Tag: digital

The Future of Truth

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Technology is on a progressive path to let us fake just about anything. Photoshopped faces, Instagram filters, fake friends and fakes news which is often very difficult to distinguish from the real thing. Like most things tech enables, fake isn’t new – it just scales better than ever.

The internet has a very long memory. In our digital lives, nothing we do ever really disappears. There is no ‘delete’ button. The truth is we’re all wading through a mountain of digital debris which has tracked our lives for the past decade or so. The problem with this debris, however, is that it can be used to build different versions of events. It can retell the story of what we said and what we did in ways which seem indisputable to the human eye.

In an era of Deep Fakes, the  last forms of provable truths evaporate right in front of our eyes – video so realistic we can’t tell whether the global leader actually said that at a news conference or whether that celebrity really did make a porn movie. The scariest part? It’s all possible via open source software where a few random pictures and a voice sample can be concocted to create such fakes. This could be life-changing for the victims. They’re already for sale right here for a few hundred dollars. We can even take a single image and make semi-plausible video today as shown in the gif above! Imagine how even more advanced this technology will be in a year or so.

Weirdly, there is some good news. As deep fake videos become so easy to make and so ubiquitous in our digital world, we’ll start to distrust everything we see online. When this happens, what we’ll be only be left with is what happened when we were in the room ourselves. Or we’ll just have to ask the person what actually happened and what was actually said. We will be swimming so deep in fake everything in the coming years that the truth will again morph into something irrevocably human. No digital copy or version of anything will suffice. Analogue truth might just make a comeback.

Even so, that too might also be temporary. The world as we know it moves in technological tides, so the next iteration of deeper fakes will be truly mind-blowing.

Let’s consider something a little crazy. What happens when we can make robots that are indistinguishable from humans? Robots with soft-exo bodies, natural sounding voices and smooth movements. Once that becomes possible – and it will – it’s only a matter of time before we have a world in which fake humans leave the screen and enter the street. Then we’ll have to ask ourselves some weird questions like:

Did Steve really come to work today or did he send his robot proxy?

Was the nice girl I met at the event and exchanged numbers with real or humanoid?

Was the Olympic runner who won the 100m dash real or a lab-built improved replica of the human runner?

It’s only just beginning.

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The one word that ties this revolution all together

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

If I had to use one word to tie together this technology revolution we are living through it would be this:

Mobility.

Once we think about all the tools arriving and what they allows us to do, much of it revolves around geo graphic independence and mobility.

Smart phones – mobile computing in all it’s capacities. Mobile communications.

Driverless cars – increased mobility of people and things, independent of human touch.

Wikipedia / Blogging / Vlogging – Mobility of information and ideas, not locked down the the physical location of books or other data sources.

Social networks – Mobility of connections to people, what we are doing and saying flies across the globe at the click of a button.

Work – Ability to get information work done anywhere in the globe.

Drones – Mobility of things, visual footage and data points, and soon people.

Payments gateways – mobility of finance outside of physical banks.

Crypto Currency – mobility of money and payments, independent of any geography or government.

Blockchain & Smart Contracts – Mobility of promises independent of location, and premised on execution of that promise without parties having to meet physically.

3D printing – Mobility of manufacturing – send a file, make it anywhere.

Crowd Funding – Mobility of innovation outside of funding ecosystems.

e-commerce – Mobility of retail, sell to anyone, anywhere.

Cloud Computing – Mobility of data storage – it follows you around the world

Cloud Manufacturing – Alibaba providing access to the world of manufacturing with a few clicks

Freelance markets – Mobility of labour forces for information work.

Given all of this, we need to ask ourselves a simple question to future proof ourselves and or the company we work for;

How are we increasing the mobility of what we make sell or do. It’s a great place to start.

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If you want to increase the mobility of your future join me for my new book launch – The Lessons School Forgot – on Tuesday night in Melbourne. Reserve your seat here for a night of inspiration & ideas with good people.

See you then, Steve.

You'll never believe what these guys are really selling!

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

The other day I was in the airport where a new startup was sampling itself. It’s an app to jump the coffee queue. I’m always stoked to see people having a go at a new business and got them to give me their pitch. It’s always good for entrepreneurs to practice unprepared. Then I realised I got a coffee but didn’t use their service. And here’s why:

Part of what I’m buying is the wait.

Yep, some of the people getting their morning java actually enjoy the wait. The wait is what is being sold. Sometimes it’s the conversation with the Barrista, and sometimes it’s the walk to the cafe. I guess we can throw the coffee on that list too.

Morning coffee

This is why you’ve seen a hundred other apps for people to jump coffee queue and they never quite work. I’m also wondering what happens if the app is successful?  Wont all those who used it end up ‘in a queue again’ via a digital deli ticketing system? The problem probably isn’t the arrival time, but the output bottleneck in peak demand times.

It;s another reminder that an effective business model isn’t just about demand – it’s very often about why we buy, and the model and the friction… and how money can be made through the transaction process, not just with the transaction itself.  As for the entrepreneurs, they did the right thing by having a crack. They could prove me wrong and I hope they do. Their worse case scenario is that they learn plenty and pivot closer to the success they deserve.

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How technology weirdly solves the problems it creates

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

The erudite Kevin Kelly says that the solution to problems caused by technology is more technology. And I couldn’t agree more. It’s easy to think that regression might be the solution, but once we realise that technology is literally its own organism, with its own agenda, then we can pretty quickly come to the conclusion that the best way to fix things is to work with the world and its natural trajectory. And technology, given it was invented by natural beings, is simply a force of nature.

I was thinking about what something like the Pokemon Go phenomenon could do if such gaming mechanics where put to positive use. Then weirdly I asked the barista in my local cafe what he did on the weekend and he said he did a fair bit of walking – 50km’s to be exact.. I said, oh cool, do you go up to the mountains or along the river. To which he replied just around the suburbs, no where specific. I said that’s interesting…. and then he finally admitted he was chasing Pokemon.

It got me thinking about digital technology being partially blamed for the obesity epidemic, especially in children… and most likely that digital technology is the solution too. Pokemon Go is one way to get kids moving, but maybe the new Lilly Drone (seen below) or some other kind of Dronian Angel could be used to watch over and follow kids as they move around town. Maybe they can walk or ride to school again as it may alleviate some safety concerns? Who knows?

The point is, we need to open our mind to real problems emerging technology can solve. How it can bring back some positive patterns of the past (walking to school) and invent entirely new possibilities. I think it is exciting.

If you want to read the best book in recent years on this topic, then be sure to get onto KK’s latest effort – the Inevitable. I savoured every word.

The single truth about viral activity – It's just scenery

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

The internet is an infinite ever expanding place. We all live inside of it, move around it and want our share of attention and activity from it. The ultimate thing we all seem to want (even if secretly) is to get everyone to pay attention to our blog post, video, social feed, pithy statement of insight and all other forms of digital output. That’s the promise of something going viral. Because if we get that attention, if everyone catches on and shares our work, we’ll be on the path the greatness. We’ll have broken through the masses and be able to leverage the focus on us. Turn attention into a relationship. That’s the promise of being shared on the Verge or Buzzfeed or Viral Nova. But here’s the truth about that piece of viral marketing. It doesn’t work, it rarely has impact and is a fleeting moment, a shooting star, a moment from which the utility is the moment itself. It expires quickly.

What we need to imagine is this. The internet is a giant beach. We are all grains of sand on that beach. Some of us try to be more than a single, undifferentiated grain of sand. We agglomerate, co-ordinate and try and turn ourselves into something worth noticing. Maybe we become a beautiful sea shell. Beautiful enough for the the people walking along that beach to stop and take notice. They might see us, pick us up and inspect the sea shell. Comment on the sheer beauty, show their friend who they happen to be walking along the beach with. We get passed around, and we become the moment. They might even take the sea shell – save it – put it in the pocket and take it home, because it’s valuable – add it to their ‘favourites’. But what we must really understand is that they will keep on walking. The passer by is not there for us. Even if they are walking along the beach (the internet) to see and find interesting things, we can only ever be one of those things that makes their journey interesting. They continue on with whatever it is they are doing and onto their destination.

sea shell

Viral activity, in real terms is just scenery. And I should know. I’ve had a number of blog posts with more than 100,000 views. I’ve had 2 videos with millions of views. And I’ve been featured on all those websites mentioned at the the start of this blog post. And the over riding lesson is that people get on with their lives. Viral marketing is only effective when there is a formula for repeated impact – a business model around it, which is not easy to do. If we want the impact that we falsely believe viral marketing can create, then we’d be better off focusing on utility and frequency. That is creating something which has utility for the people beyond the moment. Utility which is worth coming back for again and again. And what that takes isn’t luck, it’s more about hard work serving others over long periods of time.

 

How to lose a customer

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

I’ve been using a certain weather app on my phone for some time. It is called Pocket Weather AU – Lite. It is the free version. A few times when I have clicked in to check the weather, it has given me this pop up screen below:

Pocket Weather

This time in good faith, I thought I’d click through and see what the offer was. To my disappointment, it was a simple ‘buy our paid version‘ of the app. No benefit, no exclusivity, nothing had been unlocked, no reason, no thanks for using. Just their way of asking me to upgrade. Now if you ask me there cannot be a more insulting way to incentivise a customer to upgrade. Tell them they are a cheapskate, pretend to offer something better, and then give them nothing for using the service for a few years.

Here’s what I did. I deleted their app – got another equally good free weather app, and wrote this blog entry about what I think might not be the best way to engage an audience your doing business with. Some things these guys might want to consider:

  1. If you don’t want your app to be free, then make it a paid version.
  2. Insulting people is not a very effective way to get them to upgrade financially to a software or web service.
  3. Making promises of exclusivity and non existent benefits is generally not a good idea.
  4. Understand the economics of excess supply. There are a zillion other free weather apps and my cost of moving to another service is close to zero.
  5. But mostly respect people, and maybe make them some kind of offer or reward for loyalty if employing a fermium business model.

I prefer to be positive in life, and have not even enjoyed writing this entry. Maybe that’s the over riding lesson. Don’t lie, treat people with respect and  positivity and they just might give you more money.

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Derivative Success

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

While success is a relative term, there is a simple way to know if we’ve built something we can regard as a huge macro success. And that is when others are claiming derivative success within the platform we have created.

Examples could include:

  • A top downloaded iPhone app
  • X million views for a Youtube video
  • A featured post about your project on Boing Boing
  • Being person X on platform Y

Once someone can be regarded a success because they have used what we’ve built well, that’s when we know we’ve really changed the world.

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