crispr components to the nervous system, eyes, and muscles. AAV vectors can deliver DNA to specific target cells for therapeutic uses.
A Different Approach to Synthetic Biology
Benjamin Oakes, Co-founder, President and CEO Scribe Therapeutics
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Today, Scribe Therapeutics announced a $100 million Series B funding round that will help the company grow and expand. One of the key ways it stands out from other synthetic biology and gene-editing companies is through its approach to doing science.
Other companies sometimes create tools without thinking about the problems they can solve, but Scribe Therapeutics is different. Instead of building technology in need of a solution, Scribe Therapeutics finds the problem first and creates the technology to fix it.
"We face challenges head-on and continue to inspire people to try the hard things. You have to encourage fearlessness in science. If your experiment failed today, it doesn't mean you're a failure. You have to keep trying," says Oakes.
Scribe Therapeutics' "Crispr by design" platform has custom-engineered millions of novel molecules specifically designed for therapeutic uses within the human body. For example, its X-editing (XE) technology is an engineered molecule that offers greater specificity, activity, and deliverability when used therapeutically.
Instead of relying on Crispr-associated protein 9 (Cas9), an enzyme used to locate and cut target DNA, Scribe Therapeutics creates its own molecules. This is part of the company's unique style of organization that focuses on being on the leading edge of engineering so that it can design and redesign tools rapidly.
"We have developed a set of tools that are equivalent in editing efficiency, if not better than, Cas9," says Oakes. "Our XE molecule is a highly-engineered version of an entirely different protein called CasX. We are building incredibly powerful genome editing tools. They're going to be better and more effective for delivery in many different organ systems and will reach more than what people can access right now."
Part of Scribe Therapeutics' goal is to create Crispr-based tools tailored for specific tasks they need to perform in the human body. Oaks says the company wants its tools to have the greatest therapeutic attributes possible.
Cures to Life-Threatening Genetic Diseases Could Be Possible
Crispr technology has the potential to treat the underlying causes of genetic disease. Through their novel therapeutics technology platform, Scribe Therapeutics looks to play a significant role in the next evolution of medicine. This growing movement focuses on personalized and precise medicines designed to treat the root causes of health problems.
Crispr-based therapies have the potential to change clinical care by giving people access to treatments that could cure them permanently. Crispr could lead to the rapid development of treatments for many diseases, including cancer, cystic fibrosis, and sickle cell anemia.
One of the challenges of genetic medicine is in vivo genetic modification, which means therapy is given directly to a patient and remains in the cells. Effective and safe in vivo genetic modification is one of the key goals of Scribe Therapeutics. By creating specific targets for its Crispr-based therapies, the company can edit living cells safely. Ultimately, it may be possible to end genetic diseases.
Thank you to Lana Bandoim for additional research and reporting in this article. I’m the founder of SynBioBeta, and some of the companies that I write about are sponsors of the SynBioBeta conference and weekly digest.
Join SynBioBeta's Special Biopharma Event! SynBioBeta
Looking to learn more about the future of healthcare? Be sure to join SynBioBeta’s upcoming Biopharma Event!
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6a9c6418aedb257940524e27339d1bde | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johncumbers/2021/04/07/new-genome-test-shows-a-childs-risk-of-disease---before-theyre-born/?sh=65f6a0f811d9 | New Genome Test Shows A Child’s Risk Of Disease — Before They’re Born | New Genome Test Shows A Child’s Risk Of Disease — Before They’re Born
CEO of Orchid, Noor Siddiqui Orchid
What if we could predict the genetic risks of children before they were born and find ways to mitigate these risks before conception? Orchid, a company that helps couples have healthy babies by offering a new type of genetic test, is making it possible to quantify risks for couples who are planning to have a child in the future.
Today, Orchid announced a $4.5 million seed funding round and backing from top institutional venture capitalists and founders of established companies, including 23andMe. Orchid has created the first test on the market to examine the whole genome of both partners and evaluate the genetic risk of their child having common chronic diseases. Orchid also provides physician oversight and expert support to couples, including a personalized consultation with a board-certified genetic counselor.
Testing for Genetic Risks
Orchid's Couple Report is a saliva-based genetic test that couples can take at home to determine if their future child would have a higher risk of certain genetic diseases. The test analyzes both partners' DNA and looks for 10 diseases: breast cancer, prostate cancer, heart disease, atrial fibrillation, stroke, type 1 diabetes, type 2 diabetes, inflammatory bowel disease, schizophrenia, and Alzheimer's disease.
"We are able to determine how likely these 10 diseases are to impact the health of the couple's future child," says founder and CEO of Orchid, Noor Siddiqui. "In contrast to other genetic tests, which typically only analyze about 2% of your DNA with a genotyping chip, we analyze the entire genome. We do 100% and look at all 3 billion bases."
By evaluating the whole genome of both partners, the company can combine the results to determine their future child's risk profile and send couples the results of the test in four to six weeks. Couples receive three reports: a couples report, an individual report for the female partner, and an individual report for the male partner.
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"We model how both partners' DNA are going to recombine in their future child so that we can give them a risk estimate," says Siddiqui. Couples can already sign up for Orchid's waitlist to get early access to the Couple Report.
Understanding Complex Genetic Conditions
Orchid's products including a couples report showing parents their future child's potential risks of ... [+] disease Orchid
Traditional genetic testing that is still used today is carrier screening for recessive traits. It helps determine if a person is a carrier of a recessive genetic disease. Usually, they test the female partner first. If the female is a carrier, then they screen the male partner for rare variants.
What makes Orchid different is its test can check for complex diseases and not just recessive conditions. Genetics is complex because there is more than one gene that causes the disease. There are millions of variants that contribute to the risk of major diseases, such as heart disease or schizophrenia.
"The main advance that has happened in genomics in recent years is that now we can finally measure genetic susceptibility for diseases that have a more complex architecture, which means there are millions of variants that are collectively involved in determining how low or high risk that individual is for developing a disease," says Siddiqui.
Since every report from Orchid comes with a personalized consultation with a board-certified genetic counselor, couples can create an action plan. Options include IVF and embryo screening, and Orchid is planning to offer couples embryo health reports later this year that will analyze 100% of each embryo's genome and check for genetic risks.
"I grew up like millions of other Americans with family members that had devastating diseases," says Siddiqui. "It felt really unfair that one family member had to suffer while others did not. I was compelled by the idea of understanding why some people win the genetic lottery at birth and are healthy."
Preventing chronic conditions in future generations by evaluating risk factors is Orchid's goal. The prevention of diseases through embryo screening and IVF is already widely accepted. For example, the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) supports the rights of patients to make informed choices about their child's future.
Knowing if you or your future children have an elevated genetic risk for diseases creates personal power. You can monitor your biometrics, get earlier screenings and make lifestyle changes. It allows you to be proactive about your health and advocate better for yourself by going to the doctor. You can also choose to have IVF and embryo screening for your future child. Understanding your personalized genetic data gives you options.
Thank you to Lana Bandoim for additional research and reporting in this article. I’m the founder of SynBioBeta, and some of the companies that I write about are sponsors of the SynBioBeta conference and weekly digest.
Join SynBioBeta's Special Biopharma Event! SynBioBeta
Looking to learn more about the future of healthcare? Be sure to join SynBioBeta’s upcoming Biopharma Event!
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095f7c1a558ad72dc9c57c9c102c456e | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johncumbers/2021/04/14/meet-the-company-reprogramming-the-future-of-synthetic-biology/ | Meet The Company Reprogramming The Future Of Synthetic Biology | Meet The Company Reprogramming The Future Of Synthetic Biology
From Left: bit.bio Co-founder and CFO Florian Schuster, investor and Lyell founder, Rick Klausner, ... [+] and bit.bio founder and CEO, Mark Kotter bit.bio
The first two decades of synthetic biology were ruled by microbes. Microorganisms have been engineered to make critical materials such as chemicals, fuels, plastics, and therapeutics. They have also provided some rudimentary control tools for turning genes on and off. But now a revolution is on the horizon in the burgeoning new field of mammalian cell engineering.
In mammalian cells, the combination of genetic switches that turn on and off different genes creates their structural and biochemical complexity. Until recently, the extreme difficulty of engineering multicellular systems has limited synthetic biology innovation. Now, bit.bio, a synthetic biology company based in Cambridge, England, is radically reimagining what is possible with the engineering of mammalian cells.
The company’s opti-ox™ platform is a system for turning on and off specific switches to activate genes, called transcription factors. The opti-ox™ platform allows for precise reprogramming of cells. For example, the company can take stem cells and give them a new identity by using opti-ox™, so they become specialized liver cells. The new technology is capable of making every cell in the human body at scale.
One of the dreams of synthetic biology is to have industrial-scale cell manufacturing. Through the power of machine learning, it is possible to rapidly iterate systems for mammalian cells. bit.bio’s technology has the potential to dramatically lower the cost of manufacturing cells while creating new cell therapies.
This technology would be an enormous boost for personalized medicine, such as having engineered immune cells to fight cancer. Another area that would benefit is the growing field of cell-based meat, which is worth $20 billion dollars. opti-ox™ allows you to turn on and off different genes to produce the perfect steak or the perfect fish.
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Bit.bio is combining biology with data science to code cells and make biomanufacturing a real possibility. By combining the power of synthetic biology with stem cells, the company can create new cell therapies and provide human cells for research, drug discovery, and manufacturing.
Validation From Top Investors
In June 2020, bit.bio announced it secured $41.5 million of funding from top investors, including Rick Klausner, Bob Nelsen, and Jim Tananbaum. Klausner discovered how T cells are activated, which lead to the development of CAR-T cancer therapy. His endorsement of bit.bio and opti-ox™ is a signal of the technology's viability and its true potential.
"In November 2019, Mark showed up at Lyell and started showing me his beautiful data," says Rick Klausner, founder and executive chairman of Lyell Immunopharma. "I walked out and told my assistant to cancel the morning. It only took four hours for us to decide to write him a check."
Klausner was impressed by the opti-ox™ platform, which allows for the precise engineering of human cells by reliably activating specific transcription factors within these cells. By controlling transcription, bit.bio can make consistent batches of cells with high purity in days instead of months.
New Technology Could Make Moonshots Possible
Researchers engineer mammalian cells through bit.bio’s technology, opti-ox™. bit.bio
The potential of biomanufacturing cells is enormous. From creating cell therapies for cancer treatment to selling cell-based meats, there are many possibilities. If you can industrialize the production of cells, other applications can include replacing traditional blood banking and making blood products, such as platelets.
"By converting current cell therapies, which at the moment cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, to a model of biologics or perhaps even a small molecule in the future, cell therapies could become common and widespread," says founder and CEO of bit.bio, Mark Kotter.
Mass production could make cell therapies as common as drugs used in clinical practice today. The ability to industrialize the production of differentiated mammalian cells could create a new era of regenerative medicine and provide new tools for research.
"The major differentiator between cells and other compounds is that they are active. So these are intelligent systems that can interact with their environment. And I think that is their superpower," says Kotter.
Kotter is also the co-founder of Meatable, a cell-based meat company that wants to change how the world gets its protein. Although the demand for protein continues to grow, it comes with ethical and environmental concerns. Considering the tremendous impact of biodiversity destruction and global warming, it is easy to see that we will never have enough land and water to meet the entire world's demand for animal agriculture. The ability to direct a cell’s identity could dramatically accelerate the timeline for bringing sustainable cell-culture meats to consumers.
"The only way to reclaim the land for biodiversity is to give up current farming, and find new ways to make protein," says Kotter. Meatable's cell-based meats start with a sample from an unharmed cow or pig. Then, the company can grow cells that resemble normal animal muscles and fat. The advantage of this approach is that it does not harm the animal but still tastes like real meat.
Cell-based meat, cell-based therapies, the end of blood banks, all of these aspirations could become possible through the industrial-scale production of cells. Instead of traditional cell production methods that rely on cells receiving external cues and moving from stage to stage, synthetic biology gives us control over cell functions. Once synthetic biology can direct cells to change identity, the possibilities could be only limited by our imagination.
Thank you to Lana Bandoim for additional research and reporting in this article. I’m the founder of SynBioBeta, and some of the companies that I write about are sponsors of the SynBioBeta conference and weekly digest.
Join SynBioBeta's Special Biopharma Event! SynBioBeta
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49aa33df908cef2bd6dd73b3681c3fbe | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johncumbers/2021/04/28/the-worlds-first-fully-automated-benchtop-digital-genome-engineering-platform-is-here/?sh=63f0d9045c9f | The World's First Fully Automated Benchtop Digital Genome Engineering Platform Is Here | The World's First Fully Automated Benchtop Digital Genome Engineering Platform Is Here
Sri Kosaraju, Chief Executive Officer at Inscripta Inscripta
As synthetic biology continues to grow, advanced benchtop systems are becoming available to make research and product development easier. Now, Inscripta, a digital genome engineering company, has announced the first commercial shipment of its Onyx platform. The platform is the world's first fully automated benchtop instrument for genome-scale engineering. Inscripta also announced its Series E funding of $150 million.
"We see a lot of areas where we think our technology can have a real impact," says Sri Kosaraju, president and CEO of Inscripta. "We are excited to explore them as we are growing."
Full-Scale Genome Engineering
Inscripta's Onyx benchtop system includes the instruments, software, consumables, and assays needed for full-scale genome engineering. The Crispr-mediated platform enables experimentation within cells, so thousands of edits can be made in one run of the instrument.
Typical Crispr-based gene editing experiments use a 96 well plate, which limits one run on a plate to 96 edits. Instead, the Onyx platform gives scientists tens of thousands of opportunities to make edits. "One of the main advantages of using Onyx is its unprecedented scale. You can do up to 10,000 edits per library for E. coli and up to 6,000 for yeast," says Kosaraju.
The first advantage of Onyx is its enormous editing capabilities. The second advantage is the ability to edit across the whole genome. One of the key differentiators for the platform is its genome-scale engineering capabilities that work through a simple push-button process. The third advantage of using Onyx is the ability to do many different kinds of edits, such as additions, substitutions, deletions, insertions, terminators, and knock-outs.
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"We have seen the real-life value of our platform. People have told us they used to have several PhDs working on editing over months and even years. Now, our Onyx platform lets them do more with just a push of a button in a matter of weeks. It is more efficient," says Kosaraju.
Onyx Platform Overview Inscripta
New Platform Looks to Accelerate Discovery The Onyx platform is already being used to study organisms such as E. coli and yeast. But there is an opportunity to learn much more. The two main areas of discovery are genomes and products.
"For genome discovery, we are trying to learn more about the uncharacterized parts of a genome. Almost a third of E. coli is still uncharacterized, so there is a lot to learn," says Kosaraju. "You can study antimicrobial resistance and apply this in an area that needs help, such as designing new antibiotics."
Product development is another large area with enormous potential. Onyx can help with engineering, creating, and developing new products for industries. People are already using the Crispr platform for research efforts to create products with a focus on sustainability and lowering the impact of climate change.
A McKinsey Global Institute report found that 60% of the products manufactured in our economy could be biologically derived. Synthetic biology can be used to create better, planet-friendly materials with a lower impact on our environment.
"Industrial companies already have labs that are playing with Crispr. Our platform enables them to get there faster and have easier access to technology that ordinarily would be hard to build an infrastructure for the right way. We are enabling more people to experiment," says Kosaraju.
The full potential of the Onyx platform is still being discovered. Kosaraju points out that there are many opportunities for new experiments and the chance for researchers to use their creativity. By using an efficient platform like Onyx, scientists have more options and time for experimenting.
Looking Ahead, Maybe to the Next Pandemic
We are already seeing benchtop platforms being marketed for many areas of synthetic biology, such as DNA synthesis and now whole genome-scale engineering. In the future, we may see benchtop platforms being deployed in disaster areas as a part of a suite of products used to tackle the next pandemic. They could be used to run experiments on mRNA vaccines or other therapeutics in an area of need.
Considering how globally interconnected we are, it's likely the next pandemic won't take another 100 years to arrive. We may need this type of technology sooner than we can imagine.
Thank you to Lana Bandoim for additional research and reporting in this article. I’m the founder of SynBioBeta, and some of the companies that I write about including Inscripta are sponsors of the SynBioBeta conference and weekly digest. Some of the people and companies I write about are sponsors of SynBioBeta including Inscripta.
Join SynBioBeta's special Biopharma event! SynBioBeta
Looking to learn more about the future of healthcare? Be sure to join SynBioBeta’s upcoming Biopharma Event!
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ef4b69d04e4c78dbcbd18aadc2ca7a95 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johncumbers/2021/05/03/the-pandemic-changed-the-future-of-crisprheres-what-comes-next-says-this-crispr-ceo/ | The Pandemic Changed The Future Of Crispr - Here’s What Comes Next Says This Crispr CEO | The Pandemic Changed The Future Of Crispr - Here’s What Comes Next Says This Crispr CEO
Rahul Dhanda, CEO of Sherlock Biosciences Doug Levy
It’s been a transformative year for synthetic biology and for the world. The COVID-19 pandemic exposed weaknesses in our global health systems but also validated the power of synthetic biology to rapidly develop critical diagnostics and mRNA vaccines. I spoke with Rahul Dhanda, CEO of Sherlock Biosciences, one of the leading Crispr diagnostics companies.
Today, Sherlock announced a new partnership with LogicInk to leverage Sherlock’s Crispr platform to develop a wearable COVID-19 test. What is synthetic biology’s role in the next stages of the pandemic and what could the next 12 months look like for the industry and for Crispr-based diagnostics?
John Cumbers: It’s been a year since Sherlock Biosciences received approval for the first-ever FDA authorization of a Crispr product. What impact has this had for both Sherlock and synthetic biology?
Rahul Dhanda: I think that authorization was historic for both Sherlock and the synthetic biology community because it represented a translation of these technologies into actual healthcare use. The impact for Sherlock has been a vast acceleration of the platform.
For synthetic biology, I think there’s this moment where the pandemic has given us an opportunity and synthetic biology has actually delivered on the promise that it's always had. In addition to mRNA therapeutics, the community has accomplished the goals of rapid design and rapid response to rapid impact in very cost-effective ways. I feel like this past year has moved the industry from an idea to something that is very concretely recognized as a real solution.
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JC: What is the 221b Foundation?
RD: The 221b Foundation is a nonprofit that Sherlock established to place our CrisprCOVID IP in an open innovation model for anyone to access if they want to develop a Crispr diagnostic to fight the pandemic.
The goal of it is not just to make more solutions available for COVID testing and addressing the pandemic. It’s also to take those profits and reinvest them in STEM education opportunities, particularly for minorities, young girls, and women. The profits that we make from [the pandemic] are something we feel we need to be giving back.
A pandemic is not an opportunity to just hoard and harvest profit. It's something that has accelerated so many companies and so many platforms, we felt the responsible thing was to take the economic benefits and reinvest them in the communities. We want to make sure that for things we can’t necessarily influence with our products, we can have more of an influence in terms of establishing health equity.
If we can increase the representation of those who aren't always represented in STEM programs, we can also increase the way that those disciplines think about medicine and those patients who aren't always receiving the best of care or equal treatment.
JC: How does LogicInk fit into the overall vision for Sherlock?
Sherlock’s vision is really to make sure that individuals can take control of their healthcare. LogicInk has a technology that can leverage Crispr in a way that potentially delivers instrument-free, power-free, self-administered tests similar to our INSPECTR platform. Our goal isn't just to develop our technologies. Our goal is to use the advantages we have in our platforms and the insights that we've gained to make sure that innovation across the industry continues to deliver the best solutions for patients globally.
JC: As more strains of SARS-CoV-2 emerge and evolve, what can the synthetic biology industry do to respond quickly and to reach underserved populations?
RD: Synthetic biology offers a very unique set of solutions to problems like emerging and evolving strains. One of the things that I think is most important is that these tools—whether they're therapeutic or diagnostic—have been proven to be very robust and rapid in their response to new information. By taking the genetic sequences from these new strains, we can rapidly develop diagnostic tests. Now that we've proven [synthetic biology techniques] with mRNA vaccines, we can also rapidly develop specific responses to emerging strains. This rapid response won’t just be in the vaccine space, we're going to see this in a therapeutic space as well.
I think half of the equation is just how powerful these tools are in quickly responding, designing, and building kinds of therapeutic and diagnostic products. The other half is that the efficiencies we're gaining from these new ways of doing things are driving up both scale and reach; the more of this we do, the more that we will have economies of scale. Even in the absence of economies of scale, these techniques have proven to be much more cost-effective than traditional techniques. Not only are we making better solutions more quickly, but we're also making them cheaper and more accessible.
JC: The last 12 months have been transformative for the synthetic biology industry in so many ways. What did the next 12 months look like for Sherlock?
RD: For Sherlock, it's really taking these two platforms we have—Crispr and our synthetic gene network and cell-free system, INSPECTR—and driving those platforms forward. We have learned a tremendous amount from the Crispr product we developed. We’ve granted almost half a dozen licenses to [deliver new products] with partners to take our technology into various forums in various geographies. And we've channeled what we’ve learned into INSPECTR, which is a unique, instrument-free, power-free, self-administered test that has lab-accurate results equivalent to any PCR.
What we're anticipating over the next 12 months is furthering both of these platforms but they are now going into “product focus.” We're developing a COVID base respiratory test with our INSPECTR platform. We anticipate we'll be expanding our menu as well as expanding our products and doing that on a more rapid timeline. The next 12 months for Sherlock is moving what is an early-stage product development company into a more mature, more robust company that more frequently launches products.
JC: It’s been great talking with you, Rahul. I’m looking forward to what comes next.
RD: Thanks so much, John, this has been great.
I’m the founder of SynBioBeta, and some of the companies that I write about including Inscripta are sponsors of the SynBioBeta conference and weekly digest. Some of the people and companies I write about are sponsors of SynBioBeta including Sherlock Biosciences.
Join SynBioBeta's special Biopharma event! SynBioBeta
Looking to learn more about the future of healthcare? Be sure to join SynBioBeta’s upcoming Biopharma Event!
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eb9ae255bf695ed858d64d129902e4f4 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johndobosz/2011/06/30/riding-the-rally-with-coffee-steel-and-robotic-surgery/ | Respecting Caffeine, Steel, Zeus und Da Vinci Surgeons | Respecting Caffeine, Steel, Zeus und Da Vinci Surgeons
Think ZEUS
Driven by a better than expected reading on manufacturing activity from the Chicago PMI in the U.S., as well as continued relief that the debt crisis in Greece has been at least temporarily defused, U.S. and world stocks shot higher again on Thursday.
It was the fourth straight day of gains for equity markets after almost two months of weakness The crisp rally has taken the S&P 500 above its technically important 50-day moving average, often a highly bullish development in terms of market momentum.
With Thursday’s gains, the S&P 500 SPDR ETF finished the first half of 2011 with a total return of 5.92%. This basket of the biggest public companies in the U.S. had spilled into negative territory earlier this month after it had retreated 7% from its late April peak.
As Paris, Berlin and die ganze euro land dealt with the possibility of a Greek debt default, vers la mer Atlantique, hatte man Angst vor der wirtschaft Amerikaner. Weekly arbeitslos reports aux Etats-Unis were ticking perceptibly above their 4-week average. People freaked and sold quality stocks at prices in many cases 25% to 50% cheaper than today's prices after a monster 4-day comeback in stocks and anything that was risky. Options players speculating on rebounds in just about anything cleaned up madly. Torture yourself and look at something like the FSLR Jul 140 call for the past two weeks. To strike out looking is considered poor-form. Game changing lettuce for those with cojones and risk capital, dog!
[forbesvid id="fvn/market-blaster/zeus_kronos_coffee_and_copper_for-a-greek_rally" showid="80"]
The strength in stocks and the bullish economic readings sucked some of the steam out of bonds, with the yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note sailing higher up near 3.16%, up from 2.85% less than one week ago.
One unifying theme in markets has been universal betterment of the economic picture. Economically sensitive stocks have responded as expected and snapped back mightily from weakness of just a week ago. Companies are able to raise prices to maintain profit margins without sacrificing sales, or so investors seem to think. The trend of flexing pricing power for corporate players can be seen in commodities, special chemicals and even coffee.
To stick with the Greek theme, consider Zeus and Kronos. Not so much the strained mythological father-son relationship between Greek gods known well to Edith Wharton readers. Cool story of cold revenge, but for making money, think of a steel maker and a specialty chemical company.
Dallas-based Kronos announced Thursday that it would be raising the price of titanium dioxide, an essential ingredient in many paints, but 25% and higher. The stock rallied in response as investors are betting that the higher pricing sticks.
Olympic Steel, with the popular “ZEUS” ticker, has been rallying with the rest of the steel sector. The stock trades for just 10.6 times expected 2011 earnings, though sales shot higher by 75% in the most recent quarter. Look for ZEUS to keep blasting higher if the strength of steel prices persists.
In coffee, Starbuck’s announced last month a price hike that takes effect in early July. The big standout in coffee, however, has been Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, which continues to hit new highs, tagging $90 on Thursday. Green Mountain is the seller of the Keurig single-serve brewing systems that are gaining popularity in homes as well as in places that sell coffee, like Dunkin Donuts and Starbucks.
Speaking of coffee (or at least the cups that hold it), take a look at this monster stock that’s on the move again. Sunnyvale, Calif., based Intuitive Surgical is making a run at a new high, closing just a few bucks shy of its past April peak at $376. The bullish pattern that appears to be setting up in the shares of the maker of the DaVinci robotic surgery systems is a cup-with-handle, well loved by devotees of IBD and the CANSLIM methods of William O'Neil.
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Imagine a coffee cup traced out by the bowl-shaped price chart from the $376 high to the present price of $372. That’s the cup. The handle is not there, yet but it will appear if ISRG rallies to $376 and then you see some profit taking on low volume, and then a breakout move. That’s the time to jump in. Then again, sure would have been nice to buy this baby a couple of weeks ago below $340, right?. Those who know the stock love it for its history of always coming back from being down.
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fa940380b26d09b536af540915e77ca3 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johndobosz/2011/08/25/oracles-elephant-gun-shoots-bank-of-america-stock-skyward/ | Buffett's Elephant Gun Shoots Bank of America Stock Skyward | Buffett's Elephant Gun Shoots Bank of America Stock Skyward
[forbesvid id="fvn/market-blaster/apple_bernanke_buffet_gold" showid="80"]
The world's third richest man has done it again, making a big bet on an out-of-favor and down on its luck company, this time the beleaguered Bank of America whose shares had plunged to a 52-week low of $6.01 earlier this week.
Warren makes a new deal
Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway is laying down $5 billion to buy 50,000 preferred shares of Bank of America with a 6% annual dividend, plus warrants to buy 700 million Bank of America common shares just above $7 per share.
Buffett's stamp of approval is having and instant and potent effect. Bank of America closed at $6.99 on Wednesday. Shares jumped on the news, changing hands in the pre-market as high as $8.70, up 25%, and began regular trading at $8.65, up 23.7%.
Goldman Sachs and General Electric received similar investments, also $5 billion each, from Buffett in October of 2008 but Goldman and GE paid 10% dividends due to the more challenging funding environment at the depths of the financial crisis. Buffett's basis in Goldman common with the warrant issue was $113 per share.
Buffett's endorsement of BofA, which has faced dogged rumors about its financial condition and price of assets it carries on its books, is a big relief for the bank. Buffett is no dope. He doesn't invest in businesses that he cannot understand. He does not lose money on his investments, and in fact his BAC warrants went from out-of-the-money to in-the-money this morning. Plus he sought out Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan to offer the deal.
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Analyzing financial statements from banks requires a great deal of imagination and a lot of assumptions. They can be as opaque as plywood. For Buffett to have given a good look at Bank of America's books and concluded that he wasn't throwing $5 billion into a black hole is unquestionably bullish, the stamp of legitimacy from the oracle for the everyman.
Be mindful, of course, that you won't get the same deal Buffett did if you buy Bank of America today, and like Goldman, the share price could slip back toward the strike price of the warrants. Last year, Warren compared Berkshire's cash stockpile to an elephant gun, with which he intended to go hunting. Bank of America shareholders, at least for the moment, are quite happy to have been shot.
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9e5a4f8fb33a70a50482e4ad6a632d81 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johndobosz/2015/09/17/hedge-fund-superstars-stocking-up-on-valeant-pharmaceuticals/ | Hedge Fund Superstars Stocking Up On Valeant Pharmaceuticals | Hedge Fund Superstars Stocking Up On Valeant Pharmaceuticals
When hedge fund managers think alike, investors are wise to pay attention.
Holdings Channel, a service that aggregates insider and institutional shareholder moves, reviewed 4,047 13F filings for the June 30, 2015 reporting period and found that Valeant Pharmaceuticals International (VRX) was held by ten prominent managers that they call "titans." These are managers with highly successful track records who are widely followed by individual investors.
When this many notable hedge fund managers are thinking alike, it's worth a closer look. What's also encouraging with Canada-based Valeant is the appetite of insiders for the stock, with fresh buying by an officer and director in the past six weeks.
Pershing Square Capital Management CEO Bill Ackman speaks at the New York Film Festival premiere of... [+] Sony Pictures Classics' 'INSIDE JOB' at Alice Tully Hall on October 1, 2010 in New York City. (Photo by Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images for Rubenstein Communications)
Be aware that 13F filings do not tell the whole story, because hedge funds are only required to disclose their long positions to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, but they are not required to disclose their short positions. A fund making a bearish bet against a stock by shorting calls, for example, might also be long some amount of stock as they trade around their overall bearish position. This long component could show up in a 13F filing and everyone might assume the fund is bullish, but this tells only part of the story because the bearish/short side of the position is not seen.
Looking at groups of 13F filings can be revealing, especially when comparing one holding period to another. Below are changes in VRX positions for each of the hedge fund titans who reported holding some amount of Valeant at the end of the second quarter. (Click to enlarge.)
Year-to-date, shares of Valeant are up 63%, far ahead of the 7.8% total return of the Market Vectors Pharmaceutical ETF (PPH), and the 5.4% return for the Health Care Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLV).
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d5375b7b4676905fa9c6961cf800ec3d | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johndobosz/2020/03/16/stocks-at-critical-level-failure-to-hold-sets-up-severe-bear-market/ | Stocks At Critical Level, Failure To Hold Sets Up Severe Bear Market | Stocks At Critical Level, Failure To Hold Sets Up Severe Bear Market
After Monday’s 12% decline and largest-ever single point daily loss, the S&P 500 Index has now given back all gains since Christmas Eve 2018. The bear market struck quickly, and the selloff is accelerating. Whether the large cap index holds current levels likely determines whether this bear market will be a mild one, or something more malevolent, possibly on par with the 2007-2009 bear market that accompanied the financial crisis.
The flicker of recovery we saw on Friday afternoon now appears evanescent. Stocks are stumbling anew even after Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell announced on Sunday that the central bank is slashing the federal funds rate to a range between 0%-0.25%, and that it was launching a new round of quantitative easing, purchasing up to $500 billion in government bonds, and $200 in mortgage-backed securities.
The market's foul reaction indicates that the monetary stimulus is not enough to stem the economic effects of the coronavirus contagion, or that the quickness of the Fed in unleashing its arsenal of monetary weapons means the problem is bigger than originally feared.
Stocks have value because of the earning power of the companies in which they represent ownership. Forecasting future revenue and earnings for companies will be foggy for the foreseeable future, as the economic impact of the extreme measures to slow the spread of COVID-19 are without precedent in modern U.S. history. Most economic models have not factored in probabilities of four or five months of social distancing and self-quarantine.
You wouldn’t need much computing power to hazard a good guess that the outcome of almost half a year of virtual shutdown will be a recession. Taken to an extreme, if job losses pile up, debts go unpaid, cars get repossessed, homes are sold at auction, and businesses with big debt loads and no revenue will scramble to keep creditors at bay.
Critical Level for Stocks
After Monday’s thrashing, the S&P 500 is down 29.5% from its closing high of 3,386.15 26 days ago on February 19. According to Stock Trader's Almanac, bear markets since 1948 have averaged a peak-to-trough decline of 33.1% and lasted a little more than one year (407 days).
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The October 1987 crash was not associated with a recession, and the bear market lasted just 101 days, and took the market down 33.5%. The 2007-2009 bear market, which was accompanied by a recession, took the S&P 500 down 56.8% at its low on March 9, 2009, 517 days after the prior peak on October 9, 2007.
At its 2386.13, the S&P 500 is dances at the point of a potential rebound, or on the precipice of the abyss of a 2007-2009 style bear market. A four-year weekly chart shows the S&P 500 last week slicing through its 200-week (4-year) moving average, a trend line that had supported stocks on previous pullbacks in December 2018 and February 2016. It’s also the level that launched an 18-month rally in March 2017.
If the S&P 500 fails to hold 2350, it could be a quick trip to 2100, and possibly the 1810 February ... [+] 2016 low. Stockcharts.com
With the 200-week average pierced, the support level to watch now is 2350 at the lows of December 2018. This is a drop of less than 5% from current levels. If this level holds, a powerful rally may develop because of the deeply oversold market, shown by the RSI on the top of the chart.
If the 2350-level is breached, the next apparent level of support would be at 2100, which would be a 38% decline from the highs. If 2100 fails to hold, the next stop would be the February 2016 bottom, when the S&P 500 closed as low as 1810. If the index were to fall to this level, the decline from last month’s all-time high would be 46.5%.
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1721ea12642aea066b693c7250a5942b | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johndorfman/2020/04/06/3-attractive-stocks-with-30-earnings-growth-and-5-year-return-on-equity/ | 3 Attractive Stocks With 30% Earnings Growth And 5-Year Return On Equity | 3 Attractive Stocks With 30% Earnings Growth And 5-Year Return On Equity
Among other pleasures quashed by the pandemic, the baseball season will be delayed (let’s hope not cancelled).
However, as a minor consolation, my 30-30 Club continues. In baseball, the 30-30 Club contains players who have hit 30 home runs and stolen 30 bases in the same season. In the past 100 years, only 41 players have done it. Last year two players did: Ronald Acuna of the Atlanta Braves and Christian Yelich of the Milwaukee Brewers.
My 30-30 club is for corporations. To make it, a company must show a 30% return on stockholders’ equity (high profitability) and a 30% earnings growth rate over the past five years (rapid growth).
Milwaukee Brewers' Christian Yelich. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki) ASSOCIATED PRESS
Public companies with a market value of $2 billion or more are eligible. Of the 1,048 such companies, 21 companies made my 30-30 Club this year.
The Winners
This year’s winners are evenly split between large-capitalization stocks (market value $10 billion or more) and mid-capitalization stocks ($2 billion to $10 billion).
The big boys on the list are Adobe ADBE , Zoetis ZTS , VMware VMW , Applied Materials AMAT , Lam Research LRCX , Electronic Arts EA . (EA), Cadence Design Systems CDNS , Arista Networks ANET , Delta Air Lines DAL and Bio-Rad Laboratories (BIO).
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The smaller fry are Paycom Software (PAYC), Burlington Stores BURL (BURL), Vornado Realty VNO , Aspen Technology AZPN , BWX Technologies (BWXT), Trex Co. (TREX), LPL Financial Holdings LPLA , Texas Pacific Land (TPL), Allison Transmission Holdings (ALSN), Armstrong World Industries (AWI) and Trinet Group (TNET).
Which I Like
To make this list is an honor. It is not a stock recommendation. The whole world knows that Adobe, for example, is an excellent company. But personally, I wouldn’t buy it today, with a stock price 44 times the company’s earnings for the past four quarters. The price already reflects the company’s excellence.
What I’m looking for are great companies whose merit isn’t yet fully recognized. Each year, I recommend just a few, and this year I will highlight three.
I’m enthusiastic about Applied Materials. The company, based in Santa Clara, California, makes a wide variety of equipment for the semiconductor manufacturing industry. Its sales reached $14.6 billion last fiscal year, from $9.1 billion five years earlier.
This year, 2020, looks like a lousy year, a lost year. Businesses won’t dare spend heavily on new equipment. With 10 million people filing unemployment claims in the past couple of weeks, consumers won’t be buying many devices either.
But look ahead. In a few years, semiconductors will be even more ubiquitous than now. It’s a digital world – and the use of remote conferences will probably stay strong even after the current pandemic ends.
Even more on its knees than the semiconductor industry is the energy industry. Texas Pacific Land Trust gets its revenue by granting oil and gas companies the right to drill on the land it controls. In January and February of this year, the stock was well above $700. Today it’s about $458. A year ago, it commanded a multiple of 29 times earnings, today nine times earnings. I think the sell-off of energy-related stocks is overdone.
Finally, I recommend Electronic Arts, selling for 11 times earnings. The company was doing okay before the pandemic forced people to stay at home. I find it hard to believe that young people won’t order some video games to relieve the boredom.
The Record
Last year I plumped for Lam Research (LRCX), Berry Global Group BERY (BERY) and Evercore (EVR).
Lam, which makes equipment for etching microcircuits in computer chips, was up 12.7% from April 8, 2019 (when my last column on this subject ran) through April 3, 2020. Berry Global, which makes fabric used in various products from surgical gowns to baby wipes, was down 42.5%. Evercore, an investment-banking advisory firm, fell 47.9%. So, my three picks collectively lost 25.9%, which was worse than the 12.5% loss on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index.
The long-run record, however is better. In 17 years, the average one-year return on my 30-30 picks has been 10.3%, compared to 8.3% for the S&P 500. My picks have been profitable nine times out of 17, and have also beaten the index nine times.
Bear in mind that my column recommendations are theoretical and don’t reflect actual trades, trading costs or taxes. Their results shouldn’t be confused with the performance of portfolios I manage for clients. And past performance doesn’t predict future results.
Disclosure: I own Zoetis shares personally and for most of my firm’s clients. A hedge fund I manage owns call options on Applied Materials, and I own its stock. A few clients own Adobe and Electronic Arts, and so do members of my family.
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db5d4630ba5d60d3ddc55ce09bc148cf | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johndorfman/2021/04/19/4-undiscovered-small-stock-gems/ | 4 Undiscovered Small-Stock Gems | 4 Undiscovered Small-Stock Gems
Small stocks can be big winners. getty
For a long time, academics and investors were convinced that small stocks outperform large ones. The theory was that small stocks, because they carry greater uncertainty, sell at a discount to large ones. Investors in the small fry are rewarded for taking extra risk.
Proving the theory was difficult. Many early studies suffered from survivorship bias. They failed to include some small stocks that ultimately went bankrupt.
One way to look at the issue is to compare the return on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index (which contains 500 large stocks) with the return on the Russell 2000 Index (made up of 2,000 smaller stocks).
In the past 30 years, big stocks hold a slight advantage, with annual returns of 10.61%, versus 10.51% for the small stocks. In the past 20 years, however, small stocks edged out large ones with a 9.85% return, compared to 8.66% for their larger brethren.
Big institutions generally prefer large stocks, because if you have billions of dollars to invest it’s easier to hold shares in big companies: You can trade them without moving the price much.
For my part, I remain a fan of small stocks. They are usually covered by at most a handful of analysts, whereas large-capitalization stocks may be followed by two or three dozen analysts. I believe your chances are better of finding an underpriced stock among the smaller issues.
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Here are four small stocks I recommend now.
Based in Atlanta, Georgia, Haverty Furniture Cos. (HVT) retails furniture, mainly in the South and Midwest. It lost money during the Great Recession but since then has put together 11 straight profitable years.
Profits have soared lately, perhaps because people who are stuck at home want to fix up their home. The stock sells for only 13 times earnings, a ratio I find attractive. But keep an eye on the company’s debt. If it gets much higher, I’d be concerned.
Ever look up at electrical wires and notice funny oblong devices attached? Relaying electricity and making connections for cable service are some of the specialties of Preformed Line Products Co. (PLPC), which hails from Cleveland, Ohio. The company has relatively little debt, and the stock sells for only 11 times earnings. It has shown a profit for 21 consecutive years.
Interest rates are rising at last, which bodes well for banks. A small banking company based in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, that looks appealing to me is Bank First (BFC). I like to see banks achieve a return on assets of more than 1%, and Bank first has done it for nine years in a row. A few insiders have purchased these shares last year and this year. The stock sells for 14 times earnings.
Lab coats, scrubs, and shirts with company logos…those are some of the products at Superior Group of Companies (SGC). That may not sound like the most exciting business, but the company has grown its revenue at a 13.7% annual clip the past ten years – and faster lately. Because the business is perceived as unglamorous, the stock sells for only nine times earnings.
The Record
Since the beginning of 2000, I’ve written 23 columns about small-cap stocks. The average 12-month return on my picks has been 18.3%, compared to 8.3%% for the Standard & Poor’s 500, and 11.8% for the Russell 2000.
Of the 23 sets of recommendations, 18 have been profitable, 15 have beaten the S&P 500, and 15 have beaten the Russell 2000.
Bear in mind that my column results are hypothetical: They don’t reflect actual trades, trading costs or taxes. These results shouldn’t be confused with the performance of portfolios I manage for clients. Also, past performance doesn’t predict future results.
A year ago, the stock market had been reeling from the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. Stocks plummeted in February and March 2020, and in retrospect, the stock-picking environment in April 2020 was rich with opportunity.
Both the indices and my picks did very well in the 12 months from April 13, 2020 to April 13, 2021. The S&P was up 52.5%, and the Russell 2000 was up 86.0%. My picks returned 104.5%.
The best gainer was Johnson Outdoors JOUT , up 147.6%. The “worst” was Miller Industries (MLR), up 63.1%. In between were America’s Car-Mart (CRMT) with a 124.1% return and Diamond Hills Investment Group (DHIL), with 83.1%.
Disclosure: I own America’s Car-Mart personally and for most of my clients. I own Miller Industries personally and in a hedge fund I manage; the fund also owns Preformed Line Products.
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John Dorfman is chairman of Dorfman Value Investments LLC. His firm or clients may own or trade securities discussed in this column. He can be reached at jdorfman@dorfmanvalue.com.
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3d483db801ad7ecbadb65c032f64eb49 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johndorfman/2021/05/03/stock-picking-competition-can-you-outdo-the-market/ | Stock Picking Competition: Can You Outdo The Market? | Stock Picking Competition: Can You Outdo The Market?
Photo by Tayfun Coskun Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
In a crazy-good year for stocks, Robert Zedler, a 91-year old retiree in Suffolk, Virginia, won Dorfman’s Three Stock Derby with a 334% return.
Despite his age, Zedler’s picks in my stock-selection contest were newish companies. His biggest gainer was Plug Power PLUG , a maker of hydrogen fuel cells. That stock soared 543%. Next was Moderna MRNA the inventor of a leading anti-Covid vaccine, up 244%. He also notched a 213% in Livent (LTHM), a producer of lithium used in electric-car batteries.
It was an extraordinary year. Of 34 contestants, a dozen achieved a return of 100% or more. Four scored above 200%.
During the contest period – April 21, 2020 to April 21, 2021 – the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index returned 55%, including dividends. Twenty-two of the 34 contestants did better than that, and the average contestant’s return was 79%.
The jumbo returns came because the market was depressed a year ago by the Covid-19 pandemic and associated recession. The market bottomed in mid-March but was still depressed when the contest began.
The winner of Dorfman’s Three Stock Derby gets a $100 restaurant gift certificate, although Zedler chose to just take the money, saying he no longer dines out much.
Would you like to try your luck in the contest? The entry rules are simple, and are listed at the end of this column.
Zedler, the winner, is retired from the agricultural chemicals business. Though he owned some aggressive stocks last year, Zedler is getting more cautious now. “I’m raising some cash,” he says. “I’m keeping my stable stuff, such as utilities.”
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What worries him chiefly is the political environmental. He thinks the country is moving toward a “socialist bent.”
Zedler likes defense stocks such as Lockheed Martin (LMT), and metals and minerals stocks such as Rio Tinto Group (RIO) and BHP Group (BHP).
Silver Medal
Second place went to Kimm Steven Nureck, who racked up a 298% return, good enough to win in most years. He runs Nureck Financial Services, an insurance agency in Laurel, Delaware.
Nureck owes his silver medal to a spectacular gain in Callon Petroleum Co. (CPE), which rose 751%. It was one of several energy stocks that investors thought were in danger of bankruptcy a year ago, but that have come back dramatically. He also had a 128% gain in WPX Energy, which was acquired, and a small gain in Yamana Gold (AUY).
Nureck credits President Trump with getting the economy running well, and thinks the good times will last until early next year, when he thinks inflation will slow down the economy and the market.
Bronze Medal
Taking third place with a 215% return was John A. Byrnes, a data engineer in Omaha, Nebraska. His big winner was Penn National Gaming PENN , up 582%. Byrnes picked it at a time when investors felt the outlook for casinos couldn’t be worse, due to the pandemic.
In the coming year, he thinks technology stocks will lead the market, as they have for most of the past five years. Among his holdings are Nvidia Corp NVDA and Alphabet GOOGL .
You Can Play
To enter Dorfman’s Three-Stock Derby, send your three stock picks, and your rationale for them, to me at jdorfman@dorfmanvalue.com. If you prefer, you can mail them to John Dorfman, Dorfman Value Investments, 101 Federal Street, Suite 1900, Boston MA 02110.
All entries should include:
1. Your name
2. Address
3. Occupation
4. Email address
5. Phone numbers for work and home.
6. The three stocks you choose. Reasons are appreciated but not required.
If you finish in the top three, I will want to interview you on short notice and possibly on a weekend, so the phone numbers are vital. You do not need to own any of the stocks you select, but it’s fine if you do. Stocks must be traded in the U.S., but not necessarily domiciled here. Short sales are permitted but not encouraged, since I have a separate short-selling contest. Exchange traded funds (ETFs) are permitted.
Entries must be postmarked or time-stamped by midnight May 18. The next contest will run from May 18, 2021 through April 16, 2022. Your score is the average total return, including dividends, on your three stocks. There is no fee to enter. The winner will receive a $100 gift certificate to the restaurant of her or his choice. Disclosure: I own Alphabet personally and for most of my clients. I don’t own the other stocks mentioned today.
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John Dorfman is chairman of Dorfman Value Investments LLC. His firm or clients may own or trade securities discussed in this column. He can be reached at jdorfman@dorfmanvalue.com.
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6ccdddb627813ccfa80b5b218deab30e | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johndrake/2020/10/31/what-is-one-health/?sh=266ed4ab134c | What Is One Health? | What Is One Health?
A recent outbreak of Salmonella in the US has been associated with pet bearded dragons. getty
The connection between human health and wild animals has been demonstrated on an unprecedented and global scale with the emergence of SARS-CoV-2, the pathogen that causes Covid-19. SARS-CoV-2 is closely related to coronaviruses commonly found in bats, but may have found its way to people through a pangolin intermediary.
Pangolins have been suggested as an intermediate host for SARS-CoV-2, transmitting a pathogen that ... [+] originated in bats to humans. getty
This interconnectedness of the health of people, animals, and the environment is known as one health.
But, one health is more than the acknowledgement of a fact. The CDC defines one health as a “collaborative, multisectoral, and transdisciplinary approach” aimed at “achieving optimal health outcomes recognizing the interconnection between people, animals, plants, and their shared environment.”
What does one health cover?
There are three key ways in which one health recognizes the interconnections of humans, animals, and the environment.
Emerging diseases of humans. About three quarters of emerging human pathogens are zoonotic, meaning they come from animals, including both SARS-CoV-2 and its predecessor SARS-CoV, but also pandemic influenza, West Nile virus, Zika virus, and many others.
Close up photo of adult female deer tick from the genus Ixodes crawling on a piece of straw. getty
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Environmental factors influencing pathogen spread. Transmission of many pathogen species is mediated by environmental conditions. These include vector-borne diseases like Lyme disease (transmitted by Ixodes ticks) and Zika (transmitted by Aedes mosquitoes). Arthropod vectors like ticks and mosquitoes are typically highly sensitive to fluctuations in environmental conditions like temperature, humidity, and rainfall, which creates and maintains the habitats required by many mosquitoes for the growth of their larvae. Environmental conditions also mediate transmission of food-borne pathogens (like Salmonella) and water-borne pathogens (like Cryptosporidium). Outbreaks of Cryptosporidium, which is often transmitted in contaminated swimming pools, increased four-fold in the US between 2009 and 2016.
Data on Cryptosporidium outbreaks in the US from 2009-2017. US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/68/wr/mm6825a3.htm)
Transmission of human diseases to animals. These reverse zoonoses, sometimes also called anthroponoses, include vector-borne pathogens like dengue virus; directly transmitted diseases like flu, tuberculosis, and Covid-19; and water-borne pathogens like Cryptosporidium. Human pathogens have even been detected in populations of critically endangered species like the Eastern gorilla, underscoring how our diseases may be undermining the wellbeing of some of our most closely related non-human relatives.
Endangered Mountain Gorilla in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, Uganda, where gorillas have been ... [+] found to be infected with human pathogens. getty
Who is responsible for one health?
Foremost among US agencies promoting one health is the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases (NCEZID), a department the the CDC, which has offices for food-borne, water-borne, and environmental diseases; high consequence pathogens like the Ebola virus; emerging pathogens; and vector-borne diseases.
Bearded dragon lizard is a popular pet. A recent outbreak of Salmonella affecting people in eight US ... [+] states has been linked to the sale of pet bearded dragons. getty
NCEZID maintains a list of outbreaks of zoonotic pathogens spread between animals and people in the US. Chief among these are enteric bacteria like Salmonella, often acquired from pets, such at the recent multi-state outbreak linked to the sale of bearded dragons as pets as shown in the CDC map below.
An outbreak of Salmonella associated with pet bearded dragons has affected people in eight US ... [+] states. US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (https://www.cdc.gov/salmonella/muenster-10-20/map.html)
Additionally, the CDC’s Current Outbreak List is a regularly updated resource listing major US-based outbreaks as well as international outbreaks and travel notices affecting international travelers.
The NCEZID website says, “we are living in an interconnected world where an outbreak of infectious disease is just a plane ride away”. Quite true. The rapid spread of SARS-CoV-2 is only the latest example of this. But, this statement is also misleading. As the bearded dragon outbreak shows, the world is no safer “here” (wherever that happens to be for you) than it is “a plane ride away”. New human pathogens have emerged on all continents (except Antarctica) as illustrated by a map developed by NIH Director Anthony Fauci long before Covid-19.
Map of important emerging infectious diseases by Anthony Fauci from NIAID updated in 2017 US National Institutes of Health (https://www.niaid.nih.gov/sites/default/files/main%20map.jpg)
The World Health Organization has also embraced the one health concept. Other organizations actively involved in one health include numerous US federal agencies (e.g. FDA and USDA, in addition to CDC as described above) and international ones, notably FAO (the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization) and OIE (the World Organization for Animal Health).
Although one health — understanding that the health of humans, animals, and the environment — isn’t the only way to think about emerging diseases, it is perhaps the most comprehensive. It also underscores the role of ecology as an integrative science for the planet.
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7f2d158a02ebc5f184647315a402d6d3 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johndrake/2020/11/20/visualizing-covid-19-deaths-in-the-us/?sh=45f4aa1e6f8f | Visualizing Covid-19 Deaths In The US | Visualizing Covid-19 Deaths In The US
EL PASO, TEXAS - NOVEMBER 16: A refrigerated temporary morgue trailer in a parking lot of the El ... [+] Paso County Medical Examiner's office on November 16, 2020 in El Paso, Texas. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images) Getty Images
This week, the total number of Covid-19 deaths in the US exceeded 250,000. On Friday, the New York Times put the total at 253,223 persons. This is a very large number and quite difficult for most people to comprehend.
To illustrate, the rest of this post consists entirely of periods — one tiny dot for every ten people in America who have died from Covid-19.
Reader’s are encouraged to scroll slowly across. Each point is an extended family, a soccer team, or a business office. Each line is a school, church, or a major company. Altogether, the total number of deaths amounts to the population of a major American city like Madison, Wisconsin or Reno, Nevada or Richmond, Virginia.
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58f36900d035275e0f436ef0fa4fd986 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johndrake/2021/02/15/not-one-but-two-outbreaks-of-ebola-threaten-to-erupt-in-sub-saharan-africa/?sh=3f4023213be2 | Not One, But Two Outbreaks Of Ebola Threaten To Erupt In Sub-Saharan Africa | Not One, But Two Outbreaks Of Ebola Threaten To Erupt In Sub-Saharan Africa
Colorized transmission electron micrograph (TEM) showing the structure of an Ebola virus particle. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
On February 7, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) reported that a new case of Ebola has been detected in Butembo. Butembo, a city of around 350,000 people, is in the North Kivu Province and was an epicenter of the 10th outbreak of Ebola in DRC, which lasted from August 2018 until June 2020 and resulted in more than 2000 deaths.
Location of recent cases of Ebola in Africa John M. Drake
Then, late last week, there were reports of three more cases more than 3,500 kilometers away near Nzérékoré in southern Guinea, including a person who traveled to Conakry, a city of about two million people and the capital of Guinea. Over the weekend, this was increased to a total of eight cases. The outbreak in Guinea has been traced to the funeral of a nurse who worked in a rural health facility. Transmission of Ebola at funerals is not uncommon, where social customs create the potential for super-spreading events.
Two nurses with an Ebola patient during the 1976 outbreak of Ebola in Zaire. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
The two outbreaks are unconnected and reflect separate emergence events. It isn’t yet clear whether these two outbreaks were caused by new spillover from animals to people or recurrence of disease in a chronically infected patient.
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Ebola virus disease is a viral hemorrhagic fever caused by a virus in the genus Ebolavirus, of which several different species are known. Ebola is quite deadly with a case fatality rate of 50%-60% under field conditions. There have been several dozen outbreaks since the virus was first described from an outbreak in 1976.
This is not the first time the world has faced multiple simultaneous Ebola outbreaks. DRC battled two outbreaks from May 31, 2020 when an outbreak in the Équateur province was first announced until June 25, 2020 when an ongoing outbreak in Kivu province was declared over. The frequency with which Ebola outbreaks are occurring is alarming, however.
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e93febf8516f8f920211e9f9f03905bb | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johndrake/2021/03/29/now-we-know-covid-19-vaccines-prevent-asymptomatic-infection-too/?sh=912fa3b7b015 | Now We Know: Covid-19 Vaccines Prevent Asymptomatic Infection, Too | Now We Know: Covid-19 Vaccines Prevent Asymptomatic Infection, Too
NEW YORK, NEW YORK - MARCH 29: People walk by a sign for both a Covid-19 testing clinic and a Covid ... [+] vaccination location outside of a Brooklyn hospital on March, 29 2021 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. As New York’s positivity rate slowly climbs, Governor Andrew Cuomo has announced that New Yorkers 30 years of age and older will be vaccine-eligible starting Tuesday. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images) Getty Images
The CDC has now confirmed what we have hoped for: the mRNA vaccines made by Pfizer and Moderna are highly effective at preventing SARS-CoV-2 infection in real world conditions. It was known previously from clinical trials that these vaccines were effective at preventing symptomatic disease. What was not known was whether they prevented asymptomatic infection.
Here is how the CDC reached this conclusion. Beginning in mid-December 2020, 3,950 people employed in frontline health care professions (e.g. physicians, nurses, and first responders) in eight US locations were tested each week for 13 weeks to determine if they were infected with the novel coronavirus. Prior to the start of the study, 62.8% of the participants had received two mRNA vaccine doses, and an additional 12.1% had received at least one dose. The balance of the study group (25%) had not received any.
Of vaccinated people in the study, 62.7% received Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine while 29.6% received the Moderna vaccine. (A very small number received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.) During the 13 week study, some individuals within each group became infected. However, by the time the study concluded on March 13, 2021, the population that received both doses had yielded just 0.04 infections/1,000 person days, while the population that received one dose had 0.19 infections/1,000 person days and the unvaccinated population exhibited 1.38 infections/1,000 person days.From these data, the CDC estimated that having two doses of an mRNA vaccine offers 90% protection against infection. Even one dose is quite effective, reducing infection rates by approximately 80%.
Pfizer's BioNTech vaccine was one of two mRNA vaccines investigated in this study. dpa/picture alliance via Getty Images
An important caveat is that the relatively small number of infections observed during the study period means that there is considerable uncertainty surrounding these estimates. The CDC report expresses this lack of precision in terms of a confidence interval. For two doses, we can be quite confident that the true effectiveness is between 68% and 97%. For one dose, we can be confident that the vaccine effectiveness is between 59% and 90%. Even if the true values are at the lower ends of these ranges, the finding is still very good news. Prevention against infection means that as vaccine rollout increases, we may expect a dramatic decline in cases, not just hospitalizations and deaths.
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One limitation of the study is its poor demographic representation. Particularly, a large majority of participants were white (86.3%) and non-hispanic (82.9%). This is not representative of the country over all. There is no reason to believe that other demographics were excluded from the study: these are just the people who chose to participate given the opportunity. But, strictly speaking, statistical generalization to the larger population is questionable. That said, the authors of the study did a sensitivity analysis to look at effects of sex, age, ethnicity, and occupation. The effects of these covariates were found to be minimal.
Another issue is that variants of concern, which have arisen recently, were not widely circulating at the time of this study. There is mounting evidence that the immune response a person develops as a result of vaccination is not as effective at fighting some of these variants. According to nextstrain.org, the variant most prevalent in North America right now, sometimes referred to as B.1.1.7, still only accounts for about 25% of the SRS-CoV-2 genomes sequenced. Fortunately, a preprint from a study in the United Kingdom found broad evidence for protective immunity at a time when B.1.1.7 was quite prevalent there.
All this discussion of the different vaccines and variants leads to the related issue of “vaccine choice.” As vaccines have become more widely available, some people are discussing the pros and cons of the different options. The CDC study was not able to determine whether there is any difference between the two mRNA vaccines in terms of effectiveness. For most people in the US, the best vaccine to get is the one you can get first.
Despite the success of these vaccines, wearing a face mask and physical distancing are still important behaviors to adopt until cases go down more. The 10% of people for whom infection is not blocked may still be able to transmit the virus and there are groups, such as children, who will not be widely vaccinated for a considerable time still to come. We want to prevent these groups of people from maintaining the virus in the population to the greatest extent possible, and that may be hard to do.
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4a872e8c1614df42d17499d65e7de0c8 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johndunn/2020/10/31/phishing-attackers-keep-hijacking-prestigious-university-email-accounts-to-sneak-past-corporate-security/?sh=3bc97ff44907 | Phishing Attackers keep Hijacking Prestigious University Email Accounts To sneak Past Corporate Security | Phishing Attackers keep Hijacking Prestigious University Email Accounts To sneak Past Corporate Security
University email accounts are being abused as relays for phishing attacks on corporate users. getty
The cybercriminal interest in hijacking university email domains is one of cybersecurity’s worst kept secrets and yet it’s become a problem that only seems to generate more bad news.
University domains and their email addresses are useful for all sorts of reasons, but a recurring theme in recent times has been the help they provide in sneaking phishing attacks through corporate email gateways.
It’s a simple principle. Business email servers perform reputation checks on incoming email, rejecting any from suspect or unknown domains. The answer, then, is to hijack domains that have a good reputation. As a bonus, it’s likely that the legitimate return address could make recipients more likely to be taken in by the phish.
New figures from email security company INKY shed some light on this tactic and the prestigious domains being abused to launch attacks.
In varying periods of months during 2020, the company filtered 714 phishing emails coming from Oxford University domains, 287 from Stanford University, and 2,068 from Purdue University in Indiana.
Many other US university domain phishing emails were snagged in its traps with dozens to hundreds of detections from institutions including Hunter College, the University of Buffalo, the University of New Mexico, the University of Chicago, the University of Texas, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Louisiana State University, the University of California, Davis, the University of Utah, and University of California, LA.
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Considering that vast number of emails originating from these domains on any day, these numbers are vanishingly tiny. Against that comforting thought, however, is that this is only one provider protecting a relatively small number of corporate clients, which implies those emails are probably the tip of an unseen iceberg.
“From there, it’s a short hop with a booby-trapped malicious email into the unsuspecting commercial organization, where the phished recipient who clicked on the poisoned link or clever redirect has their login credentials harvested and used against the organization for further mayhem,” wrote Inky.
In one example, the phishing lure was a Microsoft 365 message inviting the recipient to access quarantined files. This phishing attempt was caught – the Microsoft theme of the phishing was too obvious - but had it got past security it might have looked perfectly plausible to an unwary eye.
A quick look at email headers confirmed that this was the result of an account takeover, a clue to the engineering of account takeover attacks. Attackers must still generate the phishing email from their location, getting the university sever to forward it as one of their own. In this, they are aided by being able to use university servers as relays.
“To prevent this type of abuse, SMTP servers must be configured to not accept and forward emails from non-local IP addresses to non-local mailboxes by unauthenticated and unauthorized users.”
Security layers such as Sender Policy Framework (SPF) and Domain-Based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance (DMARC) developed to counter this can’t, of course, stop hijacked accounts abusing legitimate domains.
One solution is better university email management, although that’s easier said than done. As INKY points out, protecting email accounts among a population of students and staff with high levels of turnover and lots of projects using short-term email addresses is a recipe for a admin stress.
Assuming the passwords for these accounts are securely created (long passphrases with enough entropy), anecdotal evidence suggests they will still be passed around in insecure ways. It’s not clear how often compromised accounts are even noticed.
Universities could be more active in removing zombie accounts or they could just add multi-factor authentication. Some don’t, perhaps fearing increased helpdesk calls, but it would make the hackers work a lot harder than they’re doing right now.
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8df8058e3f5e58b68c876cd4fb27a290 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnebersole/2015/08/14/concerns-on-hillary-clintons-new-college-compact/ | Concerns On Hillary Clinton's New College Compact | Concerns On Hillary Clinton's New College Compact
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton hosts a grassroots organizing event at McIntyre... [+] Ski Area August 10, 2015 in Manchester, New Hampshire. Clinton is on a two day swing through the first in the nation primary state, where she unveiled a college affordability plan. (Photo by Darren McCollester/Getty Images)
Hillary Clinton’s just announced “New College Compact” sets forth a broad and ambitious agenda that includes much to consider for those of us in higher education. As the likely Democratic nominee, her proposal is sure to spur essential discussion and debate on these critical issues, especially with the clock ticking on reauthorizing the Higher Education Act prior to 2016.
Among the Compact’s bright spots is Clinton’s recognition that one of the major reasons for increases in tuition among public institutions since the Great Recession has been the across-the-board reduction of financial support by all 50 states. And, while her grant program to offset erosion in public support does allow a state to opt out, there is also a “stop loss” provision that prevents states from spending less than they now do on higher education.
Other aspects of the New College Compact, such as reducing the interest rate on student loans, expanding Americorps, and the expectation that aid recipients will engage in part-time work, are also likely to have broad appeal. The concept of “risk-sharing” – requiring institutions to pay back a percentage of Federal financial aid if their students default on their loans – has also found support among many higher education reformers.
Aside from concerns about the $350 billion that will be needed to make the Compact a reality, there are other areas where disagreement should be expected. As the president of an online nonprofit institution, I can’t help but vigorously pushback on the Compact’s characterization of online learning, in particular the need to “restore its integrity.” The fact is, online learning is embedded into the American higher education experience because it works. Nearly three quarters of all accredited institutions have online programs and, thanks to the grassroots initiative Quality Matters, the effectiveness of such instruction has never been greater. While there may be some poor quality programs, the same could be said of traditional instruction as well.
While I, and other reformers in the field, applaud efforts to ease financial burdens for students we do have reservations about possible unintended consequences of “free” college. The idea of “free” college degrees comes at a risk. If students don’t perceive value in the credentials, they may not remain committed to their attainment; a degree that costs nothing could be valued accordingly.
The Compact highlights another growing concern for many of us in higher education – a seeming misunderstanding by candidates on both sides of the aisle of the role and original purpose of accreditation. Accreditors are not regulatory enforcement bodies. They work with institutions to correct weaknesses and identify areas for improvement. Requiring accreditors to act as “police” runs contrary to their mission and will lead to less, not greater transparency.
The Compact would pursue additional regulations on for-profit education. This is a regulatory battle with spillover effects into the nonprofit sector. It is also a blunt instrument that burdens an entire sector for the bad behavior of a few schools. To paint all for-profit education as “bad,” and to see non-profit providers as universally “good” is simplistic, and serves neither sector well. We need a better, more sophisticated approach where the government and higher education identify and sanction “bad actors” be they nonprofit or for-profit.
If America is to have the workforce it needs for the economy it wants, we must mobilize the support of all of higher education, not just those in a particular tax category, and hold all to a common set of performance metrics – i.e., graduation rates, cost of credential targets, time to completion standards, etc.
The Compact may not be perfect, but it has jumpstarted a national conversation about higher education – something we can all applaud. I look forward to Clinton’s thoughts about how best to serve the “nontraditional student,” which is understood to be next on tap.
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af8f150aca23df04be5b0ed1a171f4b3 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnellett/2011/10/07/steve-jobs-legacy-for-marketers/ | Steve Jobs' Legacy for Marketers | Steve Jobs' Legacy for Marketers
Image by andrechinn via Flickr
This week we lost one of the true marketing geniuses of our lifetime. For much of my professional career (IBM PC, Dell, Power Computing) I competed against Apple. While Steve Jobs was the chief executive officer there was no doubt he was also the chief marketing officer as well.
There are three things that he and Apple did better than anyone and I’ve tried to put them into practice whenever possible.
Make things easy for customers: Apple has been legendary for its focus on “ease of use,” and the company has pioneered many great products with this mission in mind. But making products and services easy for customers to have a great experience should not be limited to technology firms. Banks, hospitals, insurance companies, auto makers and airlines could learn this lesson from Steve. Develop “whole products”: For years Apple was criticized for the “closed” system approach it used for its Macintosh computers. By controlling the hardware, operating system and many of the peripherals, Apple made the Mac easy to use, but also much more expensive. This ultimately limited the market share for the Mac. However, this whole product philosophy was critical to the success of the iPod. Steve not only envisioned a highly portable music device, he pioneered a new and fair pricing model for music that was made available through the iStore. The music could easily be managed through iTunes, and this combination of iPod, iTunes and iStore transformed how we buy and listen to music. It also reignited the Apple brand and paved the way for the highly successful iPhone and iPad. Create a beloved brand: Few brands have as many passionate fans as Apple. This brand fanaticism has been a result of not only lessons #1 and #2 but also the consistency with which the company communicates. Every touch-point in a consumer’s experience has been executed with the same visual identity and simplicity. From product packaging and advertising to the website and retail stores, the Apple brand has been clearly and consistently delivered. Steve would have it no other way.
While we mourn the loss of a real pioneer, let’s be grateful that Steve Jobs had the vision and courage to show us all how marketing could be done. For me that will be his enduring legacy.
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ca858171f3477515b63e3ed0188a9979 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnellett/2012/12/03/what-mattel-royal-caribbean-and-massmutual-know-about-women-buyers-that-might-surprise-you/ | What Mattel, Royal Caribbean And MassMutual Know About Women Buyers That Might Surprise You | What Mattel, Royal Caribbean And MassMutual Know About Women Buyers That Might Surprise You
You may have someone in your life like my late Aunt Nancy. She married late in life and had no children of her own, but she loved her nieces and nephews as if they were her own kids. According to new research released today by Weber Shandwick, she would be among 23 million other PANKs (Professional Aunts No Kids) whose purchasing power for children’s gifts alone is over $9 billion. According to Leslie Gaines-Ross, Chief Reputation Strategist at Weber, PANKs are also important digital influencers for other categories, including travel, digital products, financial services and food & beverage. They are resourceful, digitally and financially savvy, and have large online communities. They spend more time on social media and less time watching television than women in general.
This has given rise to focused blogs like Savvy Auntie, founded by Melanie Notkin (who coined the acronym PANKs) soon after she became an aunt. “While parents are stretched to their limits, PANKs are able, and happy, to offer support to the children’s lives in meaningful ways. They may be secondary caregivers, but their emotional, financial and material gifts, not to mention their quality time and positive influence, play a primary role in the vitality of the American Family Village.”
Marketers are taking notice of this important segment. According to Mathilde Dezalys, general manager of Mattel’s Corolle brand of premium dolls, over 40% of the company’s products are sold to someone other than the child’s parents, often the child’s aunt. “Our target (0 – 2 year-old children) can only be reached through parents and relatives. And relatives include mainly aunties in the case of Corolle. So that’s why our goal is to target highly educated professional women. And that’s why PANKs [are] for us a very important untapped demographic target.”
Corolle is connecting with PANKs primarily via social media and has an active program with blogs like Savvy Auntie. “What’s also interesting about the Corolle brand is that once the little girl, niece in this case, has the doll and if she’s old enough to ask for more she will want the fashions and accessories that you’re able to buy separately. So it creates this ongoing relationship where the aunt can keep putting a smile on her face,” says Savvy Auntie’s Notkin.
Lisa Bauer, Executive Vice President, Global Sales and Marketing for Royal Caribbean International echoed the importance of PANKs and their influence on travel plans for today’s “modern families.” “Royal Caribbean is a family brand that embraces multi-generational experiences, and aunts play an important role.” She says that Royal Caribbean’s television commercials will specifically show women interacting with kids without a “dad” present so aunts and grandmas can envision themselves sharing the cruise experience with their nieces, nephews or grandkids. Bauer, a PANK to seven nieces and nephews, understands the joy aunts get from making a positive impact on the lives of the young people that are important to them. “We get to spoil them and provide experiences that they would otherwise not get.”
Tara Reynolds, Corporate Vice President of Consumer & Product Marketing for MassMutual agrees that PANKs are interested in investing in the lives of their extended families. “If you love someone and care for them, you are likely to take responsibility for them and their future.” For PANKs that includes funding part of a niece’s or nephew’s college education or helping to underwrite healthcare for aging parents.
For more information on the influence of aunts, the study, Women Digital Influencers – Power of PANKs, can be found at www.webershandwick.com/pankpower.
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1e18593ee6088bcd690301d708307210 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnellett/2013/04/02/nprs-new-cmo-on-the-plan-to-thrive-in-a-digital-world/ | NPR's New CMO On The Plan To Thrive In A Digital World | NPR's New CMO On The Plan To Thrive In A Digital World
I recently had the opportunity to talk with Emma Carrasco, the newly appointed CMO of NPR. The organization has never had a CMO, so we discussed the challenges of entering an ambiguous situation. We also discussed how the radio broadcaster is preparing for operating in a digital world. Here are highlights of the conversation.
Ellett: What's your charter as the new CMO at NPR?
Carrasco: The reason that the Office of the Chief Marketing Officer was created was as a response to the incredibly changing landscape in media: what's happening with audiences, digital disruption and a changing audience in America. How do we become clear and intentional about the value of this incredibly iconic brand and what the brand really means in the midst of all of this change?
There is extraordinarily unique value that we bring to our audience, to our member station community and to corporate underwriters and foundations. So my charter here is to build what I'm calling an audience-centric marketing culture — constructing that, leading that and inspiring that kind of approach to the application of our brand, which results in support: support for NPR and for our members stations across the country.
Ellett: One of the challenges of being a CMO is it is a relatively ambiguous position, particularly if it’s the first one for an organization. What are the major responsibilities that you think you've been chartered with?
Carrasco: It's to build a definite brand platform and brand architecture system for NPR and then to drive continually broadening awareness of the brand. We have what Seth Godin calls a loyal tribe. We have 38 million people who listen to public radio weekly and 26 million who listen to NPR. Our digital engagement is just going through the roof. Those are people who know us and respect our brand.
We have enormously high reputation factors when it comes to our brand. My goal is to introduce this brand to many, many more people I believe are seeking content that piques their intellectual curiosity. In a world of really quick headlines and sound bites we're still a place where there is context and full exploration of issues from all sides of the issues, so that we ultimately create a more informed society. That's a really important part of our mission.
My other key responsibility is to drive measurable audience engagement and growth. We have lots of opportunity, particularly among younger audiences and more diverse audiences. And that leads me to my next charter which is to cultivate those pipeline audiences and ultimately to explore new platforms for sponsorship growth.
Ellett: I want to get into three issues around N, P and R. Let me start with the “N”: national. As a public affairs focused media company, it seems that a lot of other media companies in that domain have increasingly taken sides and are splitting left and right, blue and red. Is there an opportunity for a media company like NPR to be a more unifying, impartial voice?
Carrasco: I think we are. And my challenge always to people who may not be very familiar with us is just to listen — listen to the content, the way that we address issues from all sides. The quality of our journalism and our storytelling aesthetic is really what has permitted us to stay above the fray and earn the trust and the reputation that our brand enjoys. And it is a vital and important role that we play in ensuring that audiences and the public have access to all sides of an issue so that informed decisions can be made.
Ellett: From where you sit, is the U.S. audience hungry for an unbiased storytelling approach or are they really interested in one side or the other? And if they're hungry for it, what opportunities does that create for NPR?
Emma Carrasco, NPR's New CMO
Carrasco: Based on the total audience growth for NPR stations, the American public is hungry for this kind of content. In the past five years alone we had 13% growth. It suggests to me that we're doing something right and vital for the creation of an informed citizenry.
Ellett: Now let me go to the “R”: radio. Radio as a medium seems to be challenged. As more and more digital alternatives for content are being created what's your strategy to embrace the changing media landscape?
Carrasco: It is to embrace it tightly. As our CEO Gary Knell says, “Radio isn't going away, it's going everywhere.” We look at understanding where our audience is and its changing preferences to consume content, not only through traditional terrestrial radio but increasingly over all of these digital platforms.
We've been a leader in bringing podcasts to our digital offerings, which are showing just fantastic success. We're getting something like 20 million unique visitors a month to our Web and digital platforms. We have digital-only offerings in the form of NPR Music, which is such a fast growing brand for us and a real gateway to the rest of our content for younger audiences. It is playing and curating music that commercial radio has essentially abandoned.
Ellett: Now let me go to the “P”: public. As a publicly funded company, how much of your funding has been government versus foundations, institutions and private sector? How is that shifting and what kind of pressures is that putting on the organization?
Carrasco: NPR as an organization does not receive direct federal funding. That is extremely important to our member stations. Their budgets, in terms of federal funding, range anywhere from 4% in larger markets to 50% in rural markets. So it's really important that our member stations retain a level of support from federal or government sources. But NPR as an institution does not receive direct federal funding. There are grants from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting that we receive, but the vast majority of our funding is rooted in foundations, individual donors and corporate underwriting. What I have found is that because we have been able to retain and grow an audience, that audience profile continues to be extremely valuable to corporate underwriters and foundations. We have an audience that is intellectually curious, they're civically engaged, they are influencers in their space and we've really seen virtually no drop off. So our ability to present an opportunity for like-minded brands to connect with these kinds of audiences over our audio and digital platforms continues to grow.
We work with some 200 corporate underwriters and brand sponsors every year and it's the trust that listeners have for our brand that they have discovered extends to their own brands. So the halo that we provide to corporate underwriters is also a compelling argument for being in a brand environment that is highly, highly trusted and has just a stellar reputation.
Ellett: One of my favorite tools for change agents, which I shared in my book (The CMO Manifesto) is the “From-To” chart. “We're going from here to someplace else.” Give me some examples of the from and the to that you've been able to build into your agenda.
Carrasco: One is from terrestrial only audio to audio content across multiple platforms. It informs every decision that we make, including the decision of how we market.
Another is from a current weekly listenership of 26 million to a number that is greater than that. It is from 3.5 million people who today voluntarily support their local public radio to a significantly larger number.
And it is from communications exclusively toa more robust marketing mix in the way that we tell our story. For example, I have an open position for a Director of Branded Events to pursue the opportunity for us to take our really unique content, whether around science and health or upcoming content around race, ethnicity and culture, topics that just aren't getting addressed by other media organizations, and creating experiential opportunities for audiences to discover us. It's a way for us to project the unique expertise of our journalists and program hosts, and it provides a unique opportunity for increased corporate sponsorships.
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506b0ee24885ae53aefc09ef83eebd47 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnellett/2014/08/05/marketing-cloud-challenger-sitecore-on-the-future-of-personalized-experiences/ | Marketing Cloud Challenger Sitecore On The Future Of Personalized Experiences | Marketing Cloud Challenger Sitecore On The Future Of Personalized Experiences
Sitecore bills itself as the first connected platform built from the ground up to enable marketers to deliver integrated customer experiences across touch points and to better manage and measure campaigns. On the heels of announcing a partnership with MongoDB and limitless data capacity with the Sitecore Experience Platform, Sitecore plans to make an e-commerce announcement later this summer.
I recently spoke with Darren Guarnaccia, chief strategy officer at Sitecore, to get his perspective on the importance of delivering personalized customer experiences and the need for an integrated marketing platform.
Ellett: How do you believe technology is changing the way marketers should go about engaging with their customers today?
Guarnaccia: When we got into this measurable marketing world, it was awesome, but it also kicked off what I call the technology arms race in marketing. And ever since we have been racing to get more channels, more data. At this point marketers are deluged with all these technologies.
The problem is that a little bit of the humanity in marketing has been lost. We’re so focused on the click, on the conversion, on the open that we’ve lost sight of the human being, our customer, who we are trying to attract, build interest with and ultimately convert.
With the marketing cloud comes the opportunity to bring back that humanity and to have that comprehensive picture of the human behind the keyboard or the cell phone or the email. To get back to where marketing was prior to this measurable marketing stuff and understand what customers want, what their intentions are and what their needs are. It will also give marketers as bit of a breathing room — instead of trying to stitch 25 different applications together they can start to build on this integrated platform.
Ellett: The promise that I’m seeing in the many technology tools that exist today is what I call mass-personalization — the technology and data to interact with individuals and get them the information they need, where they need it, when they need it, how they need it. This is creating a shift from campaign thinking to experience thinking.
Guarnaccia: I think that’s a part of what we’re doing, and doing at scale. You have to gather everything you can about the customer. You have to understand the customer and who they are across all of the multi-touch experiences that people have.
And to do that you have to create an aggregate data platform that understands the individual customer and then use that information across every one of your touch points. Then you can orchestrate the multi-touch experiences to take into account specific customer intents. Where are they in the buying cycle? What is their need right now? What personas are they behaving like today? We can create these user journeys in a way that marketers have never been able to do before and to do this at scale. You do need some technology automation to help.
So we’ve (Sitecore) brought together a bunch of things. We started with a Web content management platform and mobile marketing platform. We added email capabilities and a nurture engine and marketing automation to handle the timing and multi-channel elements. And now we’ve stepped into commerce, so we can do the transactional elements as well.
Sitecore's Customer Experience Maturity Model
Ellett: My observation is the tools are more advanced than the user’s ability to use them. What’s your sense of marketing organization readiness for this individualized experience orientation versus marketing in the more campaign driven approach?
Guarnaccia: I call it aspirational readiness today. Everyone wants to do it. You know it from your agency work: You sit down with customers every day and you talk about what’s possible. And they all nod their heads and they want to do it.
We realized about two and a half years ago that customers were buying our software and they were only using a small portion of it. So we built out what we call our business optimization service team, which created a seven-step methodology and maturity model on how to move up through the levels of maturity from basic multichannel campaigns all the way through life cycle marketing. We’re teaching them each incremental step to get over even the simplest hurdles, like how do I use personalization? Where do I use it? Whom do I target? How do I know who my personas are?
We built out all these workshops and tools to teach how to do this. We expected all of the agencies to be able to do this but we found that not all the agencies were ready. So we wound up building this methodology.
Ellett: For the more progressive marketers, what are they doing differently that the less astute marketers should be doing?
Guarnaccia: I think the more astute ones have come to the conclusion that digital marketing is important but it’s a transitional step to experience marketing and they’ve started to think about experience flows. They’ve made that mental leap between the campaign-centric model and journey marketing, experience marketing. They’ve started to think through the total customer journey and how their programs were going to fit into that. Those are the most advanced.
The other thing that I found as a key indicator is if marketers are starting to think, “What do I need to know about my customers?” “What do I need to know about these customers to serve them better, to convert them quicker, to nurture them more efficiently?” They’re proactively creating their content strategies that can fill out this sort of customer knowledge.
A great example is L’Oreal, where they’re really proactively trying to understand who their buyers are, the different phases of their journeys, at what steps they can interact with them and what channels they can use. This sort of channel mapping model starts to get to the buyers’ intentions and what marketers can do to delight them. When they start to think like that, that’s where I get really excited.
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d90204693b7b41ec6716cd1d67997aca | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnellett/2014/09/30/technology-is-changing-the-future-of-marketing-again/?sh=5957b184e7df | Technology Is Changing The Future Of Marketing (Again) | Technology Is Changing The Future Of Marketing (Again)
Technology has always changed how marketing works. What is different today is the unprecedented rate of change in the both the development of marketing tools and the escalation of expectations for better experiences from customers. Yesterday at Oracle OpenWorld I presented the debut of what I call Marketing 5.0, the era of marketing in which marketing cloud technology and rich customer data are enabling brands to meet the expectations of today’s demanding consumers and business customers: Treat me like you know me and deliver highly relevant personalized experiences at every touch point.
Marketing 5.0 is both disruptive and additive to previous eras. The printing press (1.0) enabled a literate populace and eventually brought us marketing channels of newspapers, magazines and direct mail. Broadcast technologies of radio and television (2.0) enabled real-time communications on a mass scale, made new forms of news and entertainment possible and created environments for effective brand storytelling. PCs and the Internet (3.0) ushered in the digital age and enabled customers to search out information on their own terms and connect directly with brands’ content and commerce capabilities directly. Customer empowerment was significantly advanced by mobile technology and social media (4.0), which enabled anytime, anywhere access to valuable information including the opinions of friends and like-minded buyers. Now, marketing clouds (5.0) will begin to tie the engagement channels from previous eras into meaningful omni-channel experiences based on the uniqueness of individual customers.
The five eras of marketing
Getting to the Marketing 5.0 world will be full of challenges, including overcoming status quo organizational behavior, spanning departmental silos, integrating fragmented technology and building function competencies. At the conference I debuted a 10-step framework to guide marketing leaders through the process of building a modern marketing capability that will allow them to win in the age of personalized omni-channel experiences. The steps are:
Align the company on the value of being customer-centered and delivering great experiences Develop segments and personas to guide your efforts Map the end-to-end decision journey for each persona Define cross-discipline planning and orchestration processes Envision what experiences could be both possible and mutually beneficial, then determine how to get the enabling data Prepare a prioritized infrastructure and experience development roadmap and secure financial and talent resources Implement key applications and a data management infrastructure Build and manage personalized experiences and campaigns across key touch points seamlessly Create a cross-discipline analytics framework to optimize the system, then test and learn Prepare policies for the organization to manage privacy, legal and “creepiness “ issues related to customer data
Over the next several weeks I’ll begin to profile early examples of companies who have begun their journey to a Marketing 5.0 world. I hope the framework and stories will be useful as you prepare for the future of marketing (again).
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d831cbf32b016209e890695e9a27b466 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnellett/2015/06/12/whats-wrong-with-marketing-today-a-candid-conversation-with-don-schultz/ | What's Wrong With Marketing Today--A Candid Conversation With Don Schultz | What's Wrong With Marketing Today--A Candid Conversation With Don Schultz
Don Schultz, professor emeritus-in-service at Northwestern University, is often considered the pioneering thinker in the discipline of integrated marketing communications. At 80 years old he is still actively challenging conventional wisdom and advocating for change within the marketing profession. I was honored to have a one-on-one conversation with him at the recent BMA conference in Chicago. I found his ideas refreshing and frequently aligned with my point of view. Here are the highlights of our discussion.
Ellett: What marketing lessons from the past still apply, and what do we need to rethink?
Schultz: What still applies from the past, which unfortunately very few organizations have learned, is it all starts with the customer. The big problem that most organizations have is they’ve all fallen in love with their products and they want to go tell people about it. They want to say, “Look what we’ve done. Look what we’ve made. Look at how important we are.”
What we’ve converted to over the last half a dozen years is starting with the customer. The digital stuff and the technology have allowed us to look at customers and customer behavior. What we’re doing is trying to read behaviors.
Ellett: Not what they say but what they do.
Schultz: What they do. I don’t care what they say because they have no clue what they’re going to buy anyway. That’s even true in a B2B situation. You must look at their behaviors over time, and this is what I think many people don’t understand: You’ve got to look at data longitudinally.
We are so focused on snapshots. What happened last quarter, what happened last week, what happened the last six months? You can’t understand what’s happening to the market by looking at snapshots. You got to look at longitudinal data. We’re trying to work with data that’s got six, eight, 10 years; and if you can look at that and start to look at the patterns, you can start to understand what’s going on. So that's what we’re doing.
Now the other thing that has changed pretty radically is B2B organizations have so much data. But they don’t do a bloody thing with it. I mean it just lays there. It comes in, it piles up and nobody looks at it because they’re all so busy trying to figure out what to do next.
To a certain extent they are blinded by the way they’ve historically done things. I don’t have any trouble training students. They’re easy to train. You can give them the tools, you can give them the techniques, you can give them the concepts, they’ll pick them up and they’ll run with it until they get inside the organization and the organization is not ready to accept it.
It’s this same old, “that’s not the way we do it here.” So I believe the biggest challenge today is, how do you retrain the management of organizations?
Ellett: Which companies come to mind that have seen the light and are doing things right?
Schultz: Obviously Amazon. Amazon knows all of this stuff. They’ve already got all of it. To a certain extent some of the technology companies are getting pretty good at it. The one I continue to watch is Apple because Apple really seems to understand. Apple ignores all of the traditional things. You’ve been to an Apple store, what’s it like? No flashing red arrows, no big signs, no discounts, none of that stuff. You walk in and the first thing they ask you is, “What are you trying to do? What problem are you trying to solve?” They start with the customer and then work from there. Very few organizations are prepared to do that.
That’s particularly true in B2B because the sales force is all designed and all trained to go in, grab a bite of throat and convince [the customer] to buy. If you don't close you’re a failure.
Ellett: I’m working on my next book [a blueprint for modern marketing] and Block One in the framework is “Put the customer at the center.” This seems so obvious to both of us.
Schultz: But it’s so difficult.
Ellett: Why do you think it’s so hard for companies?
Schultz: Organizational structure. Command and control systems. Hierarchies. They cannot break away from it. You’ve got managers and senior managers who want to control. They don’t want to do hands-on, but they want a controlled system so that they can look and see what’s happening all the time. If things go wrong they want to be able to point out who did it.
Ellett: If you were advising a CMO on the one or two things they should do to become more customer-centered, what would they be?
Schultz: What you have to do is build the organization around the customer, not around lines and boxes. That’s the biggest issue, because as long as you’ve got lines and boxes, as long as you’re putting people in cubicles, they’re going to stay there. You kill all their ambition, you kill all their incentive, you kill all their inquisitiveness; all that goes away. The biggest problem, certainly in the U.S., is command and control. It’s been with us for a long time and we can’t get rid of it.
Ellett: One of the techniques that we’re fans of at nFusion is mapping the customer decision journey.
Schultz: It sounds good; it doesn’t work.
Ellett: Why do you believe that?
Schultz: Your premise is that they take a journey. And a journey means I’m going to go from here to here to here to here, and that’s not the way customers work. They go here and they go there and then they come back over here. And they go this way and they go up/down and they start over. It’s a real mish mash.
The big problem is almost every marketing tool we’ve got is linear. Customers live in a Tinker Toy world. We keep trying to force them into a linear process.
Ellett: What if you’re able to describe that nonlinear process, however random that is, and turn that into models?
Schultz: Well I’m not sure you can model it. I think what you can do, and this is where the big data comes in, is if you have enough of them you can look for patterns. It’s all about patterns. We haven’t trained ourselves to recognize patterns and certainly not in the marketing arena. Look at every marketing communication model and think about how we develop the marketing plan. It doesn’t fit the market, it doesn’t fit the people, it doesn’t fit the customers.
Ellett: What have you learned about how customers really make decisions?
Schultz: About three or four years ago we started a neuromarketing group. What we’re doing is we’re trying to figure out how you think and how you make decisions. It’s been a really interesting trip.
Neuroscience has gotten all hung up on taking pictures of people and watching their brains light up. Well you can see that but you don’t know what the hell it means. So we’re trying to figure out how people actually make decisions. The guy that comes closest to it is Dan Kahneman. Have you looked at his book Thinking, Fast and Slow? What he says is that everything that we’re exposed to goes into the subconscious. You can’t draw it, you can’t pull it up, you can’t figure it out, you don’t know what it is, but it’s there. All the things that have happened to you and all the experiences you’ve had. So that’s “System 1” and that’s the intuitive emotional side.
The other thing that you do is look at how you make decisions. I’ve got to make a decision to go buy a car. I’m going to write down what is good for Mercedes, what is good for Ford, what is good for Toyota, and so on. I make a list and I think about it. People don’t like to do that. That’s like work.
So what they tend to do is rely on intuition and previous experience. And one thing you can add is impulsiveness. I’m convinced that damn near everything people are buying today with rare exceptions is on impulse.
Ellett: How much does the perceived status of a purchase within their social community impact what they buy?
Schultz: It depends on where you are. In the U.S., maybe. In China, yeah. In India, really strong.
Ellett: Do social networks influence that intuition?
Schultz: We’re working on a book right now about consumer behavior in India. Here’s a country with a billion people and nobody has ever written a book on how Indian consumers behave. One of the things we’re finding is the young people — and 50% – 60% of all the Indian consumers are under the age of 35, so it’s a very young population — they go into a store and they don’t just buy a product. They go into the store, they pick a product, they take a picture of it and what do you think they do with it? Send it to their friends, and their friends then tell them, “Yeah, that’s a good buy, that’s a good value or that’s a good brand.” Or, “No, I have tried that and it doesn’t work,” and that sort of thing.
So they’ve created this incredible network and not just in India; they’re all over the world. They’ll ask their cousins in London, and you’ve got all this stuff in your hand. They can ask their friends immediately: “What do you think of this?” The friends come back and say, “Well, go ahead and buy that, that’s okay.” So it’s all driven by social circles and I think increasingly we’re seeing more and more of that.
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9e7ccdf220289770e9eabaf44b167a64 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnfarrell/2011/07/22/the-science-of-tequila-snobbery/ | The Science of Tequila (Snobbery) | The Science of Tequila (Snobbery)
A jimador trims the leaves from the blue agave piña. Photo courtesy of Ana Valenzuela Zapata.
Heath Davis is the bar manager at one of Boston's hot new Tequila bars: Papagâyo.
Owned by Brad Dalbeck and Chris Damian of the Legendary Restaurant Group, Papagâyo is just one of three establishments in Beantown dedicated to Mexico's national beverage. Hopefully this is a trend that will continue.
Papagâyo features 172 brands. There is the over-hyped (and over-priced*) Patron, but also Don Julio (currently the most popular in Mexico, according to Davis). Grand Mayan. paQui. El Jimador. In the restaurant's glass display case sit others that are not yet even available in Massachusetts.
All of Papagâyo's tequilas are 100% blue agave, distilled from the rosetta-shaped monster plants indigenous to the Jalisco province of Mexico. The mixtos--the cheap blends of agave with grain alcohol (even high fructose corn has been rumored) or sugar cane that form the basis of the generic margarita--are not offered.
Given that younger bar goers are still more interested in cocktails--including the margarita in all of its variations-- I asked Davis if his customers were open to the more Mexican tradition of drinking pure tequilas straight.
"We try to introduce them to the 100% agaves," he said. "Someone will come in and ask for a Margarita Gold, and without being pushy, we'll say, are you sure that's what you want? And we'll suggest a nice alternative."
So, proselytizing comes with the job, and it's one he does quite well. His personal favorite is the Don Julio 1942, with Partida Elegante extra añejo a close second.
The blancos (or platas), are the tequilas which are clear, like vodka, and bottled right out of the distillery (try Milagro and Riazul). Davis recommends these for straight shooting or the base of a good margarita.
The reposados (try paQui and Chamucos), which are aged for three months in oak barrels, have an added smoky flavor.
The a ñejos, aged for anywhere between one and three years, are the richest tequilas, some very distinctive. Don Julio's is outstanding, particularly the 1942 (and can run up to $40 for a shot at some bars). These are considered too good to be imbibed any other way than straight, or on the rocks, or--as more and more aficionados prefer-- in an ice bath, a cone-shaped shot glass kept cool in its own bulb of ice.
It would be silly to use an añejo in a margarita, Davis said, "because it loses the characteristics that you pay for among the other ingredients of the drink."
For the enthusiast who wants to expand the collection at home, the variety of tequila brands in the Boston market (admittedly small compared to New York or Chicago) has grown impressively, even just over the past six months. Alongside the standard Cuervo mixtos, you could usually find a decent Hornitos Reposado or Añejo, Patron, Herradura and 1800 Tequila as well.
But now you can find Chinaco, Cabo Wabo, Lunazul. And not to bash Cuervo, by the way, the most famous family-owned tequila exporter in Mexico has its own pure agave brands, particularly the Reserva de la Familia ($150 a bottle), which gets high marks. And there are more mescals, which are the liquors distilled from different agaves.
In short, Tequila Snobbery has a future in Boston.
But for me, the plant behind the drink, the blue agave, adds even more fascination to the liquor. Davis got to visit Guadalajara recently to see the Cuervo and Don Julio plantations firsthand, and to see how they produce the liquor --from boulder-sized piña to finished bottle.
The blue agave plant (agave tequilana) grows for about a dozen years before harvesting from the harsh Jalisco soils. There is no vine from which the piñas regrow from generation to generation. New agaves have to be planted individually every season.
When the piñas are ready to harvest, they weigh anywhere between 70 and 200 lbs. For the jimadors--the day laborers who carry them one by one from the field-- it's brutal work.
Ana Valenzuela Zapata, for years a professor of botany and zoology at the University of Guadalajara, has been studying the agave species for over two decades. In her book, Tequila: A Natural and Cultural History which she co-wrote with Gary Nabhan, she detailed her concerns that the demand for tequila and the industrialized approach to production have exposed the blue agave to dangers that could potentially lead to crop failure.
In its original state, the blue agave will flower after several years of growth, and a native bat, the Mexican Long-Nose, pollinates it while feeding on the flower's nectar. This is quite late in the plant's life cycle.
Once the industry realized it could speed up production of agaves by cloning, essentially stripping away shoots of the plant after just one year and replanting these, it began harvesting the piñas long before the agave plant could flower.
This put the bats out of work ... and also stripped away the plant's genetic diversity.
Starting in 1988, various plantations in Jalisco began suffering blights, caused by fungus and parasites. While none have been truly catastrophic, Valenzuela noted, as the demand for tequila from the U.S. and other markets continues to grow, the threat of serious crop failure does as well.
"The Industrial agriculture has been growing more the last decade," she said, "and in vitro plantation (clonal selection) has perhaps a 7% in-harvest use in the industry. Of course, low genetic variation means that selection pressure is higher." And Mother Nature's parasites can be merciless.
"Industry leaders are doing nothing about that, and part of them think it is better to encourage more selection pressure in blue agave," she said. "We are encouraging industry people to know and learn about the disadvantages of less genetic variability and to introduce blue agave relatives."
Mescals, for example, are made from different agaves. But tequilas made from anything other than the government sanctioned blue agave ...is not an idea likely to catch on soon.
This is a point very difficult to understand for industry producers, according to Valenzuela. "My recommendation is ... interbreeding. Heterosis is a source of hybrid vigour, a very important strategy."
But she also sees a lot of promise in the fact that Mexico's neighbors to the north are becoming so enamored of the national beverage.
"Tequila is a wonderful spirit and prices are low for an extraordinary liquor," she said. "In terms of carbon production, it is better to drink tequila in North America than other drinks." While she feels the tequila industry is growing in an unsustainable model, American consumers represent a great way to encourage best practices for quality at all levels of production.
"The tequila Industry is walking in very dangerous places in this expansion in terms of sustainability," she said, "and the price will be very expensive if the producers are not paying attention to environmental, economic and social conditions in the blue agave regions."
So the next time you step up to the bar with your friends... think of the jimador.
And ask for a nice añejo.
[Note: Updated to reflect some corrections to the tequila recommendations.]
* Update II: (7.23.11): Greg Cohen of the Patron Spirits Company writes to take me to task for singling out Patron as over-priced, and he has a point. Now that there are (finally!) many more high-quality 100% agaves in the Boston market, in the same or higher price range, I can see why my little dig would seem unfair.
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6c9e902460ca0fccbc0897d20750cae8 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnfarrell/2011/12/11/book-notes-islams-quantum-question/ | Book Notes: Islam's Quantum Question | Book Notes: Islam's Quantum Question
There have been several books published recently touting the historical contributions of Islamic scholars to the early history of science (in the Middle Ages), but fewer assessing the relationship between Muslim tradition and the challenges that modern science presents to it today.
Nidhal Guessoum, an astronomer at the American University of Sharjah, takes on this daunting task with his engaging book, Islam's Quantum Question: Reconciling Muslim Tradition and Modern Science.
American readers familiar with the seemingly interminable "debates" between creationists and biologists on evolution, will not be surprised to find that many Muslims, depending on their background, also reject Darwin.
But as Guessoum reveals, Islamic attitudes to science are more complex (and also more frustrating), depending on the subject. I was surprised, for example, to read that the Iranian mullahs had no problem approving embryonic stem cell research. But it turns out Muslim tradition has always been fairly liberal in its interpretation about the point at which a fetus can be considered fully human.
On the other hand, as Guessoum attests from his own experience, getting officials from any two Muslim countries to agree about the role modern astronomy should play in the correct determination of the new moon, for prayer purposes, can be a daunting task.
Just over four hundred pages, Islam's Quantum Question is organized into three sections. The first reviews Islam, the Qur'an and its attitude toward science, both historically and in the present.
Well aware of his audience, Guessoum's chapters in this first section include several brief bios of historic and recent Islamic philosophers and scientists and their views on how Muslim societies should regard pure science and the applications of technology. The gamut runs from the urgent call to embrace modern science--to warnings that a truly Islamic science needs to avoid the presuppositions of the Western tradition.
The second section discusses modern debates on evolution, cosmology and teleology--and how Muslim intellectuals have responded to these issues. It's startling, for example, to read about the highly regarded Pakistani philosopher and poet, Muhammad Iqbal, a devoutly religious mystic, who dismissed two classic Western arguments for the existence of God--as a complete waste of time.
Logically speaking [he said] the movement from the finite to the infinite as embodied in the cosmological argument is quite illegitimate; and the argument fails in total. (Kant had denied the validity of the argument, considering it a mere variant of the ontological argument.) And for Iqbal, the teleological argument is no better. [...] 'At best, it gives us a skillful external contriver working on a pre-existing dead and intractable material, the elements of which are, by their own nature, incapable of orderly structures and combinations. The argument gives us a contriver only and not a creator...
Well, so much for Leibniz and Paley. But to give a sense of how broad the attitudes of Muslim intellectuals are toward science and their own tradition, two figures Guessoum discusses are briefly worth noting.
The first, Sayed Hossein Nasr, a professor of Islamic Studies at George Washington University, believes Islam needs to adopt a unique attitude toward science--in essence, to purge Western science of its faults, and make it sacred:
Indeed, Nasr notes that modern science, being a secular enterprise, is an anomaly with regard to human history. He remarks that the Western civilization is the first one to construct a science, a knowledge and description of nature that negates the sacred altogether. He makes a causal link between this fact and the problems that have resulted from science and its applications (technology); indeed, Nasr blames modern science in toto for all the ills that can be found in modern society, from the onslaught on the environment, to the 'debasement' of man. (p. 112)
In stark contrast, consider the Nobel-prize winning physicist Muhammad Abdus Salam, who died in 1996 and whom, as Guessoum tells us, made a seriously different assessment of science and its relation to Islam:
In trying to insist on the universality of science and its methods, Salam asks: 'Was the science of the Middle Ages really "Islamic Science"?' He answers: 'the story of famous Muslim scientists of the Middle Ages such as al-Kindi, al-Farabi, Ibn al-Haitham and Ibn Sina shows that, aside from being Muslims, there seems to have been nothing Islamic about them or their achievements. On the contrary, their lives were distinctly unIslamic.' He adds that, for Ibn al-Haitham, 'Truth was only that which was presented as material for the sense perception. No wonder that he was generally regarded as a heretic, and has been almost totally forgotten in the Muslim world.' (p. 133)
The third section of Islam's Quantum Question deals with science education broadly in Muslim countries today, and here Guessoum brings his own personal experience as a teacher and scientist to bear on what he argues is the urgent need--not just for Muslim students to study science, but to have a fuller grasp of the philosophy of science and its history in relation to Islam.
I believe that despite many efforts at unearthing and presenting to the public (Muslim and western) the wealth of scientific works that the golden-era Muslim scholars produced, there is still serious ignorance as to what was done exactly. Most of the discourse on the Islamic civilization has remained superficial and ill-informed. Hence, there is a need to teach the (whole) history of science rigorously and vigorously in the general curriculum. The next important issue is the need to engage the Islamic scholars in a serious dialogue and convince them that scientists have as much to say on topics that have for too long remained the monopoly of the religious scholars and their discourse. (p. 343)
Such a broad exposure is needed, Guessoum argues, to counter the tendency of many Muslims to adopt counterproductive attitudes to science and technology. And this includes the need for Islamic philosophers and religious scholars to study how the Christian churches in the West have (largely though by no means completely) adapted to the findings of science and its implications for religious beliefs.
I've only scratched the surface of the many issues Guessoum takes on, including his own personal faith and how science informs it. His style is engaging and his knowledge of topics outside his own field very broad. Islam's Quantum Question is highly recommended.
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4e854a014ff9d3b662065a9a4f5ea32a | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnfarrell/2013/05/09/the-vatican-and-evolution-once-more-with-caveats/ | The Vatican And Evolution: Once More, With Caveats | The Vatican And Evolution: Once More, With Caveats
St. Peter's Basilica at Early Morning (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
A recent workshop at the Vatican on evolution repeated what has now become a standard refrain from the hierarchy: The Church accepts Darwinian evolution as long as the existence of the human soul is not in any way dependent on it.
If this sounds provisional, I think it is. ("It's the soul, stupid!") But nobody seems to know when something more comprehensive will come.
Darwin has always made the Church uneasy. While never completely embracing Descartes' radical dualism of mind and body as completely separate entities, the Christian Church early on adopted the view that the soul is immaterial with an immortal existence apart from the body.
As Louis Dupré, Yale Professor Emeritus of Philosophy of Religion summed it up in an essay for a recent anthology:
The concept of a soul distinct from the body became soon the basis for the Christian belief in a life after death. At least the form of this argument was heavily influenced by Plato's idea of the independent soul. Once incorporated within the Christian theology of creation, this came to be interpreted as meaning that the soul was created separately from the body. Interestingly enough, Christianity inherited its belief in life after death from late Judaism, which made no such distinction between soul and body: the whole person would rise to new life. Still despite the pre-Christian origins of the theory of the soul, I would hesitate to touch on a subject that has received such a long, continuous acceptance and such careful philosophical reflection. [p. 178.]
Yet, Dupré added that he was not convinced that Christian theology ought to avoid further discussion of the topic.
In the age of Neo-Darwinian evolution, that's putting it mildly to say the least.
"Our question is not: Is the soul distinct from the body in such a manner that it possesses an independent existence?" said Dupré. "But rather: Does the nature of the incarnated mind necessarily require a special divine intervention? As long as the belief in life after death is not jeopardized, I do not believe that either natural development or divine intervention is excluded."
This I believe is the crux of the matter, and why, historically, the Catholic Church has been so ambivalent about evolution.
In the era of the Big Bang universe, the insistence that each and every human soul is a direct creation of God, like a magic substance pipetted as a metaphysical afterthought onto each zygote, leads to what the late Pope John Paul II famously described as a discontinuity.
With man, we find ourselves facing a different ontological order -- an ontological leap, we could say. But in posing such a great ontological discontinuity, are we not breaking up the physical continuity which seems to be the main line of research about evolution in the fields of physics and chemistry? An appreciation for the different methods used in different fields of scholarship allows us to bring together two points of view which at first might seem irreconcilable. The sciences of observation describe and measure, with ever greater precision, the many manifestations of life, and write them down along the time-line. The moment of passage into the spiritual realm is not something that can be observed in this way -- although we can nevertheless discern, through experimental research, a series of very valuable signs of what is specifically human life. But the experience of metaphysical knowledge, of self-consciousness and self-awareness, of moral conscience, of liberty, or of aesthetic and religious experience -- these must be analyzed through philosophical reflection, while theology seeks to clarify the ultimate meaning of the Creator's designs.
An accommodation is made to science on the origin and evolution of the universe, up to and including human origins, but at the price of adopting a discontinuity about the emergence of the soul.
As I wrote elsewhere, Benedictine Abbot, James A. Wiseman, argued in his book, Theology and Modern Science, that this does not have to be the case:
A similar uneasiness with this kind of distinction has appeared more recently within Roman Catholic theology, due no doubt in part to a sense that the notion of a self-subsistent soul is non-scriptural and/or that the notion of God's immediately creating each human soul does not fit easily into the continuum of living beings that marks the theory of evolution. We have already seen that Pope John Paul II alluded to this latter point by saying that the 'ontological leap' that marks the emergence of human beings with their spiritual souls is something beyond the ken of the observational sciences as such. One may readily grant his point that philosophical and theological issues cannot be adjudicated by the natural sciences and also agree with his evident desire to affirm a transcendent dimension to human beings against materialist denials of such a dimension and nevertheless wonder whether there may not be a way of arguing for this transcendence that is more in accord with what he calls the 'sciences of observation.' (emphasis mine)
The question is, does science offer any hints about how mind and matter, body and soul, could be more seamlessly integrated in an evolutionary view?
As it happens, this week's Commonweal offers a glimpse.
Stephen M. Barr, a physicist at University of Delaware, touches on this point in a piece in which he, Brown University biologist Kenneth Miller, and Notre Dame philosopher Gary Gutting, take a critical look at Thomas Nagel's Mind and Cosmos (the sturm and drang over which I wrote about here).
Here's Barr, questioning Nagel's insistence that science will never be able to offer any account of the emergence of mind:
Nagel may be right to reject dualism, but his reasons for doing so seem weak to me. It is not clear why dualism would preclude an “integrated explanation” of the physical and mental. After all, even within the physical realm there can be distinct entities, quite irreducible to each other, that are embraced by a single theory that “unifies [them] on the basis of a set of common elements and principles.” Physics provides many instances of this. For example, electromagnetic fields and electrically charged particles are two distinct kinds of entity, whose relationship to each other is explained by an integrated theory called “quantum electrodynamics.” Furthermore, in this theory the charged particles have some “responsibility” for the existence of the electromagnetic fields despite being utterly distinct from them. It is not clear why, in an analogous way, matter organized into biological structures couldn’t be responsible in some degree for the existence of minds, despite being ontologically distinct from them. (emphasis mine)
There need not be, in other words, any discontinuity between mind and matter. The Vatican can bury Descartes without sacrificing the integrity of the soul. The discontinuity of John Paul II can be surpassed.
That, I humbly submit, is the challenge of evolution for the Catholic Church in a nutshell.
If the Church is going to fully incorporate science into its theology (the way, for example, that Thomas Aquinas did with his grand synthesis of Aristotle and the Greeks) it is going to require building a robust, new teleology, a new science of purpose in the universe that, to say the least, is not going to win the support of the more materialist minded.
But it's not a foregone conclusion that such a teleology is doomed.
Terrence Deacon, as I wrote before, is laying the foundations for just such a teleology. While he has no interest in Catholicism, one could point out that neither did Aristotle, and yet his teleology became a key component of Catholic natural philosophy for centuries.
Until Darwin.
As Deacon argued in his book, Incomplete Nature, it's time for a new teleology in which the emergence of consciousness --and by extension, I would add, the soul-- do not seem absurd.
For a Church that has long prided itself on the compatibility of faith and reason, such a teleology is well worth considering very seriously.
Maybe that could be the topic of the next Vatican conference.
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fd4d4e930a8a673a942544eeeae6401c | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnfarrell/2013/06/20/the-future-of-cell-reprogramming-some-experts-weigh-in/ | The Future Of Cell Reprogramming: Some Experts Weigh In | The Future Of Cell Reprogramming: Some Experts Weigh In
Organ regeneration example from induced pluripotent stem cells. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Perhaps the biggest takeaway from last week's stem cell conference in Boston is the variety of approaches scientists now have at their disposal to study disease and tissue development, and to test drugs.
All through reprogramming. Turning one type of the human body's cells ... into any other cell type.
The most well known approach is the 'gene-therapy' approach of Shinya Yamanaka--introduce key factors into the cell via retro virus to push it into a more pluripotent state, a state from which the cells can be differentiated into neurons or heart cells.
But it's a complicated process, and one that faces many challenges before we see it used routinely in regenerative medicine.
Dr. Charles Murry, Professor of Pathology, Bioengineering and Medicine/Cardiology at University of Washington, discussed this at a special panel devoted to the evolution of iPS Cell Research.
"The challenges are, to get the cells to the proper stage of maturation," he said. Many of the most important diseases that stem cell researchers hope to treat, such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's Disease, and ALS, really present in adulthood.
"They've probably been continuing the degenerative process [in the body] for some time, but I think we'll be able to model them better if we can get neurons or any diseased cell type of interest into an adult state."
They need to be put into their proper context, he added. "I think if we can work with colleagues in bioengineering, for example, to create a three-dimensional environment, that better recapitulates the cell's native environment in vivo --so that they could have the surrounding cells and connective tissues, things like that--we could make little engineered tissues that would be systems for drug screening and physiological testing."
Marius Wernig, who conducts research at Stanford, takes a different approach to reprogramming: transdifferentiation.
Instead of generating pluripotent stem cells in culture from adult somatic cells, and differentiating these into the different cell types of interest, Wernig changes one cell type directly to another. Indeed, because of his work he won the ISSCR's Outstanding Young Investigator Award.
I asked him if his approach started out as a shortcut to get around the more time consuming process of conventional stem cell development.
"Yes, it is a shortcut. But it's really a different process." With conventional induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), he said, even if only a small fraction reprogram successfully, the cells grow very well.
"So, once you have a good iPS cell grown, you can expand it and fill up the incubator or the tissue culture in the incubator with these cells."
But you have to differentiate them again into the cell type you want. And that means another layer of time consuming work.
"It is the advantage of our approach to reprogramming --you don't have to go through this very laborious process in the first phase."
But it does have a drawback. "Once we have these cells (for example, neurons), we can't keep growing them anymore, as with the conventional approach. Especially neurons. So there is a limitation in expanding these types of cells."
But a main advantage will be in the clinic. Because transdifferentiation is a shorter process, it's easier to screen many more patient's cells --than with the conventional iPSC approach.
The goal: one day very patient-specific disease modeling and screening. Wernig said his lab now derives fairly homogeneous and fairly mature cell types in the transdifferentiation process.
He most recently tried transdifferentiating embryonic stem cells into neurons with a colleague. "And that worked beautifully."
"So, in two weeks, very pure, very homogeneous cultures of neurons--and the vast majority have synaptic ability, they make connections, talk to each other, and that is the feature of a mature neuron that was more difficult to achieve with the conventional iPSC approach."
The other approach to reprogramming is the one that most recently grabbed headlines. The cloning approach of Shoukhrat Mitalipov: generating an embryo by swapping a somatic cell nucleus into a human egg cell, or oocyte, and deriving a new line of pluripotent stem cells
In a sense, this is the most 'natural' approach to reprogramming --letting the egg cytoplasm do the work. And it has raised a number of scientific challenges, he said.
"At this point we're trying to understand the reprogramming 'machinery' in the process. It's very complex. There is a lot to learn about the oocyte and how it directs reprogramming."
But, as a recent post at Genetic Engineering and Biology News asked:
So now that other methods of making pluripotent cells have been demonstrated, why bother with SCNT? For one thing, human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) have a high frequency of copy number alterations, and reprogramming is often not complete. Dr. Mitalipov has begun comparing his NT-ESCs to iPSCs, as well as distributing them to other labs for them to study to see if they suffer the same fate. He has another, more direct, reason for creating NT-ESC cells: Dr. Mitalipov’s lab studies mitochondrial DNA, which as part of the cytoplasmic compartment remains in the oocyte while the nuclear compartment is completely replaced. Thus, SCNT replaces mutated mitochondrial DNA in a patient cell in NT-ESCs—which iPSCs do not accomplish.
What about the future of embryonic stem cell research? I posed this question to everyone on the panel. Is it still necessary given the advances made with iPSCs?
"Our understanding that iPS reprogramming can be done came from the study of embryonic stem cells," said Mitalipov. "And most of the knowledge about pluripotency came from embryonic stem cells. Embryonic stem cells have given us so much understanding of this stage of development."
Pluripotent cells are still experimental, he said. "Still a research tool. We're just trying to understand if they can be useful for therapies, and I think having more options is always better. For example, when screening for drugs, you start with a hundred candidates--only one may work. So, I think with stem cell therapy it's also good to have several candidate cell types and hopefully we can find the best.
"It's likely," he added, "that for different disease types, one cell type would be better than the other, and I think we have to continue to study embryonic stem cells as well as iPS cells."
Shinya Yamanaka, who won the Nobel Prize for first generating iPSCs agreed with Mitalipov. "It's definitely necessary for us to retry many research results using human embryonic stem cells," he told me. "Without them, later, we would never have developed induced pluripotent stem cells. So the answer is yes. It makes our research more solid."
The retro-viral approach pioneered by Yamanaka. The chemical approach which I written about before. Wernig's approach to direct transdifferentiation. And now the nuclear transfer --or cloning--approach.
The research toolbox has certainly grown for stem cell scientists in the last decade. And it looks like all these methods are going to be key to the future progress of getting drugs and therapies from the lab to the patient.
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0e10f1d525fc648f43f3cc274739bed7 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnfarrell/2014/07/26/when-the-bible-prompts-science/ | When The Bible Prompts Science | When The Bible Prompts Science
Steve Jones is a revisionist, but in a good sense. One of his earlier books, Darwin's Ghost, was a chapter-by-chapter update of The Origin of Species: Explaining key concepts of Darwinian evolution with more up-to-date examples and data than Darwin had at hand.
His new book, The Serpent's Promise: The Retelling of the Bible Through the Eyes of Modern Science takes off from Scripture--although not in as deliberate a fashion as his earlier venture. (I note that the book's subtitle, oddly, is inconsistent in Amazon's listing.)
And in any case, that's not the author's main interest.
In Serpent, Jones, a professor emeritus of genetics at University College of London, takes a few key passages from the Bible to launch into scientific discussions of some of the questions that occupied the authors of the books of the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament (mostly the former)--but providing the insights that modern science can now offer them.
In the preface to the American edition, he writes:
This volume tries to interpret the Good Book not from the point of view of an atheist (which I happen to be) but to read parts of it as an early attempt to make sense of the physical world and hence as an ancestor of today’s science. What have we found out in the past two millennia and more about the origin of life, about inborn fate, about the visions of the prophets or even about religion itself? Can science ever hope to explain why we do “unto others” by acting in a way that diminishes our own prospects while benefitting those of our fellows?
In nine chapters, Jones discusses what genetics tells us about the first humans; nature vs. nurture; sex; how we age; human migrations across the globe; the human diet; the spread of contagious diseases; the great deluges (there were more than a few and no doubt many to come); and finally spirituality and the brain--all matters of great importance that recur throughout the Bible and the rest of human literature since we became self-aware enough to appreciate and fear our own mortality.
The great deluges, for example, have a particular resonance in these days of concern over climate change and what the future may bring. One doesn't have to believe in Noah to appreciate the real events that must have inspired the Biblical narrative:
The first tsunami to be recorded came in around 1620 BC with the explosion of Thera. The eruption – its remains now the island of Santorini – was more powerful than that of Krakatoa and generated a wall of water that swept across the Mediterranean. It was once thought to be responsible for the extinction of the Minoans on Crete but now it seems that an earlier burst of ash gave them time to flee. The Egyptians spoke of fire and floods, the Greeks – upwind of the explosion – of a noisy battle as the gods threw great stones, while in Turkey the Hittites, who saw no more than smoke, remembered a giant who touched the sky. [Ch. Five]
The Body of Abel Found by Adam and Eve, c. 1825. Watercolour on wood. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Or, in Chapter Eight, Zwingli's Sausages, where Jones discusses the crucial importance of cooking in human evolution:
The plight of the great uncooked shows how much Homo sapiens has come to depend on fire. Anthropologists have a fatal tendency to decide what made us human – we are, they say in their various ways, the upright, the grasping, the naked (or the well-dressed) ape; the handy , the thoughtful, the babbling or the dishonest primate. Those attributes are no doubt important, but the kitchen has been as central to human origins as were any of them. From Stone Age to Aga Stove gastronomy has been a social adhesive. From its first days, life’s basic chore became a shared set of talents rather than an individual action. Our thick-browed forebear Homo erectus, who flourished from some two million years ago, had already evolved small jaws and teeth and rather large brains, as had the Neanderthals, whose unbrushed fossil teeth still bear the remnants of cooked grains . All this hints that even our distant predecessors spent less time around the table than did their primate kin.
Then there are the enviously long life spans granted to the patriarchs by the authors of the Book of Genesis, perhaps inspired by more than a touch of wishful thinking. "In biblical times," Jones writes in Chapter Four, "average life expectancy was not much more than around thirty (and much of that came from infant mortality) and every moment was filled with threat."
In the modern world?
Since the middle of the nineteenth century longevity in the developed world has gone up at the extraordinary rate of six hours a day, unchecked through peace and war, boom and slump. Across Europe, nations have come together in the patterns of survival. As recently as 1960, Portuguese men died seven years younger than did their fellows in Spain, but now the difference is two years (and Spain does better than Britain). If such progress continues, most children born in Western Europe since the millennium will see [a hundred] in the twenty-second century and a few might make it to a hundred and twenty. Some people suggest that even that might be an underestimate. Demographers have often failed to forecast the rate at which lives will lengthen. As recently as 1977 they estimated that a British male born in 2010 could expect to survive to 71, but that figure has already risen by almost a further decade. Optimists claim that the first person to celebrate his or her thousandth birthday has already been born.
The Serpent's Promise is billed as a book that does not 'take sides' in the God and Science debate, but that's a bit misleading. Like many of his colleagues who write popular science books, Jones sees religion in largely negative terms (he also turns his nose up at philosophy without ever explaining why).
As Marx might also have predicted, across the world there is a precise fit between social unfairness and the power of the priesthood. In countries whose governments are fair and effective, the influence of the clergy fades. The most devout nations have more crime, more infant deaths, more mental illness and less social mobility than do those in which dogma plays a lesser part. Their citizens trust their God more and each other less and the Churches gain as a result. Chaos and credulity go together. [from the epilogue]
The ultimate solution to the antagonisms caused by religion, he argues, is science. "The lesson from history," he writes, "is that in these connected times humankind could form a society that stretches beyond its own mental neighbourhood to embrace the globe into a single system of shared values."
Further:
As the obstacles of speech, race and distance that once divided us are overcome, the time has come to abandon the last great restraint, William Blake’s ‘mind-forg’d manacles’ of organised religion, which does so much more to divide than to unite. When those shackles are at last struck from their wrists, men and women, wherever they are, will no longer depend on the dubious promises of a serpent. Instead they will be free to form a single community united by an objective and unambiguous culture whose logic, language and practices are permanent and universal. It is called science."
Perhaps. But in one important sense, the connection fails, I think, because what the Serpent of Genesis promised Eve ultimately was knowledge of Good and Evil--not knowledge of the natural order.
Good and --perhaps especially-- evil are matters that many philosophers and scientists have concluded are beyond rational explanation. And so Jones's prediction that in the increasingly global village of our species, men and women will no longer need pastors or depend on the Bible (or other books of wisdom) is short-sighted.
Still, it's evident throughout his engaging book that Jones has an appreciation for Scripture that he finds bafflingly absent in many self-described Christians who belong to what he dryly calls the Church of the Holy Metaphor.
"Sceptic as I may be," he writes, "I have more faith in the Bible than many Christians do."
He's not alone. The Serpent's Promise is well worth adding to your reading list.
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290a3626d51b28e3dc0565a7e39995af | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnfarrell/2014/07/29/launching-today-the-georges-lemaitre-last-of-the-european-atv-space-vehicles/ | Launching Today: The Georges Lemaître: Last Of The European ATV Space Vehicles | Launching Today: The Georges Lemaître: Last Of The European ATV Space Vehicles
The European Space Agency's Georges Lemaître, the automated transfer vehicle named after the 'Father of the Big Bang', is scheduled to launch late today from French Guiana.
The ATV-5 will carry the largest payload of supplies and equipment to the International Space Station of any vehicle in the series. It will dock with the ISS and remain linked to the station for several months, during which time the space station crew will transfer the equipment--and then offload waste material from the station.
According to the official ESA release: "The last ATV in the series is carrying nearly 6.6 tons of supplies to the Station. While ATV Georges Lemaître will carry a record amount of around 2620 kg of dry cargo, this time there is less propellant for reboosting the Station. For the first time, the space freighter’s three water tanks are fully loaded, totalling 850 litres."
Equipment for science research includes units for the Electromagnetic Levitator, a facility that allows "melting and solidifying metals as they float freely thanks to weightlessness in space."
In addition, the Lemaître could help develop tools for a potential future rendezvous with free-falling objects such as space debris or an asteroid. "The spacecraft will serve as a test-bed for a suite of optical-sensor prototypes to home in on targets, based on a long-range infrared camera and a short-range 3D imaging sensor."
At the end of its mission, the Lemaître will then detach and assume a carefully programmed destructive re-entry, which will see it burn up in the atmosphere over the southern Pacific. But even at this phase, it will be transmitting data potentially useful for the ISS's own eventual date with destiny.
The scientist for whom the Lemaître is named has long been one of my heroes. (Kindle edition of my book is here.) Indeed, one could argue that his role in the history of the Big Bang should be more of a footnote to his other achievements.
Between the 1920s and end of the 1930s, there was not a single area of relativistic cosmology Lemaître was not involved in, pioneering key models in relativistic cosmology, including investigations related to black holes, the expansion of the universe and the cosmological constant.
For example, Lemaître was virtually alone in believing that the cosmological constant was a real component of the universe's expansion, not just a 'fudge' factor added by Einstein in the early days to his field equations, to 'balance' an otherwise static universe. And it was this component that could cause expansion to accelerate in Lemaître's view.
While Lemaître did not live long enough to see confirmation of this aspect of cosmic expansion (he died in 1966), he did live to see a major confirmation of the Big Bang in the discovery of the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation by Penzias and Wilson in 1965.
English: ISS026-E-037172 (24 Feb. 2011) --- Surrounded by the blackness of space, the European Space... [+] Agency's "Johannes Kepler" Automated Transfer Vehicle-2 (ATV-2) approaches the International Space Station. Docking of the two spacecraft occurred at 10:59 a.m. (EST) on Feb. 24, 2011. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Here's a recent video produced by the ESA with the cooperation of the Archives Georges Lemaître at Catholic University of Louvain.
The video features commentary by Dominique Lambert, professor at the University of Namur in Belgium and the author of Un Atom d'Universe, the first and most detailed biography of Lemaître.
The video is good, but it does suffer from a few gaffes.
For example, the opening commentary at the beginning refers to Lemaître as "... a Belgian priest and professor from the University of Leuven ..."
But as one of the advisors at the Archives pointed out to me, "Lemaître was a professor at the Faculty of sciences of the Université catholique de Louvain, which at the time was the French-speaking part of the so-called unitary University, Université catholique de Louvain with even the name "Louvain" in french, and not that of the city of Leuven."
To English and American readers, this may sound like nitpicking, but in Lemaître's day, you could get a rock through the window if you expressed a marked preference for speaking and teaching in French.
"Lemaître never taught in Dutch, and was never a member of the Dutch section of the University of Leuven. The Dutch section became the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven or University of Leuven as it is designated today in English (as in the video)."
For the duration of his academic career (1920s--1960s), he was a member only of what is now the Université catholique de Louvain in Louvain-la-Neuve. "And it is precisely in the Université catholique de Louvain," I'm told, "that are conserved the Archives Georges Lemaître bequeathed by the priest's family. In Louvain-la-Neuve there stands an exhibition on the Universe, where video was filmed."
While it's a nice acknowledgement to Lemaître's legacy for the ATV-5 to be named after him, I'm hoping some day a new space or moon based telescope will be named for the Belgian priest-physicist, a real research device in line with his areas of interest and achievements.
The ATV-5 launch can be followed live on their blog.
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e84a53c16c58ce3c5d783fe3e86b0614 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnfarrell/2015/04/30/crispr-the-technology-behind-human-embryo-editing/ | CRISPR: The Technology Behind Human Embryo Editing | CRISPR: The Technology Behind Human Embryo Editing
The startling research paper detailing the first-ever attempt to edit the genome of human embryos has aroused a great deal of interest and some alarm, but the nature of the DNA editing technique, known as CRISPR, is not so widely known.
Also not so widely known is the technique's peculiar history, which shows again how discoveries in pure science can lead to amazing technological breakthroughs.
The CRISPR story began when biologists, exploring the DNA of certain types of bacteria, realized that microbes, like people, can build up their own immune systems against foreign viruses.
It was in the late 1990s, according to Science Magazine's Elizabeth Pennisi:
...that biologists discovered unusual patterns in the bacterial DNA, in which a sequence of DNA would be followed by nearly the same sequence in reverse, then 30 or so seemingly random bases of "spacer DNA," and then a repeat of the same palindromic sequence, followed by a different spacer DNA. A single microbe could have several such stretches, each with different repeat and intervening sequences. This pattern appears in more than 40% of bacteria and fully 90% of microbes in a different domain, the archaea, and gives CRISPR its name. (It stands for clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats.)
At the time, many researchers assumed that the 'spacer' sequences were junk, but in 2005, Pennisi notes, three different teams reported that spacer DNA often matched the sequences of different viruses. This suggested that the book-ending repeat sequences in the bacterial genome played a role in bacterial immunity.
Overview of the CRISPR technique. (Image courtesy of Genecopoeia.com.)
Further study revealed that bacteria take up the viral DNA, then store it as a sort of template for the bacteria's RNA to use in order to neutralize new invading viruses whose DNA is a match.
How did this process work? In brief, once the bacterial cell was invaded, it manufactured RNA from its stored virus code and this would be transported, or guided, to the matching viral DNA by particular enzymes in the cell --the most efficient one is known as Cas9, which has the ability to cut and re-combine DNA.
A short video here provides a good animation of how the process works.
In just the past three years, scientists have figured out how to use the same system to find and cut ---and replace--sequences of DNA in human cells.
In terms of gene therapy, the clinical promise of CRISPR is huge. As U.C. Davis stem cell researcher Paul Knoepfler told me, people suffering from blood diseases like Beta thalassemia and leukemia, could have their blood cells' DNA fixed with the CRISPR technology, and used to grow healthy blood cells to replace the faulty ones.
But what about fixing genetic defects in advance?
Several researchers have already used CRISPR to edit the genomes of mouse embryos and produced healthy specimens.
It was really just a matter of time, scientists said, before someone would try the same technology on human embryos. And while last week's paper had long been expected (as was also the team's initial negative results), they believe many other teams are already working to improve the CRISPR approach so that very soon IVF embryos carrying potential disease causing genes can be successfully edited to avoid them.
This promises to be an exciting new frontier for scientists--but the bioethical implications will be daunting, especially if CRISPR can be employed to enhance human traits.
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a8d15f85f7d119ecd38a4dbea6e03982 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnfarrell/2016/03/19/its-time-to-retire-theistic-evolution/ | It's Time To Retire 'Theistic Evolution' | It's Time To Retire 'Theistic Evolution'
When you read enough in the religion/science debates these days, especially when it comes to Christianity and evolution, you realize there are a whole pack of creationists who don’t like other Christians embracing evolution.
They have a name for them. ‘Theistic Evolutionists’. And it’s not meant as a compliment. It’s more like being told you’re the equivalent of Judas Iscariot.
Any religious person who accepts evolution, like physicist and author Karl Giberson, or like NIH Director Francis Collins, or for that matter the entire staff at BioLogos, must be labeled and considered no allies in creationists’ fight to get creationism in one kind or another taught in public school science classes. They look at people like this as aiding and abetting ‘the enemy’.
Homology in Evolution (image courtesy of Christian Brothers Univeresity)
For related reasons, the term has also caught on with some atheists who want to keep an arms length between themselves and fellow scientists who happen to be religious.
Richard Dawkins called the term ‘theistic evolution’ an attempt to ‘smuggle God in by the back door,’ and he had a point, according to Stacy A. Trasancos, who has a PhD in chemistry and is a Catholic with her own blog about religion and science.
You accept the science on its merits or you don’t, she said. It doesn’t matter whether you’re religious, or not. But if you are, accepting what science has to tell should not be a problem.
“Think about it. If you are a believer, it is already implied that you see all biological and physical processes as created and held in existence by God. You do not need "theistic" in front of biological terms. Who speaks of theistic reproduction? Or theistic gestation, theistic meiosis, or theistic menstruation? Plus, to qualify a biological process as ‘theistic’ implies that the opposite is possible, that God may not be involved in creating certain laws of nature.”
Brown University biologist and author Kenneth R. Miller states the term simply compromises the integrity of the science.
When I reached him by email, he said, “To me, and in the minds of most people who use the term, it implies that a god had to pre-ordain the outcome of the evolutionary process or at the very least guide it along to produce the world of today, including human beings his chosen creatures. I don't believe that at all. Evolution is a fully-independent natural process driven by chance and necessity.”
This has irked some of his non-religious colleagues in the field, who continue to suspect that, one way or another, religious biologists like himself are trying to ‘add’ something supernatural to the mix. Miller flatly denies this.
“People like Jerry Coyne routinely accuse me of holding to the view that God intervened in the evolutionary process,” said Miller, “and it seems like no matter how many times I post on his blog that I believe exactly the opposite, he persists. That's one reason why I reject the label of theistic evolutionist at every opportunity I get.”
Like Trasancos, Miller said, the term makes absolutely no sense. “The very fact that so many feel obliged to attach a statement about religious faith to evolution implies that evolution itself is a religious process, or at least has a special religious significance that other fields of science do not have. I reject that premise.”
Now, what’s interesting here is that Miller and Trasancos are both Catholics, and Catholic intellectual tradition has a longstanding interest in science and philosophy going back to Aristotle and the ancient Greeks. It’s a tradition very different from evangelical Christianity, where the main opposition to teaching Darwin in public schools comes in the U.S.
Long before Darwin, for example, medieval scholastics entertained the notion that God could be viewed, to use one analogy, more as a CEO than an engineer. One scholar who’s been all over this is Pasadena College philosophy professor Edward Feser, who regularly tangles with intelligent design creationists—and deconstructs their arguments on purely philosophical grounds.
This isn’t to say there are not Catholic creationists. There certainly are, and they form a bizarre strain of the anti-science mentality all to themselves. But that’s a different topic.
The main point is Christian scientists who accept evolution have a much broader understanding of God than—chief engineer. And ‘theistic evolution’, as its summarized for example at Wikipedia, simply misrepresents their position.
Atheists have voiced many arguments for wondering how Christians can maintain belief in a benevolent deity in a world that features so much apparent waste and suffering ‘built in’ to the program, as science has revealed.
But ‘theistic evolution’ isn’t one of their answers, at least not among the serious scientists I know who are theists. And it’s well past its sell-by date.
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cef4c61ac082837b12c7e9044fbaa0ed | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnfarrell/2017/04/09/how-mendel-channeled-darwin/ | How Mendel Channeled Darwin | How Mendel Channeled Darwin
One of the great ‘what if’ questions that has fascinated historians of biology is how differently Darwinian evolution would have been received had Darwin known of the work of Gregor Mendel, the Augustinian monk who is now considered the founder of the science of genetics.
Darwin published Origin of Species in 1859, which was right about the time that Mendel began conducting his now famous experiments on garden peas.
But Darwin never knew of Mendel. He never read his published findings outlining the basic laws of genetic inheritance. [And though Mendel visited London briefly in 1862, Darwin was not in town and Mendel did not speak English.]
Gregor Mendel, Augustinian priest and scientist Image courtesy of Wikipedia.
As a result, for the later editions of his book, Darwin missed an opportunity to adopt Mendel’s model of inheritance, because he himself did not have one.
As a new paper on the topic puts it: “A few pages into the first chapter of the 1859 first edition of Darwin’s Origin of Species, readers encounter a sentence that succinctly states what was true at the time: 'The laws governing inheritance are quite unknown'."
Mendel was only just beginning to unravel them.
As Daniel J. Fairbanks and Scott Abbott write in their fascinating article, ‘Darwin’s Influence on Mendel: Evidence from a New Translation of Mendel’s Paper,' the lament that Darwin knew nothing of Mendel has unfortunately eclipsed evidence that Mendel, by contrast, was well acquainted with Darwin’s writings.
Although Mendel probably knew little about Darwin when conducting his pea experiments, according to Fairbanks and Abbott, the situation changed when Mendel obtained a copy of Origin of Species in 1863 when he was in the midst of his experiments.
Fairbanks and Abbott, both of whom teach at Utah Valley University, reveal that not only did Mendel appreciate Darwin's theory of natural selection, he even adopted some of Darwin's terminology and concepts in evaluating his own experiments.
What Fairbanks and Abbott did was to examine Mendel’s German translation of Darwin’s book, his marginal notes, and then do a match of the Darwinian phrases that Mendel adopted for the conclusions portion of his paper.
And they make a strong case for their conclusion that Mendel appreciated how important his work was for Darwin’s theory.
Under the premise that the passages Mendel marked in Origin of Species may have preferentially influenced his writing, we color-coded words and phrases in his original German paper that matched words and phrases from the passages Mendel marked in his German translation of Origin of Species (excluding common words whose function is more grammatical than substantive). We then used a different color to denote words and phrases not in the passages Mendel marked but found elsewhere in Origin of Species. Both types of phraseology were collectively abundant in the paper.
They sum up:
This color coding revealed that phraseology from the passages Mendel marked in Origin of Species are more frequent and more diverse in the final two (10th and 11th) sections of his paper. In particular, such terms overwhelmingly clustered in one paragraph just prior to the final section, subtitled “Concluding Remarks.” This observation offers particularly strong evidence that Darwin’s book influenced Mendel’s writing.
For example: A key Darwinian term employed by Mendel 10 times, yet only in the 'Concluding Remarks' section of his paper, they write, is the German word Element, "which is unambiguously translatable to English as 'element.' In every instance, Mendel used it to refer to his conception of material hereditary units that are variable and distinctly genotypic, what geneticists now refer to as alleles or variants."
The authors also point out that R.A. Fisher, one of the architects of 'The Modern Synthesis' which in the mid 20th century combined Darwinian natural selection with genetics to make evolution more mathematically robust, also wrote about Mendel's interest in Darwin, and also noted the Darwinian influence on this summary paragraph when quoting a portion of it.
“The reflection of Darwin’s thought," Fisher wrote in 1936, "is unmistakable and Mendel’s comment is extremely pertinent, though it seems to have been overlooked.”
To be sure, this doesn’t constitute watertight proof that Mendel himself had become a Darwinian, Fairbanks and Abbott caution, but it is highly suggestive. Further, belief in the special creation of all species by God was still widespread in the scientific literature at the time. And the authors note that Mendel’s failure to declare such a belief in his own paper may also be suggestive of his acceptance of Darwin’s theory.
As is well known, Mendel’s work had little impact on the scientific community at the time he published it. As a monk, his interests and duties soon turned to more clerical and administrative matters, and he never pursued any more experiments.
Mendel's work languished for 35 years before it was independently rediscovered by three scientists at the turn of the 20th century.
While many biologists accepted Darwinian evolution during Darwin's time and in the decades after his death, there were also a great many who did not because of the problem of how to combine natural selection with a robust theory of the inheritance of traits in species. Darwin's own ideas were never considered compelling.
Mendel himself was not impressed with Darwin's idea of pangenesis, the speculation that each bodily organ releases hereditary 'gemmules', or particles, which then pass into the egg cells of females and the sperm cells of males in order to pass on traits from one generation to the next. And Darwin himself seems to have been conscious of the notion's inadequacy.
So it's fascinating to consider how all this might have been different had Darwin known of Mendel's work in the 1860s.
Fairbanks and Abbott's paper is available in this past October 1 2016 issue of Genetics.
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f133d6788dbe3e8d9f54f97b9f23c753 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnfarrell/2018/12/20/using-artificial-intelligence-to-help-corporations-mine-their-own-data/ | Using Artificial Intelligence To Help Corporations Mine Their Own Data | Using Artificial Intelligence To Help Corporations Mine Their Own Data
Danny Goh is the founder and CEO of a Nexus Frontier Tech, a new company that's helping corporations use artificial intelligence to more efficiently mine and use their own data.
This may sound prosaic, but Goh believes, in spite of the conventional fears about artificial intelligence, this is where AI is going to have the most immediate impact.
Nexus Frontier founder and CEO Danny Goh. Nexus Frontier
There are no robots in the works at Goh’s London based company. What he and his team of engineers do is analyze problems plaguing mid to large size corporations—and help them use AI algorithms to solve them.
“Even though there’s a lot of information available on the internet, it’s still true that more than ninety-percent of the world’s data is still in private hands—whether in private corporations or governments,” he told me when we talked via Skype.
“And the biggest problem about this data is—they actually have no idea how to use it: the segregation within the internal workings of a large corporation, or in a public agency, is just too huge. So this is problem number one."
And problem number two, he said, is the data is not accessible--not easily.
“Because they are either in paper form or PDF form or graphic forms,” he said, “this requires a human to process, to access and read it. And presumably you have to spend the same amount of time to analyze it …and the process is one which will never end, of course, because the amount of new data continues to grow every day."
This is where Nexus Frontier comes in; the company's team of engineers create AI algorithms for machine learning to help their clients process data—in whatever format it’s been stored-- in a much faster way than humans, and much more accurately.
“Right now, our solutions consist of providing software,” said Goh. Most recently Nexus has been helping financial firms, large manufacturers and organizations like the World Economic Forum.
But the company is also building a platform, called Podder.ai—which clients will be able to license and customize to their own needs. And it’s scheduled to be available in 2019. For the present, Goh said, his team of over a hundred AI engineers consult directly with their clients.
Goh grew up in Malaysia. “My dad sent me to Australia for school, so I stayed in Sydney for a couple of years before moving around to different countries. And then ended up in London for the past ten years."
With an engineering background, he initially got involved in startups, both small and big ventures. But Goh soon began concentrating on building his own startups, companies involved mostly in education, over the last five years.
“And when I started this venture, it was actually about the time I had started to invest in other small startups based in southeast Asia and Europe." And it was in London where he met he met his current Nexus partners from Japan.
"They're small investors like myself," Goh told me. "We met together and decided it would be good to start co-investing together in other small startups in southeast Asia. And then an opportunity came when other corporations in Japan knew about our activities in southeast Asia, and they asked us to introduce them to all these new AI technologies.
"So that was when we decided to use our expertise to help those corporations source for different technologies, whether it meant building an application or in using AI. That’s where our strength is."
Goh started to build the team back in 2015. As the team grew, he learned that there were 'big corporates' in Europe that were also in need of his team's expertise.
It's been an exciting process, and Goh believes Nexus has just seen the tip of the iceberg. In his view, in the business world right now, AI is at about the same stage that the internet was in the late 1990s: on the verge of transforming businesses, but with the greatest wave yet to come. And he likes to use web designing as an analogy.
“In the early internet, it was very slow to spread out," he said. "And to design a web site required a lot of human labor. After all the off-the-shelf and then online web designer tools became available, and then Google, then anybody could create a web site, with tools that make it possible to do it a lot faster and easier."
The real AI revolution will be like that, he said, not robots stealing our jobs. But machine learning and algorithms--eventually right in our mobile phones.
“So that’s what we’re trying to do now, to make AI more easy to access for more people in the corporate world.”
“In our experience working with large corporations, we’ve realized the supply of production-scale AI solutions is extremely rare because most AI companies and startups remain at the research and trial stage. We understand that a technology will not work if it is not integrated into a business on a larger scale."
Goh has high hopes for Podder.ai, which will be the AIaaS (AI as a service) platform to offer company based AI developers and engineers a robust system to easily implement and manage their AI modules in their own IT systems, helping them to solve problems in a smarter way.
“Through this platform, we will enable businesses to connect research level deep learning and machine learning models to the real world, making these models easier to use and delivering more value,” he said.
“The problem now is that the general public, as well as businesses, don’t fully understand what AI is. People still don’t know what its real potential is. Nexus wants to make AI available to everybody."
“Make it simple and understandable,” he said. “Make it tangible and realizable.” That’s what Nexus Frontier is aiming for.
A company to keep an eye on in 2019.
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3fde2ddf8d8a7cc240fc60bb2bd11767 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnfarrell/2019/11/03/the-austerity-of-many-worlds/ | The Austerity Of Many Worlds | The Austerity Of Many Worlds
According to Cal Tech physicist Sean Carroll in his excellent new book, Something Deeply Hidden, so far, quantum mechanics has worked precisely because scientists have been forced to just ‘shut up and calculate’, even though the underlying philosophy of the whole field requires making a special allowance for the human beings who conduct physical measurements.
Human observers are not themselves part of the quantum system being measured, according to the textbook account, and this is understandably considered a failing in the view of many physicists, writes Carroll.
Sean Carroll, author of Something Deeply Hidden. Rachel Porter
When you use quantum mechanics to predict how a quantum system will evolve–the outcome of the experiment depends crucially on the role of the experimenter: how the experimenter sets up the test and what it is they wish to measure, whether it’s the position or momentum of an elementary particle, or whether a single photon will go right or left when passing through a beam splitter.
As Sabine Hossenfelder points out in her video and on her blog, this ‘measurement problem’ is not compatible with reductionism, the operating philosophical methodology of science. This issue has irked many scientists, including Einstein, from the very beginning of the field. It was considered a deep flaw that quantum mechanics no longer allowed a description of reality independent of the observer.
In the 1950s, the young man who came up with what has become known as The Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, saw a way around it. Hugh Everett was born in 1930 and was so brilliant in mathematics he got a fellowship from the National Science Foundation that allowed him to do his graduate work at Princeton where he decided to focus on quantum mechanics to get his PhD–although he had no interest in an academic or research career (about which more below).
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As Carroll, writes, Everett’s view “arises from a fundamental annoyance with all of the special rules about measurements that are presented as part of the standard textbook quantum recipe, and suggests instead that there is just a single kind of quantum evolution.’ And this involves simply making the wave function the be-all and end-all of the formalism of the theory.
As Hossenfelder puts it, Everett’s breakthrough was to suggest doing away with the problem of the quantum measurement “by just saying there isn’t such a thing as wavefunction collapse. Instead, many worlds people say, every time you make a measurement, the universe splits into several parallel worlds, one for each possible measurement outcome. This universe splitting is also sometimes called branching.”
The price we pay for this vastly increased elegance of theoretical formalism, Carroll writes, “is that the theory describes many copies of what we think of as ‘the universe,’ each slightly different, but each truly real in some sense. Whether the benefit is worth the cost is an issue about which people disagree. (It is.)”
Many Worlds is attractive to Carroll and others because it helps restore a view of objective reality as entirely observer independent. There’s no need to update or ‘collapse’ the wave function once a measurement has been made–but the catch is you have to accept that there is a separate reality for every possible path or probability right out of the wave function itself, many worlds indeed.
For different reasons Hossenfelder and physicists like Steve Barr at University of Delaware find this problematic.
In their view, the fatal problem with Many Worlds approach, is that there is no way to relate the wave functions or the equations of the theory to probabilities. But, since the only thing that quantum mechanics predicts are probabilities, Everett’s approach does not predict anything new.
But Carroll argues that adopting the Many Worlds approach can make it more fruitful for scientists to tackle larger problems such as how Einstein’s spacetime can emerge naturally from quantum mechanics. General Relativity is not compatible with quantum physics and this has been considered a major problem. Carroll argues that adopting the Many Worlds approach could help point the science in new directions.
Indeed, he argues that the Many Worlds idea flows naturally from the idea that the entire universe itself has its own wave function. But I don't think this follows: because a particular system under investigation has a wave function—it doesn't therefore follow that the whole universe does too. That seems too much of a leap in logic.
That said, Carroll argues with a healthy restlessness that makes his book more interesting than so many others in the quantum physics genre.
I will say I wish the author had spent more time discussing Everett himself–because it’s hard to shake the suspicion that for Everett, the entire Many Worlds approach was devised as a brilliant prank. He needed to get his PhD before taking a lucrative job with the Pentagon, after which he never looked back. He had no interest in pursuing research in quantum physics as a career or in academia, let alone doing more work on Many Worlds itself.
On a personal level, he was by all accounts an appalling human being. A womanizer who constantly cheated on his emotionally needy wife, he neglected both his children, one of whom, the older daughter, committed suicide at the age of 39, over a decade after Everett drank himself to death. (See Peter Byrne’s excellent biography, The Many Worlds of Hugh Everett.)
Of course, a scientific theory should stand or fall on its own merits, but from a humanist perspective, that the Many Worlds Interpretation was possibly the product of a mathematically brilliant sociopath doesn’t inspire.
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fd92c118940d9a0e86b532d831ddadd9 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnfarrell/2019/11/10/a-timely-bible-for-women/ | A Timely ‘Bible’ For Women | A Timely ‘Bible’ For Women
It’s more than passing strange that in an age of so much scientific and medical progress so many people remain in the dark about the science of their own private parts.
That this can be a cause of embarrassment is one of the least of the harmful consequences of such ignorance. As Dr. Jen Gunter makes clear in her new book The Vagina Bible, women in particular have suffered a great deal of anguish over the centuries, and her no-nonsense guide to vaginal health is an attempt (if I may appropriate the phrase from an entirely different context) to stand athwart history and yell ‘Enough!’
Jen Gunter, author of The Vagina Bible and New York Times columnist. Chloe Jackman Photography 2019
Gunter, an obstetrician and gynecologist, writes a regular column on women’s health for the New York Times, and she maintains a lively Twitter feed.
“It is very difficult in our society to have non-sophomoric discussions about sex,” she writes. “Because of this, it is women who typically suffer. Female anatomy is erroneously labeled as ‘dirty,’ and from an early age, girls are given messages about what a patriarchal society has determined a ‘nice’ girl should and should not do.”
Gunter writes with a sense of humor–sometimes understandably rueful–as when she notes how historical ignorance of female anatomy contrasted with the male’s. “Most ancient physicians, probably like many other males of the time, were unsure of the role of the clitoris and likely thought it unimportant. This stands in sharp contrast to the anatomic glory of the penis.” Such neglect was not confined to medicine. “Think about all those ancient Greek statues with defined scrotum and penises... The vulvas of the time were but mysterious mounds concealed by crossed legs.”
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Gunter’s book really is a bible of sorts, as it devotes separate sections to the basic medical facts of the vulva, the vagina, pregnancy and childbirth, menopause, sexually transmitted infections, as well as recommendations and advice about exercise, skin care, even diet–each chapter ending with convenient ‘Bottom Line’ summaries.
And last but not least, Gunter devotes a chapter to the myths and ‘Old Wives Tales’ about female sexuality and health that still persist even in the medical profession. Indeed, it’s amazing to learn what kind of things a woman is encouraged to do to herself for the promise of improved health.
For example: coffee enemas? “Dear God, no,” Gunter writes. “People, even some doctors promote this to treat depression! I. Just. Can’t Even. First of all, this is a waste of good coffee. Medically speaking, to believe coffee in your rectum could treat anything is ludicrous. I mean, why doesn’t drinking it have the same effect? It is a rabbit hole of epic proportions.”
Then there’s the supposed promise of placing magnets next to the vagina to treat hot flashes: “Just clip in your underwear and go! Therapeutic magnets are a multibillion dollar industry and there is no evidence they do anything but lighten your wallet.”
My favorite old chestnut: drinking eight glasses of water per day, a myth which persists in spite of the best efforts of doctors to kill it. “What everyone forgot,” Gunter writes, “is that calculation also included the water that we take in with food–which is how we get most of our water. Just drink when you’re thirsty.”
That Gunter has been attacked for blowing up so many myths and misinformation about female anatomy and health is perhaps the best reason a book like hers is so timely. “To me, the idea that women can take away what serves them from the morass of half-truths and lies about their bodies is the greatest perversion of choice. True choice–weighing your personal risk-benefit ratio and making a decision for your body on that information–requires facts. And it is this quest to give women facts that keeps me up at night.”
Highly recommended. And yes, men will get almost as much–perhaps even more–from reading it.
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d27227da4bc4652ef80c53e07700a072 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnfarrell/2019/11/17/the-achievement-of-russell-doolittle/ | The Achievement Of Russell Doolittle | The Achievement Of Russell Doolittle
Last month, University of California San Diego reported the passing of a beloved scientist and teacher, Russell F. Doolittle, Emeritus Professor of Molecular Biology.
Russell F. Doolittle, emeritus professor of chemistry, biochemistry and molecular biology at ... [+] University of California San Diego. Doolittle Lab, University of California San Diego.
Doolittle’s work most famously explored the evolution of blood clotting and became a flashpoint for creationists (proponents of intelligent design), who argued that systems like blood clotting could not have evolved through the gradual step-by-step process of natural selection.
As Doolittle made clear on many occasions–but most memorably in a piece he wrote for Boston Review in 1997–the creationists ignored the importance of key factors in the evolutionary process, most notably gene duplication. And, not surprisingly, they misrepresented what Doolittle and his research team discovered.
Kenneth Miller, Professor of Biology at Brown University, highlighted the importance of Doolittle’s work in his first popular book on evolution, Finding Darwin’s God. And although he was traveling, Miller took time out to share some personal correspondence on how helpful Doolittle was when he was writing his book in 1998.
Miller flew to San Diego to ask Doolittle a few questions about the evolution of blood clotting, expecting that Doolittle would not have a great deal of time. But to his astonishment, Doolittle set aside the better part of an entire day to go over his work, answer Miller’s key questions, and to suggest a number of ways in which his findings could be explained in layman's terms to make sense to his readers.
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“If I remember correctly, we spent almost five hours together, an incredible amount of time for a researcher to devote to a total stranger,” Miller wrote to Doolittle’s family. “The kindness and generosity of that encounter has stayed with me ever since. I have never failed to mention my friend, Russ Doolittle, whenever I discuss blood clotting, and I remain grateful to Professor Russell Doolittle to this day.”
Miller’s recollection mirrors those of other of Doolittle’s students and colleagues, as the UCSD tribute makes clear: “One of the amazing aspects of Doolittle’s scientific career was his insistence on being at the bench performing or directing the experiments himself. He sat with his staff for hours at a time double-checking the transcription between the original publication and his growing atlas of amino acid sequences.”
He even traveled with his students to sites across country where they could gather samples for use in the lab.
An avid runner, Doolittle participated in many marathons around the U.S. He was also politically active, at one point, running unsuccessfully as a Democrat for Congress.
Doolittle was 88 years old when he died on October 11th.
“I mourn his loss,” Miller wrote. “But I also regard him as the very epitome of a humane life in science, well-lived.”
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a724c6350ae5056b526725e03a543a64 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johngaudiosi/2011/08/05/why-major-league-gaming-is-thriving-while-pro-sports-are-struggling/ | Why Major League Gaming Is Thriving While Pro Sports Are Struggling | Why Major League Gaming Is Thriving While Pro Sports Are Struggling
Even before the lockout, attendance was down for the NBA. And Major League Baseball parks continue to struggle to attract fans. The days of sold-out NASCAR tracks throughout the season are over. But while many professional sports have suffered amidst the poor economy, pro video game players continue to cultivate the growing number of gamers who are tuning in for every event of the Major League Gaming (MLG) pro circuit.
“Even when we’re at home using Xbox Live we stream our practices and games to our fans to see and we stay connected with our Twitter followers,” said Michael “FlamesworD” Chaves of Halo Reach team Status Quo. “Twitter’s blowing up nowadays and each of us has 5,000 to 10,000 followers. We’re constantly using Facebook and Tweeting to allow people to play against us online.”
Gallery: Top MLG Games 10 images View gallery
Imagine a professional baseball player or NFL player using Twitter to set up a pick-up game for fans. That’s the type of interaction that is connecting gamers with the pros – some of whom can bring home over $100,000 a year for playing video games.
MLG continues to break attendance records. The most recent event attracted a record 20,000 spectators to the Anaheim Convention Center. But that’s just the icing on the cake. Pro gaming’s explosion in the U.S. is the result of live streaming of video game competitions across the nation and around the globe. The Anaheim stop delivered over 35 million stream views, which marks another record.
With over 1,000 gamers from around the globe competing, viewers from 171 countries watched four live streams during the three-day, double elimination tournament online at www.majorleaguegaming.com for a total of more than 2.6 million hours of video consumed.
What advertisers like Red Bull, NOS, Stride, Dr Pepper, and PlayStation love about these events is that gamers are glued to their screens. The average user time per stream was more than three hours. MLG is working with Streamworks to deliver live and on-demand coverage of all 2011 and 2012 Pro Circuit competitions.
The growing number of people attending the live events are exposed to all of the major sponsors, who have tents and booths set up offering free food, drinks, t-shirts and other giveaways. I attended the tour stops in Raleigh last year and was able to see first-hand the sporting event-style atmosphere that MLG provides. In addition to gamers, there are families and kids attending. In many ways, the event was similar to the NHL All-Star Game’s Fan Fair, which took place in the same Raleigh Convention Center this January. While the NHL drew a far larger crowd from around the world, the MLG event did feature a lot of people from surrounding areas who drove in to compete or just take part in the festivities.
The Anaheim competition was the third stop on the six-city 2011 MLG Pro Circuit. The tour places the most talented video game players alongside their toughest opponents as they battle for more than $1 million in prizes throughout the year. The season continues in Raleigh, NC (August 26-28) and Orlando, FL (October 14-16), and culminates with the national championship in Providence, RI this fall (November 18-20).
MLG is capitalizing on the popularity of games like Blizzard Entertainment’s Starcraft II, Microsoft’s Halo: Reach and Activision’s Call of Duty: Black Ops. The gaming league offers tiered memberships for fans. Gold MLG League members ($29.99 for 12 months) receive $10 off competitor passes and $5 off a spectator passes at Pro Circuit competitions, early entry into the events, high definition live video streams for home viewing, discounts on MLG apparel and partner products and more. Silver MLG League members ($9.99 for 3 months) receive access to high definition, ad-free streams of Pro Circuit competitions, premium VoD, access to member only forums and more.
The costs for attending live events and the ability to stream coverage for free, has allowed MLG to grow despite the economic downturn. In the past, when MLG had competition from multiple pro gaming leagues like the Cyberathlete Professional League, television was the focal point for coverage. But unlike real professional sports leagues like MLB, the NFL and the NBA; eSports didn’t translate to the boob tube. MLG experimented with TV coverage on networks like USA and G4 in the past, but it’s the Internet that has allowed the league to connect with a huge audience.
All of this exposure is also helping to quell stereotypes that people have had about gamers. Many of the pros who excel at eSports also play college or recreational sports. They’re not the loners hiding in their basements eating too many Cheetos.
“I think a lot of people might have the misconception that we’re all lazy and just sit there on the couch and play games for twelve hours a day, which really isn’t the case,” said Aaron “Ace” Elam of Status Quo. “We put in a lot of hours, but it’s not like we put in five hours consistently every single day. We actually do other things. We’re just like normal kids. We like to play sports, collect anything. We all have hobbies. We do take part in physical activity too, so it’s not like anything unusual.”
Pro gaming has been a mainstay in Asia and Europe. In Korea, there are two dedicated TV channels that cover eSports. Cyberathletes over there hawk products and are treated like rock stars. The upcoming Gamescom show in Germany will feature the Intel Extreme Masters competition, which marks the start of that international competition’s 2011/2012 season. There are multiple leagues throughout Europe dedicated to pro gaming. And the future is looking good for the U.S., as well.
“Pro gaming just keeps growing,” said David “Walshy” Walsh, who plays Halo Reach. “I feel like a lot of it ends up being in the hands of developers. StarCraft I and StarCraft II were so huge because Blizzard made such a perfectly well-balanced game that was also interesting and fun to play for new people. Halo’s had mixes of that. It also has serious competition from Call of Duty. Our audiences get divided, which isn’t a bad thing.”
Just like in real sports, where some like baseball and others like hockey or football, pro gaming has its followers of different genres and games. That draws in a larger crowd. And while all of this is happening, the game industry continues to grow.
“I think Modern Warfare 3 will be a good candidate for MLG,” said Mike “Hastr0” Rufail, who competes on Call of Duty: Black Ops. “I’d like to see some more out of Battlefield 3 to see somehow how they could create smaller maps for the competitive community. Their maps have always been way too big to play four versus four. The only other game I’d like to see on the shooter side is Gears of War. That’s my top pick.”
Follow me on Twitter @JohnGaudiosi
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977ec89aa697041af083feeb5eef1785 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johngaudiosi/2011/10/06/blackwaters-erik-prince-takes-on-modern-warfare-3-and-battlefield-3-in-virtual-combat/ | Blackwater's Erik Prince Takes on Modern Warfare 3 and Battlefield 3 in Virtual Combat | Blackwater's Erik Prince Takes on Modern Warfare 3 and Battlefield 3 in Virtual Combat
Erik Prince, the controversial founder of Blackwater Worldwide, has resurrected the Blackwater brand in what he hopes will become a new video game franchise. Although Prince is no longer affiliated with the prívate military contractor, which now goes by the name Xe Services, he’s launching a new first-person shooter game called Blackwater this fall. After taking on terrorists in the Middle East, Prince is going to face off against two of the biggest game companies in the world with Activision’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 and Electronic Arts’ Battlefield 3.
One of the many interesting things about this business venture is that it was Prince that came to acclaimed military shooter developer Zombie Studios with the idea to create a game out of this brand. Normally, it’s game publishers looking for a new angle to enter the potentially lucrative, but overcrowded, shooter business. 505 Games, which is a relatively new game publisher, will publish Blackwater this fall.
Another interesting aspect of the new game is that it’s the first Kinect for Xbox 360 shooter on the market. The game can be played without any controller, utilizing the motion control functionality of Kinect. With such a lack of Kinect games available on the market, the big question will be whether gamers will purchase this title just because it’s a Kinect shooter. Of course, a lot of that will depend on the quality of the game, and from that perspective Zombie has a great track record of solid shooters.
For 505 Games, as a newcomer to the business, the controversy that has erupted since the game was recently announced, isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The old adage that there’s no such thing as bad publicity could be in play here. EA and Activision are both reportedly spending $100 million each on their new Call of Duty and Battlefield games. 505 Games just can’t compete with those games one-on-one. But it has Prince, and he has recently broken his silence to promote the new game. I recently interviewed him about his first foray into video games.
He told me that he sees this game as a potential franchise. And he’s serious about video games. He worked hand-in-hand with Zombie Studios on this game. Former Blackwater operatives also contributed to the development of this game, which is set in a fictional North African town overrun by a dictator. Players go in with a team of Blackwater soldiers to
“They’re not commandos,” said Richard Dormer, lead designer on the game at Zombie Studios. “They’re not in there saving the world against the next nuclear bomb. They’re there working with the UN and trying to protect people. No one wants to be a hero. Everybody wants to survive the next day. If there’s one thing that’s important to Blackwater it’s their 100% success rate for protecting people.”
Most gamers won’t care about Blackwater’s past Congressional hearings or the charges of killing innocent civilians – something you can’t do in this game. What they’ll focus on is if this shooter works on Kinect, because that’s the ace in the hole for 505 Games as lead shooter for Microsoft’s popular motion-sensor controller.
“We realized that just pointing at objects and shooting them didn’t really take advantage of what Kinect is all about, which is really trying to immerse the player into the action,” said Dormer. “We took the next step by adding cover, allowing the player to pop up behind a crate or peak around a wall to target enemies. We also let you jump over objects and kick down doors.”
“We didn’t want this game to have a Call of Duty sensation, where you start a mission and have to die 25 times before you even get halfway through it,” said Dormer. “We want the player, once they’re used to the cover concept, to have an 80 to 90 percent rate of success. The challenge isn’t just getting to the end, it’s about learning the intricacies of the levels, much like a racing game. We think players will go back and try to beat their best time, or their friends’ best times.”
Prince said his guidelines for the game were to be interactive, tactically correct, fun and expandable, meaning additional missions and accessories can be added to the game going forward through DLC.
With EA and Activision pulling out all of the stops for Battlefield 3 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Prince’s video game venture has the deck stacked against it. But Prince has been promoting the game. And the Blackwater brand, while many might think is tarnished, is still a brand that most people have heard of. Add in the dearth of Kinect titles available on the market and Prince could end up with a game franchise on his hands.
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a31dae2d90caa8c90de5548a52ad8e6b | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johngaudiosi/2011/10/21/battlefield-3-and-call-of-duty-modern-warfare-3-will-generate-over-1-4-billion-in-q4/ | Battlefield 3 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Will Generate Over $1.4 Billion in Q4 | Battlefield 3 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Will Generate Over $1.4 Billion in Q4
With the epic showdown between Electronic Arts’ Battlefield 3 and Activision’s Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 about to unfold, analysts predict that these two games will sell over $1.4 billion in revenue this fourth quarter. These two titles, alone, will generate 15% of total packaged videogame software sales for the quarter, according to Michael Pachter, videogame analyst, Wedbush Morgan Securities.
Pachter forecasts that Modern Warfare 3 will come out on top with 16 million copies sold worldwide this year. That’s double the sales total he predicts for Battlefield 3, which should sell 8 million copies globally. And that’s just this year. Modern Warfare 3 could sell an additional 8 million copies in 2012 and Battlefield 3 could tally another 2 million units sold next year.
Both EA and Activision have been pushing these huge games with astronomical marketing budgets. Each publisher has spent over $100 million to sell these two titles, including a lavish Call of Duty XP fan event and a towering billboard in Times Square for Battlefield 3. And that doesn't include the cost of developing Battlefield 3 at DICE and Modern Warfare 3 at Infinity Ward and Sledgehammer Games.
But at the end of the day, Pachter believes many gamers will end up buying both titles.
“I’d guess that around half of the console copies of Battlefield 3 will be bought by people who also buy Modern Warfare 3, so around 2 to 3 million will buy both,” said Pachter. “I don’t see much cannibalization of the titles.”
Check out the videos below to see what all the hype is about with these two games. Battlefield 3 hits shelves October 25 and Modern Warfare 3 ships on November 8.
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dcab8f4ac37307cee6172d61a1717194 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johngaudiosi/2012/01/03/apple-ios-and-google-android-enjoy-an-appy-new-year/ | Apple iOS and Google Android Enjoy An Appy New Year | Apple iOS and Google Android Enjoy An Appy New Year
Consumers were ringing in the new year on mobile devices like iPhone 4S and playing more mobile games than ever before. Records were set during the final week of 2011 with more Apple iOS and Google Android device activations than any other week of the year. Christmas Day kicked off the record-setting week with 6.8 million device activations and 242 million application downloads. Newbies to smartphones and tablets spent the holidays activating devices and downloading new videogames and apps, according to a new report from Flurry. Over this one week, Flurry estimates that over 20 million iOS and Android devices were activated and 1.2 billion applications were downloaded.
The columns in the chart compare the number of app downloads during Christmas through New Year’s Day (on the right) versus the average of the first two equivalent weeks of December (on the left). The seven days from December 25 – December 31 spanned from a Sunday to a Saturday. As such, we take the average of the first two full Sunday-to-Saturday weeks in December to establish a baseline. The average downloads over these weeks are surprisingly even. For background, the third full Sunday-to-Saturday week, not shown in the chart, December 18 – 24, is elevated slightly due primarily to December 24 downloads. Up until the final week of the year, this penultimate week set the download record with 857 million downloads. The final week of the year, between Christmas and New Year’s Day, grew by 60% over the early-December baseline, historically punching through the billion download barrier for the first time ever to deliver 1.2 billion downloads.
This second chart shows the top twenty countries across which the record 1.2 billion downloads were distributed. Starting from the left, the U.S. took the lion’s share with 509 million downloads, or 42.3%. Referencing an earlier report, wherein Flurry sized the current installed base and market upside for each country, it’s not surprising that the U.S. continues to lead the rest of the world by such a large margin. We estimate that just prior to the holidays, there were 109 million active iOS and Android devices in the U.S. market. Compared to the worldwide total active installed base of 246 million, this was 41%. China, the world’s second largest app market, which has roughly one-third of the U.S. installed base saw only one-fifth of the relative downloads. It’s important to note that the celebration of Christmas as a holiday impacted download performance. While the United States widely celebrates Christmas, China is largely non-religious, with over 60% of the population considering themselves agnostic or atheist. In China, Christians make up just 3 – 4% of the population.
Following the trend that Western countries more widely celebrate Christmas – note the higher positions of countries like the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, France, Australia, Italy, Spain and Mexico in the chart – these countries over-indexed against largely non-Christian countries of China, South Korea and Japan. For example, South Korea and Japan have the 4th and 5th largest smart device installed bases of all countries, yet they ranked 7th and 10th, respectively, for downloads over the record week. Christmas is not recognized as a national holiday in Japan, and in South Korea, roughly half the population self-identifies as non-religious. As a point of interest, Canada appears to have over-indexed the most, using its 8th largest installed base to drive the 4th most downloads over the holiday period.
Looking forward to 2012, Flurry expects breaking the one-billion-download-barrier per week will become a common occurrence. There will be plenty of new devices announced at CES 2012 and Mobile World Congress 2012 to add fire to these already hot flames.
Flurry is able to get a crystal clear picture of the Android and iOS markets through its data set from over 140,000 apps that run on those predominant platforms. With its application penetration, Flurry can detect over 90% of all new devices activated each day. Additionally, with its analytics service in more than 20% of all applications downloaded on a given day from the App Store and Android Market, Flurry can reliably estimate total iOS and Android downloads.
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e89399b8190ce2375bca131b3c1e517b | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johngaudiosi/2012/04/28/team-evil-geniuses-manager-anna-prosser-believes-more-female-gamers-will-turn-pro/ | Team Evil Geniuses Manager Anna Prosser Believes More Female Gamers Will Turn Pro | Team Evil Geniuses Manager Anna Prosser Believes More Female Gamers Will Turn Pro
Anna Prosser is one of a growing number of women rising to the top of the pro gaming world. Prosser gained national attention last year when she won the beauty pageant crown as Miss Oregon USA. The 26 year-old Portland native graduated magna cum laude from Oregon State University with dual degrees in International Studies and Speech Communication with a minor in Spanish.
The lifelong gamer entered eSports during college as a video reporter covering the growing pro gaming scene. She currently serves as manager for the Portland-based pro gaming team Evil Geniuses and travels to eSports events around the world, giving her an insider’s perspective on the evolving landscape. Most recently, she's vying for the Maxim Gamer Girl online competition. Prosser talks about the sexism undercurrent that still exists in the male-dominated competitions and the growing opportunities that are opening up for female gamers in eSports in this exclusive interview.
Can you talk about your gaming background?
I grew up with a computer nerd for a dad, so he was always building us newer and better PCs for gaming before anyone else on the block. I remember playing Captain Comic and Commander Keen in our little basement for hours on end. Later on, we got really high tech, and used to play Warcraft 2 together via LAN from different floors of our house. I guess I was destined by heredity to be a gamer; in fact my grandmother was the original gamer chick. At her house, we’d play on her mint condition Intellivision console until the wee hours of the morning. My best girl friend and I spent weeks beating the original Ocarina of time, and loved bashing each other in Street Fighter. In my adolescent years, when all my guy friends got Xboxes for Christmas, and then wouldn’t let me play because Halo was for boys, I made myself content with watching and talking about the games. In short, from my point of view, video games were always something that I did not only for love of the sport, but to interact with those I loved.
How did you get involved with eSports?
Like so many people, until my college years I wasn’t even aware of the eSports scene. At Oregon State University I met Evil Geniuses team captain Geoff “iNcontroL” Robinson (who, incidentally, is now my fiancé) and he introduced me to the world of professional gaming. As I attended events and learned more about this awesome community built around something I had loved since my youth, my desire to get more involved grew and grew. I didn’t have the chops to compete with the pros, but, man, was I excited to talk about the games and share their stories with the masses. My background being in speech communication, I saw that there was a huge need for media coverage – so I grabbed a mic and a camera, and started interviewing the competing pros for the pleasure of their loving fans. People enjoyed my videos to enough that, eventually, companies began to hire me to create similar content for their own initiatives, and the rest is history! Now, I work part of the time for Team Evil Geniuses, and the rest of the time as a freelance content producer, host, and consultant.
What's your current role with Evil Geniuses?
As in most eSports organizations, at Evil Geniuses we all tend to wear a lot of hats. I do a little bit of whatever needs doing, but most prominently I manage facility operations in our StarCraft 2 training house: “The EG Lair Powered by Beyond Gaming”, oversee relations with media, and produce video content both in front of and behind the cameras. I feel so lucky to have become a part of an organization that has put itself in a position of leadership in the eSports community through solid business strategy and innovation. I don’t take that position lightly, and I appreciate that my colleagues feel the same.
What's it like being a female gamer in such a male-dominated industry?
For the most part, the eSports community is intelligent, forward-thinking, and well-meaning. That said, there is an undercurrent of sexism that often springs up in very destructive ways. Probably because we are so eager to believe it is not a problem, an idea of male superiority often sneaks onto our scene under the guise of “constructive criticism,” or even, if you can believe it, of feminism. Without realizing what they are doing, I’ve had male colleagues attribute the entirety of my success to the novelty of my gender in the scene, literally talk over my head in business discussions about me, and even admit working with me for quite some time that they have just now taken the time to look and realize that I have something more to offer than being a token female, or a tag-along pro-gamer’s girlfriend. As someone who is ravenously hungry to share every skill I have with the eSports scene, those kind of barriers can be disheartening, but I try to focus on the positive impact I can make by contributing to eSports in the name of the female gender. Being a minority in your career field is always a challenge - especially when your job often places you in the public eye - but it is also a true honor. I strive every day to be worthy of it.
With the success eSports has had over the past few years, what opportunities exist for female gamers in the pro circuit?
With success comes growth. There are more opportunities available for people of all genders in all roles in the eSports community. The way I see it, as long as our cultural awareness and the values system of our community continues to grow with the size, you will see more women in the same roles as their male counterparts: competing, casting, creating content, and running the business! Statistically, co-ed business teams perform better than all-male or all-female teams, and most of the big eSports organizations (go Team EG!) are definitely starting to recognize that.
Additionally, with the advent of easy online streaming, it is more possible than ever to get a name out there in the community if you can market yourself and produce a good product. In this way, I think female eSports personalities can cut through quite a bit of the male-dominated red-tape that may have prevented them from reaching that level of popularity in the past.
How do you see eSports evolving to allow more females to compete, as a growing number of girls grow up gaming?
For the most part, there aren’t any inherent barriers preventing females from competing or placing well at eSports tournaments. As far as I can tell, the barriers to girls becoming professional players or eSports personalities have been mostly social. As we see the numbers balancing – girls and boys alike growing up together, accepting each other as gamers – I believe we will see the skill gap begin to close as well. In the StarCraft 2 scene, specifically, we already see a few young girl gamers like Flo, Scarlett, Maddelisk, Eve, ailuj, and Aphrodite being signed to pro teams and showing convincing performances in competition. Strong personalities like Rachel “Seltzer” Quirico, Tricia “megumixbear” Sugita, Kelly Milkies, Sue “Smix” Lee, Susan “lilsusie” Kim, Lani “lani_bot” Villanueva, Kim "Jessica"Ga Yeon, Zhang “Zemotion” Jingna and others like - I hope - myself, have made a niche for ourselves in the world of StarCraft 2 media and team management. As norms shift to avoid resistance or general overreactions to females in the industry, and as we continue to teach newcomers that eSports is for all genders, I believe we will slowly begin to move toward more demographic equality.
Many people compare eSports to poker, which is male-dominated but has had very successful female poker players. What are your thoughts on allowing for multi-gender teams in eSports or females vs. males in competitions?
Unlike more physical sports, it makes sense that eSports teams, leagues, and competitions should be co-ed. All-female leagues do help current female pros to make a name for themselves in a less saturated tournament environment, and will help encourage more girl gamers to take themselves seriously as competitors, which is important to our community right now. Ultimately though, a player of either gender will be taken seriously only after competition in the highest levels of tournament gameplay, where players of all genders, cultures, and play styles are in attendance. If we are looking to focus on the skill of the players first, there is no reason for the most-respected leagues to be anything but co-ed.
Do you have a sense of how big a community is out there of female gamers who'd be good enough to play against the pros?
Off the very top of my head, I can think of something like seven females who are currently playing at a high competitive level.
What impact do you think contests like Maxim's Gamer Girl, which you're a part of, having on the perception of female gamers?
I decided to enter the Maxim Gamer Girl Competition because I know it is a tool that I can use to spread the word to the mainstream about eSports. I’m not a pro gamer, I’m not an investor, or even what you might call a major “decision-maker” in eSports (yet), but what I am is a girl with a well trained voice and an unquenchable passion. I know that, in order to bring positive attention to the community that I love, I will sometimes have to venture into territory that is fraught with stigma and that bucks the norm, but as long as I know I will be able to stay true to myself and to the values of the community I represent, I’m okay with that. The way I see it, that’s my job: to use everything I’ve been given to further the causes I believe in. In this case, as I happen to be what MAXIM considers “videogenic” I’ll use that for what I hope will be the greater good and growth of eSports.
We've seen Danica Patrick break barriers in racing, does eSports need the equivalent to take on the boys?
In my opinion Danica is a fantastic example of what a female role model in a male-dominated industry must be. She must produce results that stand up to the competition of their peers, regardless of their gender, and she must remain true to herself, celebrating and expressing her gender in an authentic way! It can be tempting to hide the more feminine sides of oneself – to act like “just another one of the boys” in order to fit in to a heavily male industry, but Danica is very much a woman, and I respect how unafraid she is to express that. I love how her website contains news releases about the highest in racing competition, but also lists including things like “Danica’s favorite shoes.” She seems just as comfortable posing in front of a camera in a full body racing suit as she is in a sultry evening gown. Yes, we do need females like Danica to be role models in our scene, and I think many of them, some of whom were previously mentioned, are on the rise right now.
How do you see eSports evolving over the next five years?
Already, in Korea, the celebrity of StarCraft players rivals that of professional athletes here in the U.S. I’ve personally spoken to representatives from ESPN, MTV, and CNN who are interested in sharing the experience of our eSports world. I live in a training facility that houses salaried players as they work full-time on perfecting their gaming skills. Their sponsors include major brands like Intel, Monster Energy, Kingston HyperX, SteelSeries, Beyond Gaming, and Sapphire. eSports is not a new thing, but it is most certainly growing at a rate like never before. Currently, according to research done by The NPD group, 91% of kids between the ages of 2 and 17 are gamers. We receive messages from fans every day telling us to keep on promoting the scene they love. Today, one of our players received a hand written letter that read “you inspire me to be a better person.” In five years, I’m certain that we will see participation, revenue, and excitement in eSports that will begin to approach the most well-established professional sports of today.
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213df8ea6d117626ed73445b4bc3266f | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johngaudiosi/2012/08/15/pirate101-co-creator-josef-hall-discusses-importance-of-beta-and-game-launch/ | Pirate101 Co-Creator Josef Hall Discusses Importance Of Beta And Game Launch | Pirate101 Co-Creator Josef Hall Discusses Importance Of Beta And Game Launch
KingsIsle Entertainment has captivated the world with its free-to-play massively multiplayer online (MMO) game Wizard101. The company hopes to replicate that success, which has seen parents and grandparents playing with their kids, once again with Pirate101.
Josef Hall title is vice president of development at KingsIsle and the co-creator of Wizard101 and Pirate101. Before working on these games, Hall founded Wolfpack Studios and served as executive producer of the MMO Shadowbane. After selling the company to Ubisoft, Hall focused his development and business attention on the KingsIsle games. He talks about Pirate101 in the exclusive interview below.
Why did you decide to choose Pirates as your second game?
A number reasons, actually – for one, it was a chance for us to look at our game universe through a very different lens and tell a different type of story. We wanted to appeal to our base, obviously, but we also wanted to branch out and draw in new players, as well.
Also, we wanted to introduce a new style of gameplay – more tactical and unit based. The theme of a pirate and their crew matches this system perfectly.
Oh, and also because Pirates are cool! What kid doesn’t want to be a pirate?
What separates this game from other MMOs like Disney Pirates of the Caribbean?
As odd as it sounds, they aren’t really very comparable games. Typically, Pirate games are fairly well-grounded: they are almost universally set in the Caribbean during the Age of Sail, and they try to maintain a certain amount of realism (except for the occasional skeleton, zombie or a ghost ship).
Since our game universe started with Wizard101, a game about magic and mythological creatures, it’s already on the far edge of fantasy. The genre is really closer to Narnia or Harry Potter. All of our pirate ships are flying, because our worlds consist of enormous floating islands that hang in mid-space. The people of this world are talking animals, and the skies are filled with dragons and sky squids.
In terms of gameplay, it’s quite different as well. The genre is technically known as a Tactical Role Playing Game, meaning that one of the primary game activities is to collect different types of soldiers (in our case, a crew of odd-ball talking animals and mythological creatures) and field them in tactical battles (ship raids and prison breaks).
We are also one of the first companies to attempt to marry that type of gameplay with a Massively Multi-player environment, which was enormously challenging – and equally satisfying now that we can see it working.
Finally, the game is centered on an epic storyline with full voice acting and hundreds of hours of detailed scripted adventures. This really takes the element of story driven content to a new level for a Massively Multi-player Online Game.
How will the Pirate101 and Wizard101 worlds connect gamers?
The two games were made to have interlocking narratives; the plots weave in and out of each other seamlessly without ever actually overlapping. Let me give you an example. In Wizard101, the players find out that the Emperor of MooShu (a feudal world inspired by ancient China) was poisoned, and it has thrown the empire into complete disarray. Outside the walls of the Imperial City, brutal warlords fight each other for control of the lands beyond the Imperial palace. As a young Wizard, your job is to figure out what happened to the Emperor and help him regain his strength and his throne. As a Pirate, your spend most of your time dealing with the feuding warlords and are never actually privy to the inner politics occurring within the Imperial Palace.
Experienced separately, each story can stand on its own, of course – but we think it will be even more enjoyable for the players who have invested in both games because they will catch it when we wink at the audience, or when we use one narrative to tie up a loose end we left dangling in the other.
As far as actually connecting the games themselves, we’ve discussed the possibility of bringing the worlds together in some interesting ways that haven’t been tried before...
Given time limits, how will you entice players to spend time in both of these worlds?
Players always want more content. In truth, even with a very large team dedicated to each project, it’s almost impossible to generate enough new adventures to keep up with demand.
Having a second game is going to be a huge benefit in this regard, because it gives us the opportunity to stagger our game updates. Every few months a new world or a new game system will come out for one game, followed soon by an update to the other. Our goal is to leap-frog these updates, so players who are invested in both games will always have something new to explore.
What have you learned from the original rollout of Wizard101 that you're applying to the Beta test for Pirate101?
We gained an enormous amount of knowledge – and a very reliable technology base – from the launch of Wizard101, and we are reaping the benefit of that with Pirate101. Remember, these game environments require a massive amount of infrastructure because they are 24-hour-a-day, seven-days-a-week operations running in dozens of countries around the globe, all the time. To support that effort, there are layers upon layers of behind-the-scenes systems and processes that we are constantly revising and improving – billing, customer support, database and operations, reporting… the list goes on and on.
From a design standpoint, one of the key lessons we learned was to keep players from “falling off” of the main story line. In Wizard we allowed a lot of freedom for the player to disregard, and in fact, effectively opt-out of the main story. What we discovered was that having this lack of direction, whether intentional or not, resulted in players losing interest. In Pirate the main story line is an ever-present thread that is always there to guide the player.
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348493e1c3b4a3b14f3588917d964ca5 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johngaudiosi/2012/08/29/an-inside-look-at-how-gamestop-refurbishes-used-video-games/ | An Inside Look At How GameStop Refurbishes Used Video Games | An Inside Look At How GameStop Refurbishes Used Video Games
GRAPEVINE, Texas – Gamestop took a gamble back in 2010 by investing $7 million in a factory to refurbish used video games. Called “The Roc” internally, the mammoth 182,000 square foot facility employs 1,100 people with a few hundred jobs being added soon. According to Paul Raines, CEO of GameStop, the retailer puts back in consumers’ hands approximately $1.8 billion in trade credits globally in 2011 through the sale of used games and hardware trade-ins.
“A full 70 percent of that goes immediately into a new title,” said Raines. “The rest of it goes into a new title later, or in some cases some customers will take cash and keep it and spend it on some sort of an accessory later on. But all of that trade credit money goes right back into the new gaming. And then if you add up all those trade credits that are spent, a full 17 percent of new software sales at GameStop are funded by trade credit. One way to think about is the new software business is 17 percent bigger thanks to the pre-owned games that are being traded.”
When it comes to the topic of used games, one of the most vocal complaints in the past has been on cannibalization of new games sales. Raines said only four percent of used game sales are titles released within the last 90 days. He said the pre-owned business is an opening price point business. The average price of a pre-owned game at GameStop is $19.
Over the past decade, a lot of retailers have entered and exited the used games business. GameStop has invested in this facility, and others around the world, in an attempt to solidify its position in this growing market sector. With the launch of Wii U this fall and the next PlayStation and Xbox devices expected as early as 2013, there will be a lot of trade-ins of hardware and software.
“In terms of the scale, we’re handling over 15 million software units through this facility,” said Bruce Kulp, senior vice president of supply chain and refurbishment for GameStop. “We run two shifts, so we’re basically running in production about 16 hours a day, five days a week for most of the year. But we will go up to 6 or 7 days a week in peak season periods.”
In the used games business, that peak period actually occurs after January 1st, when many games and consoles have been turned in and people are looking for something new. Other peak times are after new tablet or hardware launches. Before this facility opened, GameStop operated out of its distribution center through a series of interlocking mezzanines spread out over multiple floors on top of a warehouse.
With the amount of product that comes into the Texas facility, only 3.5 percent of these games need to be destroyed. Although all products are checked at the retail store before being shipped to Grapevine, there are things that fall through the cracks.
“Sometimes they’re cracks that aren’t perceivable to the human eye, but we do it under magnification,” said Kulp. “We remove a poly carbonate layer from the disc, but we certainly never want to get close to data layer. Those are the discs that go through the destroy process. The consumer has already received value for these discs through credit or cash, and GameStop ultimately is destroying those discs that don’t meet our quality standards that we won’t put back out to the store to be resold to customers.”
The videos throughout this post show an inside look at what happens inside the Grapevine facility. It’s worth checking out these videos to see how large an operation it is. Many people think that when they trade in a game it right back on the store shelf. But there’s an intensive process and a lot of quality control checklists everything from an iPhone to a PlayStation 2 console goes through before it can be resold at retail.
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3703799be21f74a3e6379081e8a2705c | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johngaudiosi/2012/09/02/moscow-five-pro-gamer-alexey-alex-ich-ichetovkin-explains-league-of-legends-domination/ | Moscow Five Pro Gamer Alexey 'Alex Ich' Ichetovkin Explains League Of Legends Domination | Moscow Five Pro Gamer Alexey 'Alex Ich' Ichetovkin Explains League Of Legends Domination
COLOGNE, Germany -- Alexey "Alex Ich" Ichetovkin is the AP carry and team captain for Moscow Five (M5), one of the most dominant League of Legends teams in the world. Ichetovkin is known for playing certain champions in unconventional ways and he has a preference for tanky and farm-heavy mages in the multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) game.
Ichetovkin holds the unofficial record for most minions slain (325) in the the first 25 minutes of a competition at the recent DreamHack 2012 Qualifier against Sypher. One of the only married League of Legends professional players, Ichetovkin was at Gamescom 2012 for the League of Legends European Qualifier. He talks about Riot Games, as well as Intel and its role in the Intel Extreme Masters, in this exclusive interview below.
What are your thoughts about the Intel Extreme Masters and this Cologne stop at Gamescom?
Intel Extreme Masters are really great tournaments. There are qualifier tournaments where you can earn a lot of money, participate, win, and get a lot of fans. You get to go to a lot of new places; they’re held all over the world, so you can visit almost every big country in the world. It’s really good, and I really like that.
Gamescom is really great this time. There are a lot of people, a lot of German players and people who like to watch eSports and computer games. They like to just try new stuff here like some cute games like HAWKEN and Neverwinter Nights. I see a lot of fans of StarCraft, League of Legends, and other games.
What is it about League of Legends that you feel makes it so good for eSports?
I think that League of Legends has depth, so it’s something that a lot of players can play. It doesn’t require a huge amount of skill. If you are not a professional player, you still can play, and League of Legends is free to play.
Riot did really good that they differ between the professional players, non-professional, novice, mediocre, and expert players. You start with level one, no matter what your skill level, and then you just advance more and more. You can always try new heroes, because people change heroes every week. You can buy some heroes, and still earn everything just playing, so it’s free. Still, the people that don’t want to play can buy heroes and other stuff.
When it comes to Moscow Five, talk a little about the success you guys have had since you guys formed?
We formed one week before IEM game qualifiers. We gathered our team, won the qualifier, and Moscow Five told us to join their squad. We decided that it was really good for us. After that, when we went to Kiev and won first place, we started to dominate the scene. Now in League of Legends, almost everyone knows who Moscow Five is.
When it comes to playing eSports and League of Legends, can you talk about how important it is to have high processing power, a super-fast computer, and what role those PCs play?
Almost everyone is using an Intel processor, because it is much better at the moment. If you are streaming, you’re in something like an i7 processor. Even i5 is getting hard lags, and your latency can drop to 20/30, and is pretty unplayable. A lot of people, one year ago, started streaming like that but it is bad for viewers and players, so almost everyone upgraded their computers if they want to stream.
League of Legends is not that much of a high performance game, but it still requires a really good computer. It’s really important to have a good PC and a good monitor, so you feel 100 percent comfortable.
When it comes to looking ahead to the future, here at the IEM booth there are new Ultrabooks everywhere. What impact do you see these powerful laptops having on pro gamers like yourself moving forward?
I’m using a laptop with i7, and I really think that it is really good. If you don’t have a flat that you live in, and you’re always traveling, you can use a laptop. Or if you’re coming to some competition, you can use a laptop and carry it by yourself. If you are practicing, more people use laptops than PCs. Almost all the time, you can bring your laptop with you. If there is a monitor, you will just plug your monitor into the laptop, and it will be perfect.
In addition to Intel Extreme Masters, Gamescom is part of the overall Riot Games $5 million prize Season Two tournament. What are your thoughts about having that much money up for grabs for League of Legends?
I think that is really good. A lot of teams decided to form because of this competition. It’s a really good advertisement for the game. A lot of people are watching it. Hundreds of thousands of people watch League of Legends online at tournaments like IEM. That’s really great. Riot is doing a really great job getting eSports to a higher and higher level.
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3873c85786b40e72b3e12c6048137297 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johngaudiosi/2012/12/20/walt-disney-imagineers-explain-how-video-games-influenced-new-epcot-test-track-attraction/ | Walt Disney Imagineers Explain How Video Games Influenced New EPCOT Test Track Attraction | Walt Disney Imagineers Explain How Video Games Influenced New EPCOT Test Track Attraction
LAKE BUENA VISTA, Florida – In a way it’s ironic that EPCOT, which was designed as a world of the future, is one of the most dated theme parks at Walt Disney World Resort. But Disney is working on improving the park. While the Magic Kingdom recently doubled the size of its Fantasyland area with new rides and attractions from Beauty and the Beast and The Little Mermaid, Walt Disney Imagineers revealed the work they’d been doing with Chevrolet Design to give EPCOT's Test Track ride a brand new look and feel.
The new Test Track was inspired by Disney’s TRON universe, as well as video games. In fact, the new ride offers guests the ability to create their own virtual concept before riding their SimCar through a series of performance tests. Walt Disney Imagineer David Hardiman, who’s a gamer, explains what role video games played in creating this very cool new attraction in the video below.
“Our goals were to give the guests an experience that allowed them to take the role of automotive designer, while leveraging new technology here in the pre show that allows them to design their own concept cars and then they’ll be able to test those designs on the rides and play with them in the post-show,” said Hardiman.
Test Track guests enter an all-new, interactive pre-show area that includes concept cars like the Miray roadster and the Chevrolet EN-V, as well as dynamic media displays that include models and sketches of vehicle design possibilities.
“As a gamer from my own childhood and parents of teenagers who game, we realized that there’s a strong desire in our park-going public now to enjoy interactives wherever they can,” said Hardiman. “So we’ve added short-range RFID association with guests where they will basically take a room key and associate their designs with a database. That will allow us to pull their design up later for them to see on the attraction, as well as interact with in the post-show.”
Just as WDI magicians designed a cool way for kids to interact while waiting for Dumbo in the new Fantasyland, the long lines for Test Track are partially offset with design kiosks. While waiting to board the six-seater vehicles that will travel up to 65 miles per hour, guests can interact with rows of touch screens. These computers become canvasses for amateurs to learn about automotive design. Available in six languages, these interactives have been created for solo designers or families to work together. It’s a great way to help keep busy while waiting for your car to be ready.
At the end of the ride, there are opportunities to take digital photos with the car you designed, and just raced through the Test Track in. Inside the ride, the world of TRON comes to mind with the cool interior color schemes and neon glowing colors amidst black backdrops.
The vehicles featured in this attraction are the first generation of the technology WDI improved for the Disneyland Resort Cars Land area of Disney California Adventure. Radiator Springs Racers brings guests inside the 3D computer-generated world of the Disney Pixar Cars movies. Walt Disney Imagineer Mike Kilbert details that ride in the video below.
During the Grand Opening Celebration of the new Fantasyland, Disney unveiled a flying dragon to guests. The Imagineers aren’t talking about the dragon, which you can see in the video below, but it’s something that is expected to become a part of the Magic Kingdom experience in 2013. It was a surprise event, complete with special music and a lowering of park lights to highlight the fire-breathing beast. And it’s the type of cool technology that keeps Disney fans coming back to Florida again and again.
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e0184fd171379de87011b2bf41fffed1 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johngaudiosi/2013/01/21/actor-danny-devito-explains-how-his-troll-foot-captivated-social-media/ | Actor Danny DeVito Explains How His Troll Foot Captivated Social Media | Actor Danny DeVito Explains How His Troll Foot Captivated Social Media
Producer/director/actor Danny DeVito is best known to younger fans for his acting in It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. But the actor has a special place in the heart of older fans from his work on Taxi. DeVito attended CES 2013 in Los Angeles to promote the new the new Filmmaker Signature Banner Blu-ray releases from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment like Hoffa and The War of the Roses. He took some time after speaking at the Panasonic booth to talk about his infamous troll foot, social media and his favorite technology.
What was it like experiencing CES?
I wish I knew more about electronics, but I’m really happy to be here. It’s really an exciting show; to come to Vegas, 150,000 people in this place, and all the things that they’re showing are non-violent. It’s really nice. You’ve got people looking at keyboards and televisions, and maybe let’s buy this thing or that thing. That’s really cool; I like that.
Are you a techie? Do you like big TVs?
I have a nice TV. I was happy to hear…I went and did the Panasonic Panel at CES and I have a Panasonic TV. It’s really good to know, but the idea is that I’m like Toad of Toad Hall. You know, The Wind and the Willows with Toad? He has to have the best thing that’s coming out?
What do you have that’s cool?
I drive a Leaf, which is a great all-electric car. It’s a fantastic car from Nissan. I wish we had an all-electric car in the United States, besides the Tesla. I know you can, but it’s a very expensive car. When that comes down to $25,000 or $26,000, maybe I’ll think about it, but the idea is that…I’m driving a Leaf and I haven’t been to a gas station in a year. Plug it in, and that’s it.
I’m sure they don’t miss you there.
No, I’m sure they don’t miss me. The oil companies are doing okay.
What are your thoughts on how technology expanded in entertainment? Now you just have so many choices for entertainment.
Right. As an audience, I do everything. I watch my Blu-rays now, because they’re fantastic and things look great on them. I have a nice TV. I go on my computer and watch YouTube all the time. I love it; I just think it’s great. It’s so educational. You can go for any subject you want, whether you want to talk, or just go on and look up your favorite anthropologist. You go to Jared Diamond, or you look at your favorite thinker in the world; Noam Chomsky; whatever you do. You can look at debates. You can educate yourself sitting in your house. It’s really a wonderful thing; I love it. Geography, or anything you want. Politics, history; it’s all available to you. It’s amazing. I think the more people get into that, the better.
What are your thoughts on social media?
I like my iPhone. I tweet. I put my foot out on Twitter every day…not every day. When I see a picture that I really want Troll Foot to be in, I put him out. I’ve been doing it for a couple of years, and I have a lot of fans. I do say things once in a while that I feel close to, and I get feedback. Some people say, “That’s right. We agree with you.” Some people say, “You’re trampling on some amendment or something.” I think it’s a cool thing to embrace and to hold on to people.
In my life, as an audience, I feel really cool about it. Just keep your head on straight. Don’t do anything radical where you’re going to get sent to prison or anything, because you get curtailed. I don’t want to start getting really into that kind of stuff, but I’m just saying, just keep your head on straight; calm, take it easy. Live in the moment.
As a producer, what are your thoughts on what tablets opening up for entertainment?
I’m working on a movie now called St. Sebastian. I used an Alexa Camera. I cut it on Final Cut. In terms of everybody making movies with their iPhones, Androids, or anything. Any kind of device that you can record on, you can make a little film, load it up to YouTube, and send it to your friends. I think it’s a great freeing kind of thing.
As a producer, my experience has only been with the studios, except for this movie now, St. Sebastian that I’m working on. This is a different animal. This is totally independently financed. I’m doing it basically with a handful of people, and it’s a lot of fun. It’s freeing and kind of cool.
Not too restricted there, right?
No, no restrictions. You have an obligation to your audience, and serve the script as a director. I love doing the show, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. We shoot three cameras, sometimes four, and we have a ball. I just act in the show. The boys write it, and Kaitlin and I are in it with them; Charlie, Glenn, and Rob. They edit it, put it all together, and it’s fun. I think where we’re going, I hope, is exciting.
What’s your favorite gadget?
I travel with my iPhone, basically. Mostly, that’s it. I text and do everything. I’ve got all kinds of apps now; Google Maps. I go everywhere and look at it to where I am right now. I could figure out how to get out of this building, and that’s something I wouldn’t be able to do normally.
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797a9bc9e3267ad2c4e27d48ad6b6b0e | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johngaudiosi/2013/03/07/gamers-vent-about-simcity-server-issues-on-social-communities-like-reddit-and-gameskinny/ | Gamers Vent About SimCity Server Issues On Social Communities Like Reddit And GameSkinny | Gamers Vent About SimCity Server Issues On Social Communities Like Reddit And GameSkinny
While EA Maxis is working on the server issues that’s still keeping a lot of avid SimCity PC gamers locked out of the gorgeous new world, gamers are getting mixed messages from Electronic Arts customer support. Frustration has been building on gaming social sites like Reddit and Gameskinny. EA sent me the below response when I contacted them about this on-going issue:
We are experiencing extremely high server volume and it’s preventing some players from gaining access to the game. Our server team is working around the clock to resolve this issue so that we can get the rest of our fans into the game. We are aggressively undergoing maintenance on our servers to add the necessary capacity to meet the demand. Players may continue to play throughout the weekend but we want to note that performance will fluctuate during this time. We thank our fans for their continued patience.
For some gamers, it’s been over a decade of technological advances since the last SimCity was released. EA Maxis has crafted a beautiful new interactive world that looks like a model railroad city come to life. And the game has been receiving rave reviews from the press (many of whom got to play it early before these issues arose.)
But DRM issues have continued to plague the game as EA hasn’t been able to keep its servers up with the demand from fans. A similar problem plagued the launch of Blizzard Entertainment’s Diablo III, another critically-acclaimed game that just couldn’t keep up with demand.
Amy White, senior editor at GameSkinny.com, has been monitoring the situation and taking fan feedback on her social community. She explains what Digital Rights Management (DRM) is all about, why Maxis’ good gameplay is useless when gamers can’t access it right away and why DRM could cause a problem with next gen consoles like PlayStation 4 and the next Xbox in this exclusive interview.
What role is DRM playing in launch problems like Blizzard had with Diablo III and now EA is having with SimCity?
The core issue is the reliance on a centralized server or any centralized resource for the game. It adds significant complexity over a standalone system. If you deploy a standalone game to millions of computers then you only have to verify core quality of the game. It just has to run on the customer's computer. If you have the same install base with Online DRM then you have to take the brunt of that traffic and activity. In addition the first wave of traffic is always very, very high for popular new releases. You have to take that onrush of traffic and there is complexity in predicting it. In the case of these two games, they also have significant centralized gameplay elements such as the auction house for D3 and inter-city trade for SimCity.
Why do publishers insist on DRM?
They want to defend their investment in the game. The lure of Online DRM is that it is something that comes along with online play essentially for free. For the consumer there is typically real benefit in gameplay. Unfortunately, that is often marred by launch experience. They insist on it because online requirements lead to a natural DRM that theoretically provides value to everyone involved. The problem is that, at launch, the game companies aren't fulfilling their end of the bargain to provide a smooth gameplay experience.
What impact is this having with gamers and their relationship with these game makers?
Gamers love the new game rush. That first few hours with a new game, when the game is very good, are what builds the initial loyalty and love of the game. Launch issues cause lasting issues with community, trust and momentum for a game. The relationship is marred because it is leading to very negative experiences at the most critical marketing period for the game where word of mouth should take off, but is instead dampened by this very poor launch experience. The ones with bad tastes then go online and express their frustrations through articles, tweets and bad rankings on places like Amazon.com.
What are gamers saying about the way EA Maxis is handling the SimCity server issues?
On GameSkinny, Reddit, and others the consensus is that EA is communicating very poorly. My own experience has been that the UI doesn't say the servers are down then their site has one bit of info, their forums aren't being updated in a timely manner with info, the launcher will link to threads that are then missing. The only way to get a full picture is to read two sites, their forums, and check the launcher. They just aren't communicating very well with the players at all.
How much of a gap is there between what customer service is telling gamers and what EA should be doing?
I think that gap is huge. Look at this customer service article: http://www.gameskinny.com/b9yo3/the-way-ea-is-handling-simcity-is-not-okay Hatam says you can request a refund, then customer service says you can request it all you want, but we won't honor it. That is just horrible. That may look like simple communication breakdown at EA, but it stinks of abject disregard for your customer and borders on being deceptive.
Gamers are a devoted bunch, but how far can they be pushed when it comes to issues like this?
Gamers have shown they can be pushed pretty far, which is why it continues to happen with new games. A short server stability period at launch has come to be expected, and is for the most part expected and understood. Past the 24 hour mark you are getting into new territory. All reports are that the core gameplay of SimCity is good. Unfortunately, the online aspect is a barrier between the gamer and that experience.
Why do you think beta test periods for games like Diablo III and SimCity don't prepare companies for these issues?
In SimCity's case they didn't actually test the online play at scale and it shows. Basic operations like claiming a city, which I wasn't able to do in the beta weekend are having issues. In Diablo III's case I think they ran into more subtle architectural issues. SimCity's problems seem to have been issues that are addressable with more thorough Beta testing.
What lessons were missed by EA after what Blizzard dealt with?
When you have an IP like Diablo and SimCity that has rabid devoted fans you want to shift the economic calculation towards defending that reputation. You should invest more in testing and building your system with the expectation that the players will stampede. Maybe that isn't the lesson they should have learned, but as a SimCity fan from day one it is the lesson I wish they had learned.
As we hear rumors of consoles moving towards an always-connected next gen experience, how might these types of PC DRM issues migrate to PS4 and Xbox 360?
It's a bit scary. Will the PS4 shift the game install and update experience problems of the PS3 to online problems? I sure hope not. Single player gameplay is fun and rewarding in its own right. Adding multi-player connectivity to everything does not actually improve some games or some gamer's experience. I think it is important to defend the single player experience.
Sometimes I just want to sit down and play a game by myself. Sony and Microsoft need to be very careful about how tightly they couple the online portion of the platform to the game's core gameplay.
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b86f39da74430027cca33794c9b3082d | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johngaudiosi/2013/03/10/ea-maxis-reports-simcity-server-problem-wont-be-100-percent-solved-for-a-few-more-days/ | EA Maxis Reports SimCity Server Problem Won't Be '100 Percent' Solved For A Few More Days | EA Maxis Reports SimCity Server Problem Won't Be '100 Percent' Solved For A Few More Days
Electronic Arts continues to battle a horrendous launch of what was expected to be one of the biggest PC games of 2013. The latest news on SimCity from the EA Maxis Studio General Manager Lucy Bradshaw is that the game publisher is close to an “all clear” for gamers to finally seamlessly experience the critically acclaimed PC game.
Those gamers who have been able to circumvent the always-online Digital Rights Management (DRM) issues have already logged nearly 8 million hours of gameplay. Just think of how much larger that number would have been if the most diehard fans could have logged in on launch day, or the next day, or the next, and so on. It’s now approaching nearly a week and SimCity is still not functioning at 100 percent.
I know gamers who have tried for three days straight to play the game and have yet to be able to access the game. EA has been working on this problem, which seems to be dragging on longer than Blizzard Entertainment’s Diablo III launch – a game that went on to sell like gangbusters and also set a launch record with over 3.5 million copies in its first 24 hours.
Bradshaw wrote on the SimCity blog that her studio has reduced game crashes by 92% from day one. But a few more days will be needed before she can issue the “all clear” for gamers.
“Tonight and tomorrow we’ll be monitoring each server and gameplay metrics to ensure that the service remains strong and game is playing great,” wrote Bradshaw. “We need a few more days of data before we can assure you that the problem is completely solved and the game is running at 100 percent.”
Hidden beneath an endless stream of negative stories focusing on the problems with DRM, the poor way Electronic Arts handled the situation (from customer service to PR), and why the company wasn’t prepared for such a huge groundswell of gamers (given the pre-orders and hype leading into launch); one thing to note is that the game has been getting solid reviews. Gaming press, for the most part, has been much kinder to EA than actual gamers when it comes to reviews. Metacritic.com has SimCity receiving a 71 out of 100 aggregate sites, while gamers have given it a 1.6 out of 10. Those who don’t like the game, including Destructoid.com (40 out of 100), have cited the server issues as being the main problem. Gamers have also blasted EA on Metacritic because of being kicked off in the middle of games, if they can get on at all.
“The good news is that tens of thousands of new players are streaming into the game every day and the confidence our fans have shown is truly humbling,” said Bradshaw. “Our biggest fear was that people who love this franchise would be scared off by bad reviews about the connectivity issues.”
While EA is offering gamers who purchased SimCity a free game because of the launch issues, they stopped short of letting frustrated gamers return their game. In general, PC games have always been hard to return to any store (with the exception of exchanging it for the same title). And the used game industry, which is thriving at stores like GameStop, focuses on consoles and portables, not PC titles. So a lot of frustrated SimCity fans are stuck with a game that won’t work “100 percent” for a few more days. And they’re likely not too thrilled with a free game for their trouble. Fans have been complaining now for almost a week.
A few months from now, it will be interesting to see how soon fans forget. Some of these same SimCity fans also took to the Internet when they weren’t happy about Mass Effect 3’s ending. That’s a completely different situation, but if a Mass Effect fan also spent the past week trying to log into SimCity and had yet another bad experience; it’s harder to forgive and forget.
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4a296510b14bfffd13ec93098c7eb4b7 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johngaudiosi/2013/05/26/fast-furious-6-racing-to-275-5-million-global-box-office-while-activision-game-crashes/ | Fast & Furious 6 Races To $317 Million Global Box Office While Activision Game Crashes | Fast & Furious 6 Races To $317 Million Global Box Office While Activision Game Crashes
Vin Diesel and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson tag-teamed to drive Fast & Furious 6 to number one domestically with $98.5 million over the weekend. The sequel, which also stars Michelle Rodriguez and Gina Carano, topped $120 million domestically over the Memorial Day weekend on the way to $317 million worldwide box office. That gives the sixth film in the racing franchise the second best opening of the year behind Disney and Marvel’s Iron Man 3.
Over the past 12 years, gamers have seen different variations of the Fast & Furious franchise in video game form. Gameloft released multiple mobile games based on the movie franchise up until this year when Kabam took over the license with The Fast and Furious 6. Namco Bandai released The Fast and the Furious on PlayStation 2 and PSP back in 2006 in tandem with The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift movie. Raw Thrills has released a pair of Fast and Furious sitdown arcade machines that can be connected for multiplayer racing. And now Activision has entered the race with Fast & Furious: Showdown, which offers challenges from all six movies.
There are two very different Activision game publishers out there. The one most people know develops “AAA” games like Treyarch’s Call of Duty: Black Ops II and Infinity Ward’s upcoming Call of Duty: Ghosts, as well as the Skylanders franchise, Spider-Man, James Bond and Transformers video games. Then there’s the “other” Activision, which picks up Hollywood movie licenses like Battleship, Men In Black 3 and The Fast and Furious and churns out quick games aimed at the mass market. These games are handled by a different external public relations company than any of the “core” games and often review code isn’t even sent out, because these games won’t be breaking any entertainment records or getting much positive buzz, if any.
In fact, these games are almost guaranteed to be horrible. Fast & Furious Showdown received a 27 out of 100 on Metacritic.com reviewers and a 0.9 out of 10 from gamer reviews. The game, which featured voice-alikes instead of the real actors, has been ripped apart by the press for its repetitive gameplay, unbalanced difficulty and even its boring soundtrack. In fact, the only thing fast about this game seems to be the speed at which it was developed as a “rush job.” And the furious are those poor souls who actually spent $40 on this title.
Fans of the film franchise, which has earned over $1.8 billion to date globally, who want to play a game should try out the Kabam iOS title. It’s free-to-play, so there’s no cost involved. And it received a 63 out of 100 on Metacritic.com, which is really good for any Hollywood licensed game. (Namco Bandai’s older The Fast and the Furious game received a 58.)
It’s strange that no developer has been able to create a great game based on this franchise. I’ve played the two arcade games and they’re fun, especially for multiplayer. They also do a good job of replicating the sitdown feeling of driving, complete with the working gear shift, pedals and steering wheel.
With all the resources that Activision has, if the publisher applied just some talent behind a licensed product like Fast & Furious it could create a decent game. The odds are the game maker realizes it won’t be able to compete with “real” racing franchises like Sony’s Gran Turismo 6 or Microsoft’s Forza Motorsport 5. But those are huge games that cost a lot of money to make. Activision already makes the official NASCAR The Game: Inside Line (72 out of 100 on Metacritic.com), so it has the developers to make quality racing games.
With Universal Pictures already rushing Fast & Furious 7 to theaters with Jason Statham joining the cast for a July 11, 2014 release, there’s still some time to try to figure out this franchise in the gaming realm. Perhaps Kabam has the best opportunity here, if it expands the game beyond Apple iPhone and iPad devices. Smartphones and tablets have proven to be great for racing games and with the advances in technology, including the ability to play these games on a big screen, the line between mobile and home is blurring.
Given the “acting” that Diesel and some of the other cast members bring to this fun popcorn movie franchise, there’s no need to bring any Hollywood talent on board for the gaming side anyway. If Kabam can keep its game free and up the quality even more, fans of the franchise may finally have a quality game. I just don’t understand why Activision keeps making these shoddy Hollywood games. Maybe they sell well overseas, where the movie franchise has always done better anyway.
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50698ebeff67586d76f749f423bc32d3 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johngaudiosi/2013/05/31/its-too-early-to-judge-microsoft-xbox-one-and-sony-playstation-4/ | It's Too Early To Judge Microsoft Xbox One And Sony PlayStation 4 | It's Too Early To Judge Microsoft Xbox One And Sony PlayStation 4
These days, negative press is what seems to drive the game journalism business. Writers specialize in finding multiple negative angles around a story in an attempt to garner hits from fan boys (a term called nerd baiting). The Internet and social media have literally made everyone a critic and given everyone a voice, both for good and for bad.
I’ll be the first to admit that Microsoft “underwhelmed” me with their Xbox Reveal and the introduction of the Xbox One. Where were the games? I can’t say that Sony blew me away with PlayStation 4, but at least their presentation featured next gen game demos (and their event became better in hindsight post-May 21). But we haven’t seen either of these consoles truly in action yet. That will come at E3 in June, where we get our first hands-on with the games – the most important aspect of any console transition.
I’m willing to hold my judgments on these two consoles until I’ve actually seen and played the games. Of course, many bloggers and writers never leave their homes, or home towns, so their view of the industry comes from watching from afar, and offering opinions without any true reporting or “work.” Everyone is free to voice their opinions, but let’s actually at least find out the details about the new consoles before calling either Sony or Microsoft the devil incarnate.
When it comes to the third player in the next gen race, Nintendo has been out long enough to judge the Wii U, which is looking more and more like the Sega Dreamcast. I was a big fan of the Dreamcast until Xbox and PlayStation 2 came out, and then Sega’s last console just collected dust in my cabinet. Nintendo is doing some innovative things with its GamePad and its gaming potential, but the system has been plagued by a lot of ports and not enough original key franchises. Even Nintendo will have E3 to roll out some of the big guns that only it has and (perhaps) announce a price cut to spur sales of its hardware. The good news for Nintendo is that it relies on its own original games (which account for roughly 60% of its sales, according to Michael Pachter, video game analyst for Wedbush Securities) much more than either Sony of Microsoft (which only receive about 6 to 8 percent of sales from their exclusive franchises). So I’m not counting Nintendo out.
But the real focus at E3 will obviously be Sony and Microsoft for the battle for not just gaming, but the entire living room experience. Make no mistake about it, both Microsoft and Sony will be offering very similar entertainment offerings in addition to next gen games. Microsoft just opted to save everything until E3 on the gaming side and Sony opted to table its entertainment options until likely its June 10 press conference. Not everyone is upset about the potential of next gen gaming, especially those who have experienced this type of transition in the past and have the intelligence and patience to wait until all the cards are laid out on the table before making a call.
“I’m just not one of these naysayers who’s just going to beat up on Sony and Microsoft,” said industry game veteran Mark Long, CEO of Meteor Entertainment, publisher of HAWKEN. “I think they really are expanding the gap between packaged goods and digital very intelligently. And for journalists and bloggers that want to burn that house down, or just point out how the game industry is basically devastated and is never going to f-ing come back because they were so ineffectual in managing that transition; I don’t want to see that happen to games.”
Long, who’s not making games for either Microsoft or Sony, believes the Xbox One entertainment offerings are well designed. The Xbox One will help Long get rid of multiple boxes that sit under his TV right now, thanks to its Blu-ray support and entertainment functionality. As long as Microsoft doesn’t charge $1,000 for the new console, Long is going to buy the device.
I contacted Cliff Bleszinski, the former Design Director at Epic Games, about the wave of negativity surrounding Microsoft (and to a degree) Sony as we head into E3.
“I'm reading the book The Joy of Hate, which feels very much right wing/conservative leaning (The author, Greg Gutfeld, is a Fox News regular, even),” replied Bleszinski. “I normally lean left, but I think it's important to read the other side of things occasionally to see how that brain thinks. One passage stood out to me in particular:
‘In the modern world of phony outrage and repressive intolerance, it's all about feeling important, and waiting for the next person to screw up so you can do it all over again.’
This applies so very much to the average angry, vocal gamer fan right now. They love creating a storm online, a cause, and rallying behind it before hearing the full story or reasoning as to why things may be the way they are. Let the dust settle at E3 and launch, and then throw your stones.”
Of course, Microsoft didn’t win over any fans by ignoring games and focusing on entertainment when it literally had the world’s attention to itself. They also continue to dig themselves into a hole by not answering specific questions that are core to many gamers – like exactly how used games will play on its box and how it is going to work with retailers and game publishers to potentially take a cut of used games profits. GameStop made over $1 billion in used game sales last year, so this is a big pot and a very important topic for both hardcore and casual gamers.
“I think that the truth is that Microsoft has no intention of disrupting the status quo of used games, and that this is an example of the gaming press running amok,” said Pachter. “They are requiring a download of the DVD file to the hard drive for ‘instant’ access, and that causes problems with verification, in case the disc is copied more than once. They intend to disable the first download if a second download file is created, nothing more sinister than that, but that requires a periodic Internet connection for validation. The press assumes all sorts of sinister things, and they are jumping to conclusions.”
Pachter believes Microsoft should fix this by making a statement, but he doesn’t understand what’s taking them so long.
When I contacted GameStop to further discuss the used games issue, they told me they have to wait for Microsoft to finalize everything before they can comment further – beyond the fact that all three consoles will play used games.
“The rumors out of the UK that retailers have been briefed is complete BS, and is frankly embarrassing,” said Pachter.
E3 is just around the corner, and while there will be plenty of new stories posted by bloggers and writers between now and the June 10 press conferences from Microsoft and Sony; I believe the negative criticism and bashing is the wrong way to head into the most exciting event of the year for gamers. Whether you’re a Sony, Microsoft or Nintendo gamer (or like all three platforms), these are the companies making your console games today. You certainly don’t have to love them, but let’s give these guys until E3 before judging all the facts (or at least as many as they’ll reveal at the show). I know I’m looking forward to seeing what the console future has in store.
Related on Forbes:
Gallery: Microsoft Reveals The Xbox One 9 images View gallery
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e9fe68ae05140f96c47db59a10538fb3 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johngaudiosi/2013/06/09/xbox-one-and-playstation-4-could-be-the-end-of-video-game-consoles/ | Xbox One And PlayStation 4 Could Be The End Of Video Game Consoles | Xbox One And PlayStation 4 Could Be The End Of Video Game Consoles
The world will focus on the next generation of gaming at E3 in Los Angeles this week, as over 35,000 industry professionals gather at the LA Convention Center. Sony and Microsoft kick things off on June 10 with press conferences to tout the new PlayStation 4 and Xbox One consoles, which will launch this fall. But the game industry is evolving in such a way that some analysts believe that there won’t be a PlayStation 5 or Xbox Two.
“Will there be a next generation in about eight years? It won’t be in the shape and form we know today with consoles,” said Peter Warman, CEO of research firm Newzoo. “It could be something you plug into TV and gives you access to all the stuff. You might want an Xbox dongle for exclusive IP that works with other screens. I don’t think it will be a box like we have now.”
I realize this forecast will alarm hardcore gamers, but Warman has numbers to back up his statement. If you look at the current gaming landscape, mobile and free-to-play games are driving the market today. While huge franchises like Activision’s Call of Duty bring in over $1 billion a year, there are fewer big games being developed today. And the industry hasn’t topped its spending pinnacle of 2009 when console gamers bought $14.1 billion on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Wii. DFC Intelligence video game analyst David Cole believes the Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and Wii U spending will peak at about $12 billion by 2016.
“There’s not a lot of room for growth when it comes to spending on console games in Western markets,” said Warman. “Today’s consumer has three or four screens and the majority of gamers play across all of these screens. It used to be a 50/50 split between PC and console, but now mobile – both smartphones and tablets – and even Smart TVs, are impacting the games space.”
While Sony, Microsoft and Sony might not be as dominant as they were in the past, Warman said the overall market is slowly rising. He expects a bump around the launch of next gen consoles this fall with cool titles and better performance. But in the long-run, consoles will remain relatively flat because the amount of money being spent and people paying for console games is a mature market.
Michael Pachter, video game analyst for Wedbush Securities, believes PS4 will retail for $350 and Xbox One will cost $400 (before any potential subsidies from signing an Internet or Xbox Live contract – something being done today with Xbox 360). PJ McNealy, president of Digital World Research, believes the consoles will cost between $399 and $499. But regardless of these prices, the consoles will be in short supply this fall.
“Historically, no console has sold more than 1 to 2 million units in North America in the first holiday on the market,” said McNealy.
Pachter believes Sony and Microsoft will only have a supply of 3 million Xbox Ones and 3 million PS4s this fall for the entire world. So the growth for this year remains the expected price drops that will be coming before fall for the PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii. (I’d also expect a Wii U price drop from Nintendo.)
“The tail for Xbox 360 and PS3 should last till they are at $149,” said Pachter. “Wii is already there, so that tail will be shorter.”
The newer market that shows plenty of growth opportunities is the free-to-play space, which is now available across all screens, and the mobile market, especially with lower-priced tablets entering the market from big companies like Apple, Samsung and Acer. According to the NPD Group, the number of American gamers has risen from 205.9 million in 2012 to 209.9 million this year. Many of these new gamers aren’t coming to consoles, but to mobile and free-to-play.
“More gamers, in general, and more paying gamers, specifically, is a direct result of the combination of free-to-play games, growth in economy and connectivity in non-mature markets and the uptake of smartphone and tablet gaming,” said Warman. “Initially these new gamers do not spend much but as average spending for these newcomers is expected to rise, the overall market will continue to show healthy growth rates. As a whole that is. It remains a challenge for many game companies that consumers now spread their budget across four typical screens instead of two (PC, TV). Also, Western markets remain relatively flat as a whole as gaming has a mature position amongst consumers and represents a certain value in a person’s life, regardless of how and where he spends his or her budget.”
When you factor in the speed at which tablets are advancing and the lower price points that Moore’s Law provides, the writing could be on the wall for consoles in the near future. A recent study by IDC and App Annie found that consumer spending on mobile games has grown to three times that of portable game devices like Nintendo 3DS and PS Vita. Tablets are already having an impact on console gamers, which is one reason more developers are connecting console worlds to tablets as second screen companions.
While E3 will answer a lot of questions on who will take the lead in the next generation console battle, the game industry is evolving. And this next gen could be the end of the console as we know it. Not that that’s a bad thing.
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94d30a3034faaae713c4b45df2349bea | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johngaudiosi/2013/06/15/sony-playstation-4-launch-edition-already-sold-out-at-amazon/ | Sony PlayStation 4 Launch Edition Already Sold Out At Amazon | Sony PlayStation 4 Launch Edition Already Sold Out At Amazon
Gamers are speaking with their wallets following E3 2013, a show that was dominated by Sony PlayStation 4 in the next gen battle. Amazon has already sold out of the $400 PlayStation 4 launch edition of the next gen console, which will be available on day one of Sony’s launch. Sony is still selling PS4 as a $400 Standard Edition, but is not guaranteeing when gamers will receive that version this fall.
PS4 is also being bundled as a $500 bundle with two different versions, one including Electronic Arts’ Battlefield 4 and PS Plus and one including Guerilla Games’ Killzone Shadow Fall and PS Plus. There are also two other bundles retailing for $460, one including Sony’s Knack and the other including Ubisoft’s Watch Dog.
The Xbox One Day One Edition is still available for $500. Amazon is not currently selling any Xbox One bundles. Microsoft ’s Forza Motorsport 5 is the only Xbox One game in the Top 20 bestselling games list on the site. Sony has three PS4 games (Watch Dogs, Battlefield 4 and Killzone Shadow Fall) in the Top 20. Gamers are also buying the Dualshock 4 PS4 controller and the PlayStation 4 Camera. Three of the PS4 bundles (all but the Knack bundle) are in the Top 20 in Amazon sales.
While the PS4 Standard Edition is listed number one and Xbox One Day One Edition is listed number two on Amazon, sources have told me that PS4 is outselling Xbox One by two to one. I’ve emailed Amazon to confirm these numbers, but have not heard back. Baird video game analyst Colin Sebastian confirmed that PS4 is outselling Xbox One on both Amazon and GameStop , but has not revealed any specific numbers.
Amazon is currently running a Facebook poll asking consumers which console they’ll purchase, PS4 or Xbox One. With only six hours left in the poll, 95% of the over 40,000 gamers who replied said they’d be purchasing a PS4.
Michael Pachter, video game analyst for Wedbush Securities, expects Sony to sell 12 to 15 million PS4s in its first year. He expects an unsubsidized Xbox One will sell 9 to 10 million in its first year.
“I still expect a subsidy for the Xbox One, and each $100 in lower price probably represents 4 to 5 million units annually,” said Pachter. “At E3, Sony highlighted its used game and DRM policies, and that will make a difference to the hardcore. With that said, there are a lot if Microsoft fan boys out there, so it may not mean a share shift of more than 1 to 2 million consoles. I don't think ‘new’ customers will understand or care that much.”
But those numbers are for the first entire year at retail shelves. Pachter believes Sony and Microsoft will only have about 3 million consoles available worldwide for launch. PJ McNealy, analyst for Digital World Research, said that historically no console has sold more than 1 to 2 million units in North America in a launch window.
Even when consoles are popular, like Nintendo Wii was at launch, supply is shared across the world and the demand doesn’t catch up until the following year. Early numbers are showing a demand for PS4 and Xbox One, but the strong showing by Nintendo Wii U at E3 hasn’t bumped its next gen console into the Top 20 on Amazon and none of the new Wii U first party exclusives have made the list.
I was able to check out both PS4 and Xbox One games with hands-on demos at E3 this past week. Infamous Second Son stood out in the Sony first party camp, along with Driveclub, Killzone Shadow Fall and Knack. Microsoft had a solid racer with Forza Motorsport 5 and Capcom’s Dead Rising 3 offered an open world zombie experience. Respawn’s Titanfall (an Xbox One, Xbox 360 and PC exclusive) stood out in the crowded shooter genre with its micture of giant Titans and on-foot pilots gameplay.
In talking to a developer who wished to remain anonymous, gamers will see a difference on Day One when they compare third party PS4 games to Xbox One head-to-head. The developer told me the PS4 is 40 percent more powerful than Xbox One and games like Call of Duty Ghosts will be noticeably different out of the gate.
In the past, Xbox 360 games looked better out of the gate and over time PS3 games progressively improved to the point where games like The Last of Us and Beyond: Two Souls stand out even against some next gen titles. But if this differentiator holds true, not only will Xbox One games have DRM issues and no rental options and limited used game opportunities, the games won’t look as good as PS4 titles. That sounds like a perfect storm of negativity for the hardcore gamers.
This processing power issue also could be a potential reason behind the latest controversy that has emerged for Microsoft at E3, in which photos were taken of some Xbox One games running on Windows 7 PCs with NVIDIA graphics cards. Sony PS4 developers took to Twitter saying PS4 demos were running on PS4 dev kits. I know playing PS4 games behind closed doors that the PS4 was clearly visible as I played.
Microsoft certainly has a lot of work to do between now and its November launch to win over gamers. It’s the hardcore that are voting now early on sites like Amazon and GameStop. There’s also a much larger audience to connect with. But right now the number of negative stories surrounding Xbox One far outweigh anything positive.
Related on Forbes:
Gallery: PlayStation 4 Hardware 7 images View gallery
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c116606934a1fc4a96bb54f6329b282f | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johngaudiosi/2013/06/23/disney-infinity-continues-to-expand-monsters-university-and-pixar-franchises/ | Disney Infinity Continues To Expand Monsters University And Pixar Franchises | Disney Infinity Continues To Expand Monsters University And Pixar Franchises
Disney Interactive Media Group is still licensing select movies for stand-alone game experiences (like Disney’s Planes), but the August 18 launch of Disney Infinity will literally change the licensing game moving forward for Walt Disney Pictures’ live action and animated movies. Monsters University, which just debuted at the box office, will join The Lone Ranger as two big tentpole movie experiences that will expand within the new gaming platform.
Disney Infinity, which will be available across multiple consoles, isn’t just a game. It’s an expandable gaming world (similar in some ways to Activision’s Skylanders) that can plug in new stand-alone play sets featuring the casts of movies like Cars, Pirates of the Caribbean and The Incredibles. These original story lines will offer 6 to 10 hours of gameplay, which is about the average that traditional stand-alone Hollywood licensed games would offer.
“A great example of expanding these movie worlds is Monsters University and what’s going on with Fear Tech, which is the rival university that we’re exploring in this game,” said John Pleasants, co-president of Disney Interactive. “There’s a whole story line there that is not part of the Monsters University movie. It’s additive, not just drafting off of the movie.”
Bill Roper, vice president and general manager of product development at Disney Interactive Media Group, told me at E3 that the play set will focus on two main activities built around scaring, where you complete a series of tests in the School of Scaring, and pranking, where you perform mini-games like stealing rival mascot Archie the Scare Pig and toilet papering Fear Tech’s campus. Gamers can also fully explore the campus introduced in the hit prequel. This game includes elements that Pixar didn’t have the time to add within the constraints of the linear story. Moving forward, Disney Infinity will give Pixar and other Disney creatives the ability to explore new elements in the interactive space with this platform.
Another key differentiator for Disney Infinity is that it allows Monsters U characters like Mike, Sulley and Randy to interact with other film characters like Wreck-It Ralph, The Lone Ranger, Captain Jack Sparrow and Buzz Lightyear within the Toy Box mode. Each play set also has gadgets like Monster U’s Give Em A Hand Launcher, Mike’s Bike, Phone It In Launcher and a Toilet Paper Launcher that can be used in Toy Box. The way Disney is connecting these worlds is by viewing the physical toys you can collect as real toys within the virtual worlds, so it’s the toys that are interacting in these worlds, not the “real” movie characters.
“Players can unlock toys in play sets and bring them together in toy box mode,” said Pleasants. “Gadgets and vehicles from TRON can be brought together with characters like Vanellope von Schweetz. Each play set has a new world, an original Disney story and new play mechanics. We work with screenwriters to expand the franchise to create new experiences where players can interact with characters like Edna from Monsters University.”
In the case of The Lone Ranger, Disney is really going for the toy look and feel with this play set. The violence from the PG-13 movie has been toned down to the point where the six-shooters have orange caps on the end just like a toy would. Roper told me the focus of this play set was on trains and horses. Players will be able to build their own train tracks and customize their trains. Horses will interact with trains, just as they do in the film. Gameplay will include stories involving local gangs as well as Butch Cavendish.
“Disney certainly in the past has made games that have tied directly to story lines of movies when they’re launching, but we’ve tried to move a little bit away from that strategy,” said Pleasants. “There are obviously some constraints when you’re building a game that’s tied to a specific story line and you can’t get that story line until what I’m going to call a little bit late in the game. You don’t have enough time to make quality the absolute mandate and you can compromise in the game, and that can ultimately have you not achieve the result that you want. We stepped back from this very clearly and said, ‘It’s great gameplay first.’ This has to be great gameplay and true to property. It does not need to be tethered to any one specific movie release or movie story line.”
Disney Interactive has been struggling of late. The company recently closed Junction Point Studios after Disney Epic Mickey 2 failed to recapture the magic of the original. Roper told me that Mickey, Oswald and other classic Disney characters could be added to Disney Infinity in the future. There’s the potential to add them as characters, as well as an entire play set.
The game company had its typical huge booth at E3, but the main focal point was Disney Infinity and the 2014 Harmonix game, Fantasia: Music Evolved. Avalanche Software has spent a reported $100 million developing this game since 2010. Roper told me this game was in development before Activision and Toys for Bob unleashed Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventures in 2011. That franchise has made of $1 billion across two games (with a third coming this fall) and lots of toys.
Disney will be going head-to-head this Christmas against Skylanders: Swap Force, the first game in Activision’s franchise to allow for swappable characters (changing the dynamic of characters’ in-game capabilities). Disney is bringing its iconic worlds and great characters to Disney Infinity, which should compete well against the new Skylanders phenomenon – as long as the gameplay is there. I’ve been able to play several play sets and these games are a lot of fun as stand-alone adventures, but the real imagination comes to life with the toy box gameplay and the ability to make all kinds of new worlds.
There are certainly enough kids out there to support two toy/video game hybrids. The new Skylanders game continues on the trademark platform-style gameplay that has made the franchise one of the top games and top toy lines over the past year. Having Monsters University, a double-dose of Johnny Depp characters, and plenty of other Pixar characters along for the ride should help Disney as it releases one platform that could be the basis for all movies and interactive entertainment moving forward.
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6a1faa9de24ffba8aa1f19ae629b5ce5 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johngaudiosi/2013/06/27/jagex-ceo-mark-gerhard-discusses-runescape-3-and-transformers-universe/ | Jagex CEO Mark Gerhard Discusses RuneScape 3 And Transformers Universe | Jagex CEO Mark Gerhard Discusses RuneScape 3 And Transformers Universe
The United Kingdom’s largest independent games studio is coming off a record year in 2012 in which it saw profits rise above $76 million for the first time in history. The free-to-play game maker is preparing to launch RuneScape 3, the first HTML 5 game, and Transformers Universe later this year. The developer recently released Ace of Spades and Carnage Racing.
Founded in Cambridge in 2001, the studio has grown from four employees to 550. Mark Gerhard, CEO of Jagex, told me that the company embraced the now-popular free-to-play business model completely by accident. When the dot-com bubble burst, the ad revenue dried up for RuneScape, so Jagex decided to charge for a premium VIP experience with extra content, skills and other features and offer the a large portion of the game for free. Today, the game has over 200 million registered users.
Michael Pachter, video game analyst for Wedbush Securities, believes RuneScape has 2 million actively engaged players and 20 million more casual players. There were 70,000 people playing concurrently online at the time of this post. Pachter estimates that active players are spending approximately $7.60 per month on the fantasy online game.
“Runescape’s unique in that the free game, which is a subsection of the game, has tens of thousands of hours of gameplay so you don’t ever finish,” said Gerhard. “And then to become a member is more like a VIP experience, so it’s really a subscription game at heart. We introduced micro payments into Runescape a year ago and that’s been well received. With Transformers Universe, which we will be launching later this year, that will be almost exclusively micro payments. We launched Ace of Spades late last year and that’s just a pay once to download. We look at what’s right for the game when it comes to the business models.”
Gerhard has watched as big companies like Electronic Arts and Trion Worlds shift games like Star Wars The Old Republic and Rift from a paid subscription model to the free-to-play model.
“With the launch of so many titles there’s big marketing spent and the cost of acquisition goes up something like 60 percent year on year,” said Gerhard. “I challenge you to find someone who’s actually able to spend a dollar and get a $1.10 back. I think a lot of people are just spending money now, and that’s not sustainable. That’s not a way to run a business. It is for a short-term, but I think we’re seeing the casualties of that now.”
Gerhard also believes the bigger entertainment landscape, led by mobile, is impacting player expectations when it comes to costs. With many games being free-to-play and many games, music and movies available starting at 99 cents, but yeah, players expect more for every dollar they spend.
“We’re in a recession, so players want more value and more time for every dollar and even the free players are far more discerning,” said Gerhard. “More than 50 percent of our members have been with us more than five years and growing, and so we develop those relationships. It’s a social network. At any point in time between 10 and 15 percent of our players are just chatting in the lobby with each other. So we work with them in developing new content and trying new things, which we’ve done since Day One.”
Another strategy Jagex has employed with its games from the early days is utilizing the cloud – before the cloud became a mainstream way for games to be distributed. The company has been doing virtualization in the cloud for over a decade.
“The the game logic state is set aside and we’ve only used the cloud for rendering, controller input and audio,” said Gerhard. “We have a very thin client that’s streamed on demand, so porting that to other devices is actually a relatively low effort compared to other games. We‘ve talked about that with Runescape and that’s our same design for taking on Transformers Universe and some other games too. So you can expect a lot of what Jagex produces to launch across multiple platforms.”
Gerhard said the decision to utilize HTML5 was to make the game “future proof” and demonstrate that a complex game like RuneScape can be brought to an infinite technology standard. This fall, RuneScape will expand to tablets with an optimized version of the game that is designed for that experience. The plan is for the game to expand to mobile shortly after that with apps that augment the game and provide productivity and interfacing with the game.
Jagex faces a lot of competition in the free-to-play online games space with companies like Sony Online Entertainment’s EverQuest II, Riot Games’ League of Legends and the upcoming Red 5 Studios’ Firefall enticing gamers.
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729cb7142f04910e7c2b75d4331bac54 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johngiuffo/2011/03/01/japanese-monkey-waiters-are-fun-and-terrifying/ | Japanese Monkey Waiters are Fun and Terrifying | Japanese Monkey Waiters are Fun and Terrifying
Monkey waiter (waitress?) at Kayabuki izakaya. Photo: Budget Trouble.com
Japan-based travel bloggers Anna and Yoshi Ikeda visited an izakaya (Japanese pub) last year named Kayabuki that is famous for its monkey waiters, who bring towels to guests and sometimes wear creepy masks. The Ikedas report back that the food is nothing special, service was slow, and that they were overcharged, but still: monkey waiters.
"We like to focus on our local area, which is Tochigi," says Anna Ikeda. "We're both matsuri otaku (obsessive fans of Japanese festivals), so we write mostly about that." Their blog, at Budget Trouble.com, is a great read for an insider's perspective on Japanese culture, and often features strong photography from the festivals they cover.
Link: Budget Trouble
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9474174f733e8f07567682b496604448 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johngiuffo/2011/04/05/daily-travel-flashback-siena-italy/ | Daily Travel Flashback: Siena, Italy | Daily Travel Flashback: Siena, Italy
Looking outside our window at the Hotel Bernini in Siena. Ask for rooms 8, 10, or 11 for the best... [+] views. Photo: John Giuffo
Today I'm starting a new daily feature that answers the question: "What the hell are we going to do with all of our travel photos?" As I'm sure many of you can relate, there are only so many trip photos one can share with friends before they begin to squirm like a prisoner of your favorite memories. So in an attempt not to bore loved ones with a barrage of imagery, I will cull the best photos from my storage drives, as well as those taken by friends and others, and share a short tale associated with that image. I'm no professional, but I am an eager amateur, so if you have any advice on how I can improve my skills, I would love to hear from you.
We'll begin with this photo taken from our cozy room in the Albergo Bernini in Siena. Accomodations at the hotel are simple and attractive, and our room reminded us of Van Gogh's famous blue bedroom in Arles. The real star at the Bernini, however, is the view. We stayed in room 8, but 10 and 11 also boast similarly impressive views. The staff at the hotel couldn't be friendlier, and they even spent a couple of hours helping us navigate the famously intricate world of Italian law enforcement, after I drove our slick little Alfa Romeo 156 into a wall just north of Il Duomo di Siena. Lessons learned: know some Italian before visiting Italy, and take out the full insurance policy on your rental car.
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898bacd73f12895692a5d63b5ebe0c1e | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johngiuffo/2011/07/12/the-gage-chicagos-ambitious-gastropub/ | The Gage: Chicago's Ambitious Gastropub | The Gage: Chicago's Ambitious Gastropub
Outdoor seating at The Gage. Photo by Tripadvisor user lfllmg
Hunger hits, it’s hot out, we’re away from home and wandering around Chicago when the inevitable question pops up: “Where do you want to eat?”
“I don’t know – someplace with good food and cold beer.” We could hit up Yelp or Citysearch, find our location, choose a cuisine, read some reviews and plot a course to the nearest suitable restaurant and hope it fits the bill, but we just landed and we’re too tired to do the necessary work. The first place that fits our meager parameters will do.
Luckily, we were right around the corner from The Gage, Chicago’s upscale and popular gastropub. Just steps from Millenium Park, it’s located in an area that is heavily trafficked by tourists and downtown businesspeople alike. Unlike other restaurants that typically cater to the tourist crowd, The Gage also draws a heavy contingent of locals, a testament to its appeal.
The Gage's signature dish, the scotch egg. Photo by Yelp reviewer Michael U.
We’d been to the restaurant on a previous visit to the Windy City and enjoyed our meal immensely. It wasn’t that there was anything incredibly inventive or new on the menu, but the things we had ordered – fish, burgers, a jar of pickles and olives – were done with pride and an eye toward unique twists. The burgers came big and juicy on a well-toasted brioche bun, the olive jar was cured in a tart brine, garnished with fresh rosemary, and two big honkin’ slices of half sours jammed in the top.
So we were looking forward to another meal at The Gage, knowing that the quality of the food was high, and the beer selection was smart and varied. We weren’t disappointed. Our lunch was as good as the brunch we remembered - for my fiancée, a smoked salmon sandwich with cucumber, bacon, a pickle aioli, and mache, lettuce (note the twists – not quite the typical smoked salmon), and for me, a sandwich of roasted woodland mushrooms, topped with watercress, thin, almost melted slices of pecorino cheese, and a truffle aioli. A couple of locally-brewed Goose Island Matildas, a Belgian-style ale with hoppy and fruity notes, washed it all down and left us ready to tackle the rest of the day.
Vindaloo mussels, a spicy take on an old bistro standby. Photo by Yelp reviewer Brady H.
And when, through no machinations of our own, we found ourselves part of a group of twelve colleagues the next night, and a decision was reached to have dinner at, once again, The Gage, we didn’t protest. Sure, we might have enjoyed a meal at one of Chicago’s many other fine restaurants, but with food this good, why gripe – besides, it wasn’t our call. We were simply along for the ride.
And what a ride it was – group dining always allows for sampling a little bit of almost everything a restaurant has to offer, so when our host put his faith in our waiter’s shared-plate selections, we knew we were in for a good time.
A few Scotch Eggs, one of The Gage’s signature dishes was among the first brought out, and they were a delicious introduction to our meal. A fava bean mousse followed, accompanied by ricotta and served on a toasted crostini. There was a bison tartare, which came buried under a soft-boiled quail egg, and was meant to be mixed all together with the gouda cheese and rosemary mustard vinaigrette that were included. It was the first taste of bison tartare for much of the group, and judging by the thin swirls of egg that were the only evidence left on the plates, it was an enjoyable introduction to raw bison meat. A braised rabbit salad was also circulated, and while rabbit wouldn’t be something many at the table would have opted ordering on their own, it seemed to be delicious enough as both plates were eagerly finished.
Similarly, the foie gras and eel terrine wasn’t for everybody – me included – so while there were those who were game enough to try it, much of it went untouched and unappreciated. Foie gras and eels aren’t the sorts of things one would expect to be crowd pleasers, and it was the rare off-note in our waiter’s selection.
The Gage's olive and pickle jar - simple and yummy.
For a main course, I selected the seared tuna, which came served on a bed of spring vegetables and was seasoned with a salted Madeira ponzu. It’s hard to keep me away from tuna, and this time was no different. The lightly seared fish was light and very fresh, and the ponzu was a perfect accompaniment. My fiancée had the halibut, topped with a bacon streusel and served on a bed of sweet pureed asparagus – a light yet flavorful choice.
Our waited suggested an unoaked Chardonnay, Silver, by Mer Soleil in Monterrey, which was creamy and fruity with a slight sharpness – the first concrete-fermented white wine we’d ever had, and a wonderful compliment to all the light meat and seafood courses being shared.
By the time dessert was offered, many of us were stuffed to the gills and opted to finish with tea or espresso. We weren’t so easily deterred and decided to split the Meyer lemon tart, which was served with a cranberry sauce that both added to the dish's pucker but also complimented it nicely with its sweetness.
We settled back, fat and happy, without a tinge of regret about visiting the same restaurant three times in two visits to Chicago. Sure, there are many other fine establishments that would have met or exceeded our expectations, but with food this good and well prepared, why bother?
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8d65f8041e6c46caa07c56814dbd2e3b | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johngiuffo/2012/09/06/embracing-costa-ricas-rainy-season/ | Embracing Costa Rica's Rainy Season | Embracing Costa Rica's Rainy Season
Clouds settle in for the afternoon showers at Playa Sámara on the Nicoya peninsula, a few miles from... [+] yesterday's earthquake. Photo: Hilary Vidair
Costa Rica’s ridiculously verdant landscape is at its most emotionally powerful when viewed in stingy chunks from the windows of an airplane about to put an end to your first visit. You do the calendar math, trying to figure out why you didn’t have the foresight to arrange for more days off. You scheme and plot for next time.
If you’re like me, you do a lot of detailed research and planning before a trip. Guidebooks, recommendations, TripAdvisor reviews, a thick folder of relevant travel articles, blogs, local websites, and word of mouth – it’s all part of the process, all necessary to prepare you for a first trip to a foreign country.
So I knew the beauty and enjoyment I was in for when we arrived, but I had no idea I’d be more reluctant to leave than I was for any trip I’d taken in years.
Costa Rica is every bit the tropical paradise its reputation would suggest. Birds with improbable colors flit through dense jungle leaves. Monkeys play monkey games six feet above your head. Iguanas tan in morning rays that warm the area in front of your hotel room door. It’s a country full of chill people with their priorities straight – no standing army, the money instead going to education (96 percent literacy rate), family first, environment second, pura vida.
Pure life. It’s basically the official national motto. It means exactly what it says, but also, I’m doing good, take care, nice job, what’s up? A Latin aloha. “That steak was awesome.”
“Mucho gusto. Pura vida.”
Sunset off Playa Tamarindo. Photo: Hilary Vidair
It’s a phrase at its most accurate during Costa Rica’s rainy season, which runs from approximately May through November. Much of the rest of the time, winter-fleeing northerners pack beaches on both the Pacific and Caribbean coasts, crowds in the party town clubs spill out into the streets, and the tourism industry is in full swing. But things slow down during the wetter months. Most of the time, you don’t really need reservations, anywhere. It’s smart to arrange a hotel or two in advance, but even if your first choice is booked up, there are plenty of alternatives. You’ll meet more Ticos, as Costa Ricans call themselves. Sometimes a place you’ll want to eat or drink at is closed. So what? There’s a great place across the road. There are people in the bars, but it’s easy to place your order. It’s less expensive – sometimes up to 40 percent cheaper. Most hotels run promotions. Free third or fourth nights prompt longer stays.
It’ll rain, but you’ve got to be the reed. Yield to the vagaries of the rainy season, embrace it, be thankful for its cool kiss, dress appropriately, get some durable sandals such as Tevas, some hiking boots, keep a Ziploc bag handy for your wallet and phone, and make sure to get your swimming in early in the day, when it’s usually sunnier.
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We drove right through the clouds that first day, literally, slowly through thick walls of grey mist that obliterated everything around us, all the houses, gutters, other cars, livestock, people, sheer drops off tight curves on undulating roads, miles up a mountain, rain pounding, then stopping, rinse and repeat, lost, following a GPS that had been set to “Simulation Mode.”
A leisurely afternoon drive through the mountains on the road to the Arenal volcano. Note the "rainy... [+] season effect." Photo: Hilary Vidair
Quick tip: Make sure your GPS isn’t set to “Simulation Mode” when you take off from a rental car lot in Costa Rica. See, there aren’t any street signs – at all – or, really, addresses for that matter. Every place is located a certain amount of meters from another place. To get from place to place, you have to know where these places are, what they look like. "A la derecha en el Punto Rojo, a tres kilómetros, a la izquierda después del primer puente, manténgase a la derecha en un kilómetro."( Forgive my Spanish when I mangle it - it was worse over the phone.) Punto Rojo was a sign on top of a gated wall - you've got to look for it. There are two possible turns a la derecha - to the right. Choose one. You’ve got to triangulate. But you won’t be able to do that with a GPS set to goddamned “Simulation Mode” – which, by the way, is the most useless and mean-spirited feature I can imagine including in a GPS system. It’s like Easter egging a “Prank the Pilot” setting into a 767’s altimeter.
The first few drops hit the windshield of our rented 4X4 while we sat in the Dollar Rent A Car lot earlier that afternoon, waiting for the GPS to finally consummate its advances with a satellite. “Acquiring Satellites” sounded to me like the perfect cue to start driving around a country famous for its lack of street signs and sporadic directional signage. “Where do I turn?” “I don’t know.” “I’m pretty sure it’s a right here for some reason.” “Mess with the settings.”
And we’re off! “Simulation Mode” seemed to earn the satellite’s love…but thinking back on it, there was something about that whole “simulate” business that didn’t sit right with me. I should have listened to my inner Columbo. He was onto something.
Two hours later, we’re in the mountain town of San Mateo, 70 kilometers from our hotel, which the GPS insists is the three cows mockingly grazing behind a roadside fence in front of us. The downpour is now a drizzle, and the clouds have moved on to swallow other mountains. Two more hours and ten phone calls to our hotel’s front desk after that, we find the place, an awesome arty hillside spot overlooking Alajuela – just a convenient 15 minute drive to the airport! First thing on our vacation agenda mañana? Back to Dollar and replace the GPS.
The view from the Xandari Hotel in Alajuela - our reward for four hours of GPS treachery. Photo:... [+] John Giuffo
They did, and gave us four days off the price. Nice guys. Hey, stuff happens. No regrets – we saw some incredible vistas between the clouds on our way to getting lost in the sky. Pura vida.
***
There are a particular set of challenges that may accompany a trip through Costa Rica during the rainy season, and not understanding the meaning of the word “simulation” is only one. It’s possible to get around the country by bus, ferry, or short-hop plane, but…don’t. Why deny yourself the legitimately awe-inspiring joys of driving through one of the most beautiful countries on the planet? You’ll need a 4X4; there’s no getting around that, especially if you’re going to the southern Nicoya peninsula, the central and southern Pacific coasts and the Caribbean coast. Or any of the many of the mountains or volcanoes almost everyone makes time for during their visits. Or, during or after some rain on any one of the thousands of dirt roads that much of Costa Rica still relies on.
The beach in Jacó after one of the stormiest nights there in months. Photo: John Giuffo
I rarely opt for supplemental insurance when renting a car – the card’s coverage usually suffices. But even though Costa Rica requires basic additional Costa Rican insurance for all car rentals, I went for the full coverage plan. Experience four lost hours wandering the country’s narrow sky-high roads, box trucks cutting slack corners on blind curves then veering at the last minute, chaos at five-way intersections with no lights, scooters and motorbikes tear-assing through every available inch, and you’ll thank me. Get the full coverage.
“How do you like driving in Costa Rica?” Gustavo, our rafting guide, asked us on our way to the put-in last Tuesday morning. “We love it – but the most challenging thing is the potholes. You really have to take it slow and look for them everywhere.”
The rainy season has many benefits - this meaty rapid we hit was only one. Photo: Costa Rica... [+] Expeditions
“We have potholes? We call those a road massage!”
Get the full coverage.
There are times and places where the river and the road battle it out and the river wins. You might have to drive through a river during the rainy season. Rural types may sneer, but there’s not much cause for a city boy to ford many rivers in his day-to-day car travels, so forgive me if this sounded freaking awesome. I had the whole process worked out in my head – step out of the vehicle, walk the river and gauge conditions and depth, if below the knee or so, go through slow, keeping the exhaust steady to keep the water out of the tailpipe. I was set. Let’s drive through a river!
Except the full coverage doesn’t include water damage, like the kind resulting from crossing rivers – which you very well may have to do if you want to drive around many parts of Costa Rica during the rainy season. “Full” is relative when you get the full coverage. I never did get a chance to ford that river in our trusty Suzuki.
However, I made up for it later with a wild ATV ride through a rushing mountain river that had washed away our road earlier that morning. The rains the night before were relentless and deafening, and everyone in Jacó agreed it was the biggest downpour they had gotten since last year. Alan, an ultra-experienced ATV and dirtbike guide and enthusiast for 16 years, was reluctant to cross – that river was no joke, and it was well fed.
We gunned through anyway. How else would we get to the tilapia farm? Pura vida.
Muscling through a river that was a road the day before. Photo: John Giuffo
Coming: Beachside Costa Rica
[Earthquake update: Luckily, the 7.6 magnitude earthquake that hit Costa Rica yesterday morning seems to have caused relatively mild damage, and only a few injuries, with one elderly woman’s heart attack blamed on the tremors. The depth of the quake’s epicenter – 25 miles below ground – seems to have helped limit the damage. Some roads remain blocked, and some towns remain without power, but officials credit the country’s strict building codes for preventing more widespread damage. If you’re traveling to the central or southern Nicoya peninsula, be sure to check conditions ahead of time, as phone lines and roads to many of those areas remain cut off.]
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a3de0e916c8275731e4e98eede7f020c | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johngiuffo/2013/06/03/boulders-stunning-teahouse-is-a-gift/ | Boulder's Stunning Teahouse Is A Gift | Boulder's Stunning Teahouse Is A Gift
The Dushanbe Teahouse's bustling indoor dining room. Photo: John Giuffo
Literally.
The Boulder Dushanbe Teahouse, a longtime favorite with both locals and visitors, is a hand-sculpted, hand-painted marvel of a building, and was commissioned in 1987 by the mayor of Dushanbe as a show of friendship to the Tajik capital's U.S. sister city.
Crafted in the Central Asian repubulic, it's an obvious labor of love that took artisans three years to make – and it shows, in every corner, on every post, and high above heads in the multi-hued ceilings. It all demands attention, especially from the uninitiated – even well after your tea and food arrive, when looking around is at odds with eating.
“The Teahouse is in many ways the heart of Boulder,” wrote Juliet Wittman last year in Westword, Denver's “alternative” paper. In a town with as many beautiful sights and magnetic cafes as Boulder, that's no faint praise.
Chief architect Lado Shanidze wrangled a team of woodcarvers, painters, sculptors, and other artists to create the intricately-detailed columns that hold up the dazzling ceiling. Built in Tajikistan and shipped to the edge of the Colorado Rockies foothills, it's a marvel of architectural creativity and cultural heritage. Color and history explode everywhere.
At the center of the spacious, baroque room is a pool, filled with fish, dotted with well-chosen plants, and ringed by seven copper sculptures inspired by a 12th century poem, “The Seven Beauties.” Written by Nazami Ganjavi, considered to be one of the most important Persian poets in history, it tells the tale of seven princesses sharing their various cultures, and some important lessons, with their king, Bahram Gur, who ruled Persia 700 years earlier. It's not every teahouse where one can find sculpture inspired by an 800-year-old poem, which in turn is inspired by a myth from 700 years prior. Fight the urge not to be rude and try to scootch past diners gathered at the tables surrounding the small pool. Get in close and just look, even if you invade a bit of personal space for a moment.
The Dushanbe Teahouse is certainly one of the most beautiful of its kind around the country, but it's not alone in catering to a growing number of tea enthusiasts. According to Laura Ungar at the Washington Post, tea has seen a steady growth in popularity for the past 20 years. “Although coffee is still king in the United States, change is brewing. Department of Agriculture statistics show tea drinking has increased as coffee drinking has declined.” Tea houses, with their dizzying array of jars and drawers filled with loose tea, are popping up all over.
In a country obssesed with artisanal coffee and microbrews (I'm not immune), it seems only natural that tea, which comes in a much wider variety of flavors than coffee, would gain in popularity. Coffee, when done right, should taste like coffee – but tea can be black or green, herbal or heavily-caffeinated, soothing or stimulating, minty, smoky like lapsang souchong, or orange-y. The varieties can seem endless.
Don't be afraid to ask the expert staff for help with the wide selection. Photo: John Giuffo
My wife and I visited on a chilly February afternoon when the inviting outdoor patio hosted only a couple of stout visitors, no doubt coaxed by the views of Central Park directly across the street, with Boulder Creek just at the edge of sight. It's a bucolic view that normally draws steady crowds outside to the two dozen or so tables, almost in competition with the beauty indoors.
But now that the weather is perfect – the Weather Channel sees a week or more of temps in the high 70s and low 80s – visitors are almost guaranteed a wait both inside and outside at certain times – especially on weekends, when the tea house's eclectic menu draws brunchers hungry for the kitchen's bold successes. The food almost struts; it's all over the map, and it's seemingly all good.
It was, predictably, packed on the Sunday we visited but there were two seats at the bar at the far end of the room beneath the walls of black and gold tea jars. We both ate beyond being full, but a quick scan of the room indicated that we weren't the only ones. Empty plates were picked clean, bowls of soup were ringed by the last streaks of nom nom that couldn't be scraped into spoons.
I started with a with a roasted red pepper soup – a smooth, thick blend of sweet pepper, paprika, and other spices I was too busy enjoying to bother stopping and inquiring over. Which was okay because our waiter didn't need me to ask – he offered up a detailed description without prompting, and gave us spot-on recommendations for tea. What kind of tea did we like? What sort of food were we hungry for? We could enjoy traditional Persian food, or select from a few Indian dishes, or maybe something peanutty and Thai?
My wife chose the Royal Korma with chicken, lentils and vegetables, all of which swam happily in an almond curry, with a passable naan bread – absolutely necessary for sopping, so it was forgivable as one of the Teahouse's few missteps. I had a banh mi - their spicy, satisfying version of the popular Vietnamese pulled pork sandwich.
The service is friendly and personable without being anywhere near overbearing, and the staff goes about its work with humor and knowledge, both about the food and the selection of more than 100 varieties of tea.
The choices are, admittedly, intimidating. I eventually settled on an herbal mint tea, and my wife had the vanilla bean black tea. The staff filled small iron pots with water, and gave us egg timers with instructions to let the tea steep until the sand ran out. Good tea can take a second bath of water without losing the amount of flavor that a typical teabag would, and the staff was on top of refilling our teapots that second time.
You get a lot of tea from two ounces of their Rocky Mountain Mint. Photo: John Giuffo
We took some home as well - two ounces of a different mint selection, Rocky Mountain, and one ounce of a strong tangerine blend that packs a punch. Almost too much of a punch, but one tamed by a second soak in boiling water. Some selections can be pricey, but my couple of minty ounces has given me more than 30 cups, and there's plenty left. A gift to myself worth the price.
And as much as the Dushanbe Teahouse is a gift from one city to another and a tool for cultural exchange, it's a gift to visitors as well – one that can only be repaid by lingering for an afternoon. Sure, it contributes to the joint's usual bustle and wait time, but everyone agrees that it's worth it.
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