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In the interest of helping people understand me more effectively, I’ve changed the name of this blog to “Cue the Future,” which more aptly communicates what guides most of my efforts.
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In my life, I’m focused on figuring out how innovation will improve our lives, and how we as a society can get there quickly and safely. I strive to be one of those innovators, as described by this O’Reilly quote:
\n\nSo often, signs of the future are all around us, but it isn’t until much later that most of the world realizes their significance. Meanwhile, the innovators who are busy inventing that future live in a world of their own. They see and act on premises not yet apparent to others.
This name change has come on the heels of a lot of thought, including input from several friends, Steve Jobs and Mark Suster. Read more about that process after the jump.
\nSteve Jobs is a masterful marketer. Recently, I discovered a video of Jobs introducing the Think Different Campaign from a friends blog, and was blown away with the way he boiled down complex realities into very simple concepts. I was particularly impressed with the following statement:
\n\n“To me, marketing is about values. It’s a very complicated world, a very noisy world. We’re not going to get a chance to get people to remember much about us, no company is. So we have to be really clear about what we want them to know about us.”
That key insight is important, if you want to make it easy for people to “understand” you, you need to give them a very clear description of what you’re doing. You can expand upon this as you get into conversation, but you need to have a clear description to share with someone that is broad enough to encompass most of your actions, yet specific enough to retain clear meaning for the recipient.
\nMark Suster has a great post on the need to refine and nail your professional elevator pitch, where he wrote:
\n\n[Life] is filled with 20 second opportunities. Some get converted into 5 minute opportunities or into a lifetime. Most are squandered.
I’ve been thinking about this in the context of personal description for the past few months. As a young person with an interesting and stimulating career, a public life, a side project, and a growing cadre of personal interests, I’ve been having trouble describing myself in a way that honestly helps people understand me after 5 minutes spent researching me on my website — much less within 10 seconds of meeting me.
I seek to understand the future and how it will change the things that are important in my life. This driving force has led to a love affair with Technology (a driving force of change), a calling related to innovative marketing (which is at the front-lines of redefining the consumer experience and the mechanics of capitalism), and a philanthropic interest in long-term, systemic change. I’m not sure where else it will take me, but I am sure I’ll be along for the ride for awhile.
\nI don’t plan on changing the type of content posted here much, but I hope anchoring around my fascination with the future will help provide proper context to otherwise seemingly random thoughts.
\nIf you notice any oddities in this site, please let me know, but all pages and links should automatically redirect to the new site and all old posts should be up and functioning. Thanks to Ben Casnocha, Jascha Kaykas-Wolff, and Wayne Willis for discussions on this subject.
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Stand up against religious discrimination – even if it’s not your religion
As religious diversity increases in the United States, we must learn to channel religious identity into interfaith cooperation.
- Religious diversity is the norm in American life, and that diversity is only increasing, says Eboo Patel.
- Using the most painful moment of his life as a lesson, Eboo Patel explains why it's crucial to be positive and proactive about engaging religious identity towards interfaith cooperation.
- The opinions expressed in this video do not necessarily reflect the views of the Charles Koch Foundation, which encourages the expression of diverse viewpoints within a culture of civil discourse and mutual respect.
Moon landing astronauts reveal they possibly infected Earth with space germs
Two Apollo 11 astronauts question NASA's planetary safety procedures.
- Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins revealed that there were deficiencies in NASA's safety procedures following the Apollo 11 mission.
- Moon landing astronauts were quarantined for 21 days.
- Earth could be contaminated with lunar bacteria.
NASA's idea for making food from thin air just became a reality — it could feed billions
Here's why you might eat greenhouse gases in the future.
- The company's protein powder, "Solein," is similar in form and taste to wheat flour.
- Based on a concept developed by NASA, the product has wide potential as a carbon-neutral source of protein.
- The man-made "meat" industry just got even more interesting.
Where the evidence of fake news is really hiding
When it comes to sniffing out whether a source is credible or not, even journalists can sometimes take the wrong approach.
- We all think that we're competent consumers of news media, but the research shows that even journalists struggle with identifying fact from fiction.
- When judging whether a piece of media is true or not, most of us focus too much on the source itself. Knowledge has a context, and it's important to look at that context when trying to validate a source.
- The opinions expressed in this video do not necessarily reflect the views of the Charles Koch Foundation, which encourages the expression of diverse viewpoints within a culture of civil discourse and mutual respect.
