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30 Jan 2018
Sticky Post By Posted in News, oil and gas Permalink

AI, 3D Printing and Robotics)

Sticky Post By On January 30, 2018



We’ve been hearing for years about the digital transformation of multiple business sectors. And the technology sector is hardly alone in this regard: For the past decade, legacy industries have been making the transition, too,and the result has been massive opportunities for entrepreneurs.

Related: How Tech Is Becoming an Integral Player in Energy Solutions

 Moreover, as each new age group has increasingly gone “digitally native,” the overall workforce has demanded higher workplace technology standards.

Entrepreneurs have left their fingerprints all over the resulting current digital landscape, creating brand new technologies and updating antiquated processes. Such innovations are being driven by the younger generation, whose members have stepped up to become the new leaders in the field. With this millennial management has come an openness to adopting new technologies, and a knack for solving old problems with new approaches.

One of the biggest industries opting for digital efficiency and subsequently thirsty for young, entrepreneurial leadership? Oil and gas.

Why oil and gas?

One reason this particular sector is ripe with entrepreneurial opportunities is that oil is projected to stay below $60 a barrel throughout 2018. With this booming market and its eagerness for innovation, the industry is ripe for disruption to existing business models, and for real growth. 

“Companies that are willing to innovate and invest can unlock tremendous value and may remain financially strong regardless of what happens to global supply and demand trends,” Deloitte executiveJohn England wrote in a 2018 Energy Outlook white paper.

“So, the digital cavalry is coming,” continued England, who is vice chairman, U.S. energy and resources leader, and U.S., and Americas oil and gas leader for Deloitte.”But it likely won’t rescue everyone — possibly only those who are brave enough to embrace it.”

What might seem like yesterday’s technology headlines are headlines only now making a splash in the oil and gas industry. This means that technology experts from entrepreneurial companies should be watching the horizon for opportunities in energy. Here are four innovations transforming that sector:

Artificial intelligence

“Artificial intelligence (AI) is set to have the biggest technological impact on the oil and gas industry over the coming years,” according to Omar Saleh, Microsoft’s oil and gas director for the Middle East and Africa, who spoke to CNBC.

ExxonMobil, ranked No. 1 in the industry by Forbes’ 2017 Global 2000 ranking of the world’s biggest public companies, is spearheading AI exploration through a partnership with MIT to explore the oceans using AI software. With the biggest names in oil and gas investing in AI ventures, it’s clear that the technology will have a major impact in the coming years.

Cloud computing

Oil and gas giants have long been wary of cloud technology because of security risks. While adoption may be low as of today, there is still a strong future for cloud computing. A forecast by the U.K.-based Oil & Gas Council explains that, due to the “many commercial benefits and the world of possibilities, cloud computing is becoming a popular model for the IT savvy business that has growth on its agenda.”

“Some of the most complex organizations from banking to government, have fully embraced the computing power and agility of cloud,” Shiva Rajagopalan, CEO and founder of Seven Lakes Technologies said during her remarks for my podcast scheduled for next month. “They’ve been rewarded with a competitive edge to respond to markets faster and incubate transformational ideas within the organization at unprecedented speed.

“The faster information is available,” Rajagopalan added, “the more quickly large corporations spin up new ideas, initiatives and innovations. The oil and gas industry should be afforded exactly the same competitive edge, not confined by their own data centers.”

3D-scanning technology

3D printing has moved beyond the hype phase, and we are now seeing practical uses in play. For oil and gas, 3D printing means fast, cost-effective representations of assets that can be used for maintenance planning and execution.

According to LaserDesign, “3D printing allows oil and gas companies to reverse-engineer and measure oil and gas tools in virtually every shape and size. Scan data can confirm whether the replacement part will fit existing equipment and also provide a clear documentation of tooling erosion to improve product design and reproduce tooling components.”

Related: How Startups Can Be Invited to the Big IoT Party

The internet of things

The value of the internet of things (IoT) becomes apparent when companies can demonstrate new applications for information gleaned from these technologies. Paul Turner, CMO of Cloudian, said he believes that the promise of IoT lies in creating a set of standards “to guide how devices are structured, and a common language that can be understood . . . ” Such standards, Turner said, “are critical for IoT companies looking to sell their technology to oil and gas.

“Startup companies looking to sell IoT solutions to the oil and gas sector should also adhere to standards,” Turner told RigZone. “Value is derived not only from the data collected and aggregated, but data being in a well-known format.

He added: “A service model that features one data repository that can be used by many companies is needed.”

Advanced robotics

One of the biggest challenges in the oil and gas sector is how to mitigate risk. One of the best ways deploying sophisticated robotics that humans can operate, keeping themselves out of harm’s way. Earlier this year, Chevron announced a partnership with OC Robotics to inspect offshore oil and natural gas pressure vessels in the North Sea. The robotic P100 snake arm, is built to operate in confined spaces, deploying an arm into the inspection area, using wire ropes and software.

“There is real potential to improve inspection outputs and extend asset life by characterizing vessels and assessing fitness for service without human entry into dangerous and confined spaces,” Rebecca Smith, project manager at OC Robotics, was recently quoted as saying by JWN.

Exciting advances in AI, cloud computing, 3D printing, IOT and robotics are transforming the future of the oil and gas industry. “The upstream oil and gas companies have survived turbulent markets, fine-tuned lean teams and know exactly where to drill,” Rajagopalan told me. “In spite of all that transformation, meeting production targets remains a blindfolded, high-wire act. This must change.”

Raising “an army of people” to solve the problems ahead isn’t enough, she said. What may be, she said, is adoptable predictable technologies, which give time back to the field “so that they can shrink unplanned down time.” 

Related: From Corner Office to Field Ops: 4 Ways to Make Data Actionable

Entrepreneurs and startups looking to be a part of the next generation of technologies should explore this billion dollar industry because that rig drilling away down in Texas or out in the Gulf is no longer working your father’s oil field; it’s the digitally driven oil field of the future, powered by disruptive tech. 



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26 Jan 2018
Sticky Post By Posted in Growth Strategies, News Permalink

This Media Company Used Hip Hop and Sneakers to Attract 55 Million Viewers and Sell for Over $250 Million

Sticky Post By On January 26, 2018



Rich Antoniello is the co-founder and CEO of Complex Media. Complex is the intersection of all things pop culture, from hip-hop to sneakers, and dominates the male market of 18- to 24-year-olds with 55 million monthly viewers. Through the company’s latest annual conference, ComplexCon, it’s now disrupting traditional retail by providing a fully immersive experience for event goers. It has been disrupting media for over a decade and caught the attention of Verizon and Hearst, who jointly acquired the company for reportedly well over $250 million in 2016.

Related: This Entrepreneur Built the Hottest Celebrity Spot on the Planet — and a Brand With Staying Power



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23 Jan 2018
Sticky Post By Posted in Edtech industry, News Permalink

This 1 Particular Area of EdTech Is Ripe for Disruption. 3 Things You Need to Know.

Sticky Post By On January 23, 2018



It’s no secret that the education sector is ripe with opportunities for disruption and innovation: Edtech venture funding exceeded $1 billion in 2017, and the market is expected to grow to $93.76 billion by 2020. Entrepreneurs are using digital technology for diverse applications: to facilitate online education, train coders in developing countries and innovate classroom collaboration. But one major issue within education has yet to be solved: the unbelievably high price of textbooks.

Related: Stop Shooting For the Moon! Raising Prices Won’t Raise Your Profits. Catering to a Niche Will.

The cost of college textbooks nearly doubled over the past ten years, outpacing the growth of tuition costs by 25 percent. The average grad student spends $1,200 per year on textbooks — nearly 5 percent of his or her disposable income.

The sky-high value of the used college textbook market — $5.5 billion, according to BookBusinessmag.com — testifies to the fact that many students and families are eager for more affordable options. The challenge for entrepreneurs, then, is to find a way to meet this demand in a profitable, sustainable way that will meet the needs of students, professors and educational institutions alike.

Ready for this opportunity? Here are three things you should know if you’re considering taking a crack at this complex problem.

1. The traditional publishing giants got themselves into this mess.

The modern textbook publishing industry is dominated by a small number of large companies that have relied on more or less the same business model for decades  — even as educational practices have changed significantly. These traditional publishers have been slow to innovate and adapt to new educational needs and market realities.

“The textbook publishing industry was lulled into an uncompetitive stupor by 20-plus years of price-driven growth and high margins,” Alastair Adam, CEO of FlatWorld, a digital-first college textbook publishing company, explained to me. The status quo worked well for traditional publishers as long as students were willing to purchase new textbooks, Adam said. But that held only as long as they had no other viable options.

Today, with the cost of education at historically high levels, many students no longer see purchasing new textbooks as a viable option. Years of price hikes and complacency by publishers are bringing them significant losses as that revenue goes toward the used-book market. The majority of students today purchase their textbooks on the used market, share with classmates or don’t purchase textbooks at all.

Of course, textbook publishers aren’t blind to the plight of cash-strapped students. David Levin, CEO of McGraw-Hill Education, testified to this in 2015 when he wrote, “Enrolling in college requires a significant financial investment from students and their families, and I understand the frustration they feel when, after signing up for years of loans, they see a charge for an expensive textbook appear on their credit card.”

Related: Edutor, Pearson Partner to Provide Digital Textbooks to Students in South Africa

But acknowledging that a problem exists and knowing how to fix it are two different things. And the traditional players have been largely unable to develop sustainable solutions to this long-time challenge.

2. “Digital” isn’t a magic bullet.

Some conventional publishing companies — McGraw-Hill Education included — have sought to regain market share by transitioning into the digital textbook space. By offering their products digitally, publishers are able to sell them at a lower price and, at least in theory, regain ground that they’ve lost to the used market.

But simply transitioning to a digital model isn’t going to fix the industry’s deeper problems. A recent report by U.S. PIRG found that traditional publishers tend to carry many of their detrimental habits with them into the digital world. “Even as they move into etextbooks, publishers incorporate paywalls, expiration dates and printing restrictions that further continue the practices they’ve used to control the traditional market,” said Ethan Senack, a higher education associate at U.S. PIRG.

Merely pivoting to a digital-only approach, then, will not address the deeper, more systemic issues within the textbook publishing industry. And the transition to digital has thus far not been shown to improve student outcomes. According to Adams, “Focusing solely on digital solutions as the answer to the industry’s woes is like trying to fix high airfares by investing in flying cars. A better approach is to break down the price barrier, just like the low-cost airlines did.”

True innovation will come not in scrapping the traditional idea of the textbook, but in re-thinking the ways that textbooks are produced, manufactured and sold. For example, FlatWorld uses standardized templates for each of its books; it also prints on demand and ships directly to students, bypassing considerable design and inventory costs. Benefits from solutions like these are passed on to the consumer in the form of lower prices.

Entrepreneurs entering the space should look for opportunities to disrupt the traditional textbook publishing business model without relying on digital quick fixes that don’t result in genuine progress.

3. Keep the educators at the heart of the process.

When approaching innovation within the textbook publishing industry, it’s important to consider not only the students but their professors and other teachers, as well. Many attempts to solve the textbook cost problem have fallen short because they’ve failed to take into account the needs and preferences of educators.

Take Open Educational Resources (OERs) as an example. OERs, or free, openly licensed text, media and other assets represent an inexpensive way for students to access educational materials. But they have faced significant barriers for adoption because they have an alienating effect on professors who have spent years designing courses around textbooks.

Professors are at the heart of our higher education system, and any viable innovation within the space must embrace this reality. “The value in textbooks is in leveraging professors’ time and expertise,” Adams said. “If we can make textbooks affordable again, we can leverage the time and knowledge of professors rather than disintermediate them.”

Given the lack of sustainability inherent in the current textbook ecosystem, it’s only a matter of time until a novel (pun intended!) solution achieves widespread adoption. Innovators and educators, meanwhile, who are searching for that solution will do well to learn from the faults of traditional publishers. They’ll also be wise to avoid short-term fixes and to consider all stakeholders when they develop new products.

Related: 4 Psychological Techniques That Can Improve Your Product Pricing

Overall, textbooks are a hard market to read, with a lot of players rewriting the story, and it’s going to be interesting seeing what the next chapter (another pun) brings.



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19 Jan 2018
Sticky Post By Posted in Branding, News Permalink

This Entrepreneur Built the Hottest Celebrity Spot on the Planet — and a Brand With Staying Power

Sticky Post By On January 19, 2018



Mark Birnbaum is the co-founder of the EMM Group, owner of the Catch restaurant chain, which are arguably the hottest restaurants in the world with A-list celebrities visiting weekly. He recently sold 50 percent of his company to Tillman Fertitta, the Texas billionaire who’s the man behind the CNBC show Billion Dollar Buyer and also recently bought the 17 restaurants of BR Guest. In this episode of Action & Ambition with Andrew Medal, Birnbaum discusses his beginnings and how he turned his passion for nightlife into a thriving business.

Related: Here’s How to Sell Your Business for $100 Million-Plus???????



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19 Jan 2018
Sticky Post By Posted in Hiring, News Permalink

4 Innovative Moves Entrepreneurs Can Make To Hire More Qualified Tech Experts

Sticky Post By On January 19, 2018



As the economy grows, so does the number of companies at the leading edge of innovation. Every entrepreneur, executive and hiring manager knows that today’s biggest challenge to building a high-performing team is finding tech experts who can deliver results consistently, without costly errors or setbacks.

Related: Artificial Intelligence Can Help Companies Hire the Best Candidate. Here’s How

An economic trends report from the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) revealed last March that 45 percent of hiring managers surveyed reported finding a shortage of qualified candidates in their talent searches. The cause, of course, is the steady economic growth in the tech sector: It’s driven higher demand for new IT functions and resulted in a talent gap that can be closed only as more people pursue a technical education.

Nathan Doctor, CEO of Qualified, addressed this issue during a recent call for my podcast. The executive, whose company is a coding assessment provider,  pointed out that, “Engineering candidates are extremely in demand, presenting hiring managers with a list of challenges, from finding quality candidates to convincing top performers to join.  

“It’s important,” Doctor continued, “that hiring managers can effectively identify top performers quickly so they can focus their energy on making the hire. This includes moving [candidates] through the hiring process and winning competitive scenarios with other employers.”

Turning to cloud-hiring solutions

Gartner’s Market Guide for Human Capital reported that companies are trading outdated legacy hiring systems for externally provided cloud solutions. Gartner predicted that these cloud solutions would account for 50 percent or more of spending in this category by the end of 2017.

This should come as no surprise to any executive familiar with the costs associated with developing in-house systems. Not to mention that significant time can be saved by bringing on innovative cloud providers for the recruiting process.

Solving for sourcing

Most entrepreneurs and human resources professionals are all too familiar with recruiters’ tendencies to recommend candidates who match on paper but aren’t a practical fit for the organization. Fortunately, there are quite a few cloud providers that can supplement and improve your recruiting efforts at a fraction of the cost.

Platforms like Hired and Sourcing.io are helping companies identify potential candidates digitally, reducing the amount of time it takes to achieve an applicant flow, and accomplishing a preliminary screening based on key job duties. By performing these tasks, these platforms empower in-house recruiters and tech teams to work together to streamline the sourcing process without resorting to recruiting firms.

I’ve personally used Indeed.com a handful of times, and was happy with my candidate options every time I posted a job offer.

Solving for hiring

Doctor further noted another reason why the hiring process for IT professionals is so complex: tesing. “There is a range of approaches to testing technical skills,” he pointed out. “You have your heuristics: resumes, past experience, former employers, college. Then you have skills assessments: coding assessments, quizzes, technical tests and take-home assignments.

“And there are interviews: verbal phone screens, pair-programming, on-sites and white-boarding.”

“Because you have to deal with so many different aspects in the selection process, you can easily get bogged down in the wrong kind of information,” Doctor continued, noting that the most effective measures are those that test candidates on their real-world abilities — how they will actually perform on the job.

In this context, companies often turn to coding assessments to eliminate having their engineers waste time assessing unsuitable candidates via phone screens and on-site interviews. Such assessments are increasingly relevant: The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, for example, reported that 20 percent of current IT jobs it looked at were in software development.

Related: 4 Ways Technology Improves the Human Resources (and Human) Experience

In the testing context, I’ve found CoderPad to be an amazing resource. I also personally developed an app that helps with this process, called CipherHacks.

Keeping up with demand

In an article in InformationWeek, IT hiring expert Bob Miano shared, that, “Organizations are still in catch-up mode as the amount of data captured and positioned for analysis grows exponentially.” Miano added: “The demand for actionable data is huge right now. Technology innovation is creating more data, which now needs to be analyzed and transformed and made actionable.”

One of the things that data reveals is exactly what executives are looking for: In fact, a NetworkWorld report detailed that over 40 of executives surveyed were looking for skills in database management, cybersecurity, blockchain development, desktop support and network administration. That’s why applicants are wise to consider how their skills translate into these arenas, tailor their resumes’ SEO potential to improve their chances of landing the position they want and continually update their LinkedIn profiles to add new and relevant skills.

Related: Having Trouble Hiring the Right Employees? Maybe It’s Your Tech’s Fault.

Knowing what other industry leaders are doing to attract top talent is vital to success in an increasingly competitive employment market. Given today’s glut of open positions and a shortage of qualified candidates, executives need to have the best solutions and methods to help them secure the ideal candidate in a fraction of the usual time. And, yes, tech leaders should use tech.



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16 Jan 2018
Sticky Post By Posted in Compliance, News Permalink

What Leaders Need to Know About Compliance in 2018

Sticky Post By On January 16, 2018



It’s been a whirlwind couple of months in terms of compliance and the regulatory landscape. Whether you zero in on compliance in the United States or zoom out to the global regulatory environment, a lot of conversation happened in the last few months of 2017, which hopefully will spearhead a lot of change.

Related: An Entrepreneur’s Guide to Compliance

In most cases, however, regulatory change can present real challenges and risks for entrepreneurs and growing businesses. As you expand into new territory, or offer new products and services, the number of rules that apply to you increase, and sometimes contradict, one another.

In 2018, companies will need to keep these challenges at the forefront of their annual planning. Following are the top ways companies should be engaging with the need for compliance in the coming year:

1. A unified compliance strategy 

Gone are the days when compliance was the responsibility of siloed departments. In today’s intense regulatory climate, it’s critical to have your whole team committed to compliance strategy. Look at Volksvagen: Having skirted compliance with various U.S. agencies as part of its emissions scandal, acknowledged in 2015, the car company did a turnabout and brought on a new chief compliance officer, Kurt Michels.

Michels captured the new spirit of compliance culture at Volksvagen when he said, on the Volkswagen Group’s website’s “New Code of Conduct” page: “We all share responsibility for compliance with the existing rules.” He then went on to say that the role of compliance teams and policies is “to provide help, guidance and reassurance, especially in difficult situations.”

In order to help carry out such a vision at your company, your compliance team needs to be fully integrated with other workgroups, to ensure the best support possible for preventing costly errors. By doing so, companies can avoid the kinds of mistakes that even giants like Volkswagen have made due to a poor compliance culture.

Related: Learning From Volkswagen: 6 Tips for Surviving a Scandal

2. Compliance platforms to the rescue

Anyone who has managed compliance knows that the accompanying technology is frequently inflexible, and that legacy software may not meet the unique needs of the business. That’s why more and more companies are turning to platforms that can house all of their compliance data and management efforts in one place.

I talked to Thomas Sehested, founder and CEO of GAN Integrity, a compliance tech platform, and he explained to me that, “In most cases, compliance professionals work with five to 10 technology vendors to achieve basic programmatic goals for compliance management. It’s clear,” Sehested continued, “that in such an important area for global business, compliance groups need more efficient, and smarter, tech platforms.”

Platforms like GAN Integrity are built on the premise that compliance efforts should be more visible to the entire team, in order to keep key players in the know, even as they digitize time-consuming document management. As companies gain access to better compliance technology, they may be able to detect and solve problems sooner.

3. Forward-thinking to head off potential risks

We’ve become accustomed to reading about scandals in today’s news headlines. Those scandals frequently end up costing companies millions in lawsuits and government penalties, while damaging their reputation with customers, business partners and the general public. The sad thing is, most of the problems involved are completely avoidable.

In order to avoid such blunders, companies need to think about the problems that might arise long before they become reality. One of the best ways to do this is is by asking what regions your business might grow into in the coming year. Also, question whether or not you anticipate any employee relations challenges. Think about the regulatory regulations that are in the works, as well. Just because something hasn’t yet been signed into law doesn’t mean that it won’t be soon.

4. Making your values known

The recent Me Too movement, lawsuits against companies like Uber and Hollywood’s Time’s Up initiative demonstrate that compliance needs to be at the center of every company’s culture. While a harassment-free culture is a salient example, goals are the same for everything from environmental compliance to employee relations. Consider the Wells Fargo scandal where employees created unauthorized customer accounts to pad performance metrics.

To successfully navigate the regulatory environment and deliver on core values, companies need to make compliance a priority in 2018. As Sehested put it, “In many organizations, compliance has a bit of an image problem and is thought of as a  ‘crisis intervention team’ that simply waits for something bad to happen. In reality, the affirmative effort of leadership in compliance and the technology they use helps to prevent regulatory pitfalls.”

Related: Compliance Is a Pain. How to Outsource It.

By empowering compliance teams to be a more integral part of operations, companies can develop a stronger culture that will help prevent mistakes, protect employees and respect the rules in regions where they operate. 



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12 Jan 2018
Sticky Post By Posted in Artificial Intelligence, News Permalink

Is AI Really the Future of User Interface?

Sticky Post By On January 12, 2018



The internet is always speculating and wondering about what’s to come, in terms of access modes, once mobile and screens have ceased to be the latest shiny new thing.

Related: The 5 Most Interesting Artificial Intelligence Trends for Entrepreneurs to Follow in 2018

The theory is that artificial intelligence (AI) is going to be the next evolution; and precisely because of that prediction about AI (plus its other uses), we witnessed an unprecedented technology gold rush in 2017.

The craze about AI had people investing millions of dollars into new products and services, and hand-wringing skeptics forming think tanks to postulate about the end of the world. But, for all of the speculation, what did AI actually do in 2017? What’s it doing now? And, what’s it poised to do in the coming year? 

First, AI broke through the legitimacy barrier.

AI had its first victory as an up-and-coming technology when it broke through a crucial legitimacy barrier, proving to everyone that it is not only viable but also a competitive advantage when deployed well.

A report by PwC estimated that by 2030, AI could contribute upwards of $15 trillion to the global economy – more than the outputs of China and India today, combined. PwC’s statistic is one of many that suggest that our future with this technology is almost unimaginable. AI will destroy and create jobs, invent new industries, accelerate innovation to a new level and fundamentally change the way business is done across the board.

En route to that point, there are questions being posed: How does AI actually create value? What applications of the technology have worked so well that we believe it will change the future in such radical terms?

Interestingly, applications for sophisticated tasks like smoothing out supply chains or detecting risks are still maturing. What AI already does well and what we can expect to see a lot more of in the coming years is helping humans to interface with increasingly complex computers.

Related: How Artificial Intelligence Technology Will Change Our Lives

Sean Nolan, founder and CEO of Blink, weighed in on these issues during a chat we had the other day.“Humans in the workplace experience ‘technology fatigue’ because the computer they interact with all day is robotic — oddly organized, clunky, impersonal, and slow,” Nolan told  me.  “The reality is that computers are so powerful and store so much information, and we need them to do so much, that our ability to utilize them with just a mouse and a keyboard is becoming insufficient.

“AI comes along and opens up the possibility of creating a new interface between the complex, impersonal nature of the computer, and the intelligent, complex nature of its human operator.”

Next, AI is poised to take on immensely complex tasks.

By utilizing simple AI applications, like chatbots and micro applications, immensely complex tasks will — one day soon — be able to be reduced to simple commands. For example, instead of spending an hour searching a company’s servers, shared folders and cloud drives for every relevant document pertaining to a specific task, you’ll be able to simply ask a smartbot to do it for you. The task will be completed in seconds, saving valuable time — which PwC estimates will add up to $6.6 trillion in added efficiency by 2030.

While the benefits of added human productivity carry an obvious financial upside for the market, reducing AI to the role of human-computer mediator seems like a demotion for a technology that is supposed to change the world. This view does not properly account for the magnitude of that accomplishment. In fact, AI’s role as a mediator between humans and technology is perhaps its greatest triumph.

The myth that humans use only 10 percent of their brain power has been soundly debunked, but we know for a fact that we use only a fraction of our computers’ potential at any given moment. Afterall, our interactions with them are analog in nature; and, as a result, fall far short of achieving maximum potential.

AI’s untapped potential

AI as a user interface opens up vast untapped potential. This year, it’s chatbots and voice recognition. In 10 years it will be some version of Elon Musk’s Neuralink (one of his new companies, which is working on linking the human brain to a computer).

Today — right now — there are available a number of tools to help you interface with customers and users by implementing AI. They include: 

1. Chatbots. Chatbots can provide the additional layer between you and your consumers to answer their questions, and to interact with potential or current customers. 

2. Website builders. There are now new platforms like Grid, which use AI to build your entire website. 

3. Smartbots. Smartbots are another form of machine, which can be used internally, like a personal assistant, to handle tasks like scheduling your calendar. This is how X technology works. 

“What businesses need to know about AI is that the application they need to use it for first is workforce productivity,” said Nolan. “This single competitive advantage will determine which companies survive the first round of AI and which ones do not. Thinking about AI as UI [user interface] and a means to access the untapped potential of our computers is what we can expect to see in 2018.” 

Related: The 5 Most Interesting Artificial Intelligence Trends for Entrepreneurs to Follow in 2018

Meanwhile, the urgency to adopt AI is very real. Companies that successfully incorporate it as UI in their businesses will reap enormous dividends while their competitors will struggle to modernize. In a new report titled AI is the New UI, Accenture made the following observation, summing up my point perfectly:

“Getting started can be as simple as using AI to bring more human-like interactions into existing interfaces,” the report stated. “But if businesses want to do more than just keep pace, there’s no time to waste . .  . The early adopters are already pulling ahead, but many of the necessary tools are openly being shared. The question to answer is simple: What could a company accomplish if every interaction with technology was an intelligent one?”



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09 Jan 2018
Sticky Post By Posted in Initial Coin Offering, News Permalink

What Your Startup Needs To Know About Launching an ICO

Sticky Post By On January 9, 2018



Startups are always on the lookout for good opportunities. For many, this means raising money through an initial coin offering (ICO), as opposed to the more traditional venture capital route. In the simplest terms, an ICO is a fund-raising means in which a company releases its own digital currency in exchange, typically, for ethereum or bitcoin. The point is to attract investors looking for the next big cryptocurrency score.

Related: An Exciting Option for Startups to Raise Money: Ever Hear of an ICO?

With this trend picking up steam, your startup might be wise to investigate whether an ICO would be right for you.

Some considerations are in order One is that individual investors are growing tired of initial public offerings (IPOs). Sure, there’s plenty of opportunity to make money that way, but it’s nothing like the excitement surrounding a hyped-up ICO.

With hundreds of millions of dollars spent on ICOs over the past few months, there is no slowdown in sight. In fact, because more startups are considering the benefits of an ICO, don’t be surprised if 2018 is even bigger in this area than 2017 was (and that’s saying a lot).

Here is what your startup needs to know about ICOs.

1. They represent a different approach (so get in the right frame of mind).

In the past, raising funds was all about pitching your idea to venture capitalists. This opportunity still exists, but it’s no longer the only game in town.

As a different approach, wrap your head around the idea that an ICO could be the best way to obtain the cash you need to realize your goals. Maybe you’re the founder of a technology startup that develops super-cool iPhone apps. Once you realize that you need to raise funds, to hire new talent or kick-start your marketing efforts, you’ll realize that it’s time to consider your options.

VC firms and angel investors are worth a shot, of course, but an ICO may be you best strategy. However, I’m not here to tell you that it’s easy to succeed with an ICO, which can be every bit as challenging as securing venture capital; but you do have more control over the process.

Tip: A variety of tools, such as DropDeck, are available, to aggregate and rate funding opportunities, whether you’re an investor, ICO or SME. DropDeck, in particular, uses artificial intelligence to rate companies for investors choosing where to invest. “Everyone wants to fund promising companies,” DropDeck’s CEO Alon Vo said in a press release published on Bitcoin.com.

Related: 4 Pros and Cons of Investing in a New Cryptocurrencies

“DropDeck wants to remove the barriers that keep average funders away from the greatest opportunities,” Vo continued. “There are a lot of existing platforms for you to do that, but we want to build your favorite one.” The difference between DropDeck and its competitors, the CEO claimed, is that his company is using sophisticated algorithms and artificial intelligence to sort through the companies for you.

2. Competition is fierce.

Remember: There’s more to success with an ICO than meets the eye. You can’t assume that investors will flock to your ICO. Instead, your success (or failure) is directly tied to your marketing.

Still, some ICOs have been quite successful: The total amount of money raised via ICOs each month, according to a CNBC.com special report, is in excess of $100 million. This means two things: Individuals are willing to invest, and investors have options.

While this surge means that ICOs are receiving more media attention, it also means that competition for investor support will only increase. Companies that want to distinguish themselves among the saturated ICO playing field have to educate themselves on best practices and execute at a level that is as mature as that of companies vying for IPOs.

Matt McGraw is founder and CEO of Dispatch Labs, a blockchain protocol (blockchain being the technology that underlies cryptocurrencies); his company set to initiate its own ICO in early 2018. In a call to me, McGraw said he believes that professional execution will be the key to ICO success going forward.

“Going into 2018, we have larger enterprises jumping on the ICO train, so the market for mindshare is oversubscribed — at least in relation to the sophistication of ICO execution,” McGraw said. “Up to now, many ICO projects simply haven’t been very professionally executed. We see more sophisticated and professional ICO advisory firms, PR firms and financial firms as the key differentiator for a successful ICO going forward.”

I also recently chatted with Nadav Dakner, founder and CEO of InboundJunction, a marketing firm for startups and blockchain projects, for my podcast (In The Trenches with Andrew Medal). Dakner said he believes that because the competition is tough, and the market is getting extremely saturated, companies contemplating an ICO need a lot of budget to stand out; they also need to employ growth-hacking tactics and a lot of creativity.

“We have advised and helped the marketing and business development of many ICOs in 2017, and one thing we’ve noticed about projects that succeed is the integrated marketing approach,” Dakner said.

Because there are literally hundreds or even thousands of ICOs that launch every month, you will hear only of the good ones. A combination of PR, ICO listing websites, YouTube reviews and perhaps a TV interview or two is a good start, but not enough. A solid advisory team and some entrepreneurial background among your founders are the elements that will truly convey to investors a sense of trust that you can build a company.

Apart from that, there are no shortcuts. ICOs need to first grow a huge Telegram community (a social-chat tool that most crypto companies use to communicate) over several months, invest in a great-looking website and video and understand that there are no shortcuts.

The easy days of just putting out a white paper explaining your project’s technical aspects and the composition of your team are over. You must now establish a real use case for the token you intend to promote and the blockchain technology that will fuel it.

3. Communication is key.

No two companies or investors are the same, and an ICO is no exception. This is what makes effective communication just as important as your marketing strategy.

The way you communicate with investors is essential to your success. Have you outlined the details of your ICO, such as the technical information that investors are sure to mull over before making a final decision? How about your vision for the future, including where you see your company moving to in the next year?

“We communicate with hundreds of ICOs that want to list themselves on our website and community,” Alex Buelau CEO of CoinSchedule told me. “Based on what we see, teams that have a very clear and well-defined road map and a not-too-heavy marketing white paper do well. It’s also extremely important to have an attractive one pager Sure, you could fund-raise via VCs and angel investors. But how about an initial coin offering, instead, a strategy that is new and super-cool? and website, because people buy with their eyes.”

A clear marketing message puts you in a good light with investors. They want to see a clearly defined company strategy, and possibly a serious lock-up on token bonus for the founders, to create ithe sense that the company is in it for the long haul. Alternately, a cloudy message can lead to your business (and ICO) being overlooked, in favor of the (heavy) competition.

Related: Watch Out for These Cryptocurrency Scams

The upshot? If your startup has hopes of raising funds without following the “same old” traditional path, an initial coin offering is an idea to consider. This is a new way of funding a company, with many entrepreneurs taking notice. This year, 2018, is set up to be the year of cryptocurrency and ICOs, so now’s the time to learn as much as you can.



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05 Jan 2018
Sticky Post By Posted in News, Search Permalink

Why Google May Not Always Be King of the Mountain

Sticky Post By On January 5, 2018



The highest point for any tech company isn’t when it launches its first product, or closes a big round of funding. It’s the moment when the company name makes that magical transition from noun to verb.

  • Think about when “Have you heard of Uber?” became “I’m Ubering home.”
  • Or, when “Look it up on Google” became “Google it.” That is true success.

Related: 5 Steps to Getting Started with Search Engine Reputation Management (SERM)

It’s easy to assume that companies that have completed the transition from noun to verb are untouchable — that they will never be toppled from their position of market dominance. But this isn’t always the case. Uber’s market share has shrunk by nearly 20 percent since 2014 — a fall that can be attributed more to corporate scandals and declining public opinion than any flaw in its product.

Companies that enjoy near-monopolistic power over their market become vulnerable when their reputation begins to decline. This is precisely why the search engine market is poised for disruption. Google — which today enjoys a cool 75 percent share of the search engine market — has seen its reputation shaken over the past year by a series of issues. And this should not be a surprise: Search is not a solved problem; there’s still plenty of room for innovation and disruption. 

Here are three reasons why the search industry is ripe for disruption. 

 Filter bubbles

Filter bubbles are the byproduct of social algorithms utilized by Google and most other search platforms. When a user enters a term into a search engine, the engine’s algorithms take into account what they know about that user’s preferences and interests based on his or her online activity. The algorithms then prioritize search results that are tailored to that particular user’s preferences.

The result? Conservatives are fed conservative content, liberals are fed liberal content, millennials are fed millennial content and, in general, everyone lives in a personalized bubble where his or her own ideas and prejudices are continually reinforced and never challenged.

 The term “filter bubble” was coined back in 2011 by Eli Pariser, chief executive of Upworthy and board president of MoveOn.org. “Even if you’re logged out,” said Pariser in his now-famous TED Talk, “there are 57 signals that Google looks at — everything from what kind of computer you’re on to what kind of browser you’re using, to where you’re located — that it uses to personally tailor your query results.”

Moreover, the relevance of these “filter bubbles” has increased over the past 12 months as their dangers have begun to manifest more seriously in public life. Leading figures like Bill Gates and Angela Merkel have spoken up about the problem, which has been blamed for increasing political polarization and for harming civic conversation in democratic countries.

Related: Google’s New Mobile-First Index and the Death of Desktop SEO

Sanjay Arora, founder and CEO of Million Short, a customizable search engine, believes, however, that filter bubbles can be popped if people are given more options and control over how they search for information online.

“Why do we let a tiny number of companies control the information that we access on the internet?” Arora asked during a phone interview we had when I was prepping for my new podcast (In The Trenches with Andrew Medal). “The world,” Arora said, “needs more search engine options.”

Rather than feeding results from opaque algorithms, Million Short allows users to tailor its search results, he pointed out. This happens through a variety of custom filters, and through the option the viewer has to actually filter out the top 100 to 1,000,000 sites on the internet.

The results can be eye-opening for the user, Arora claimed, noting: “Every day, we get feedback from users telling us how Million Short allows them to discover content online that they couldn’t find with traditional search engines.”

 Fake news

“Fake news” was one of the highest-profile social issues of 2017. Malicious groups, including political extremists and Russian hackers, used the internet’s biggest platforms to circulate untrue stories in order to stoked partisan conflict and influence national elections.

Google’s search algorithms carry much of the blame for the widespread circulation of those stories. At various points last year, Google actually displayed a neo-Nazi Holocaust denial website at the top of its search results, promoted fake news tweets that mischaracterized the Texas church shooter as a Muslim extremist and suggested that President Obama was planning a communist coup de’etat.

The real problem is that Google’s algorithms are vulnerable: They can be taken advantage of by fake news propagators. “I think the reason fake news ranks is the same reason why it shows up in Google’s autocomplete,” said Joost De Valk, founder of Yoast. “They’ve been taking more and more user signals into their algorithm.

“If something resonates with users, it’s more likely to get clicks,” De Valk continued, “Google is quick to promote you to number one . . . Nothing in their algorithm checks facts.”

Of course, this isn’t an easy problem to solve. Even if algorithms get better at separating fact from fiction, the humans that design those algorithms bring their own biases into the equation. Are we comfortable giving one company the authority to make decisions about what news is worthy of distribution? “They’re really skating on this ice,” said Michael Bertini, a search strategist at marketing agency iQuanti, “They’re controlling what users see. If Google is controlling what they deem to be fake news, I think that’s bias.”

 So, who’s out there working on this? Any company that can solve this puzzle is certain to create a serious buzz, considering that the issue of fake news continues to be a hot topic for 2018.

 Data security concerns

Fake news isn’t the only issue: As digital platforms like Google become increasingly ubiquitous and sophisticated, concerns about data security and privacy are also on the rise.

Google has been criticized for the various ways that it tracks and stores information about  online behavior. And the search giant hasn’t exactly been apologetic about this practice. Its former CEO Eric Schmidt once said, “If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place. If you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines — including Google — do retain this information for some time.”

Other search platforms disagree: They’ve rejected the inevitability of user data tracking. Duck Duck Go, for example, built its entire platform around the idea that search engines shouldn’t track or store user data. This principled stance has won Duck Duck Go a loyal following and the seventh largest market share in search.

So, these are some of the reasons why search is far from a solved problem. They’re why the number of players in the space — Quora, Million Short, Duck Duck Go and the revamped Ask.com, to name a few — is increasing.

Related: The 5 Problems Google Will Face in the Next 10 Years

There are still serious challenges that need to be solved, and bold entrepreneurs are out there trying to solve them, taking advantage of opportunties for innovation that Google seems unable or unwilling to pursue.



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