Traveling Geeks

Melding of Minds on the Future of Humanity Over an Arc Fusion Jeffersonian Dinner

Ever heard of a Jeffersonian dinner? I’ve been invited to one or two over the last few years, one of which was being held in Washington DC, where it was birthed in the 1800’s by none other than Thomas Jefferson himself. Because of those invitations, I had some vague idea of what they were, but never actually participated in one until the Arc Fusion folks hosted one recently in San Francisco.

Photo credit: www.smithsonianmag.com  
Rewind the clock to 1819 and visualize yourself at a long and decadently adorned table with Thomas Jefferson at Monticello, his elegant Virginia home. Around the table, you’re seated with a group of people steeped deep in culture, philosophy, education, history, politics, art, literature, science and theology.
The idea behind a Jeffersonian Dinner is to bring people together from different disciplines, creating a new cause-centered community around a topic of importance or significance you might want to discuss for whatever reason. This can be done to tap into new resources, raise funds for a non profit or important issue, or simply to expand the group’s thinking about a variety of topics.
It’s important that it be somewhat intimate so 12-15 people at a table is a good size and I’d argue that while someone’s home isn’t a requirement, it makes it more personal — a private dining room could also work.
The purpose of the Jeffersonian Dinner is to build a sense of community and partnership around a shared interest or theme. One of the rules is that everyone participates in a single conversation and are not encouraged to engage in one-on-one dialogues with their partners on either side.     

Photo credit: blog.asana.com. 
How fitting that the San Francisco Arc Dinner be held at the 1880’s Payne Mansion on Sutter Street and also how intriguing that the topic at hand was not about the past, but about our fears and concerns for the future, say in 100 years.
David Ewing Duncan kicked off the event. A historian, author, journalist and also CEO of Arc Fusion, which celebrates the conversion of IT, healthcare and biotech, David decided to take us down memory lane before dinner.
 
Photo credit: Arc Fusion Website.

We went back to 1915 and recalled some of the provocative insights, inventions and historical moments of the time. Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis Complete Idiot’s Guide to Beating Stress was out at the time (surprising I know), the first EKG was used in 1913 and OMG was first used in 1917 (yes really). 
The industries David and his team at Arc are most interested in exploring are at the intersection of what is happening in health, IT and biotech. It’s not hard to see why, with nearly $800 billion being spent on health and wellness and $1.1 trillion on IT services with $50 billion on Health IT alone. 
He asked attendees before they came to the dinner whether they felt they’d be alive 100 years from now. 18% said yes whereas 82% voted no. In case you think that even 18% is insanely overly optimistic, remember that the audience is highly vested in technology and some are actually working on the most important research in the fields on longevity/aging, science, technology and medicine.
The same audience voted on what will be most important to humanity’s fate in 100 years — 40% voted for politics whereas it was no surprise to see technology lead that vote at 60%. As far as the impact on humans in the next 100 years, 36% felt it would be in gene editing and a whopping 70% went for stem cells. Pharma only came in at 11% which tied with health and wellness and bionics took last place at 9%. 
Other things on people’s minds included mood manipulation, synthetic biology, longevity tech, next generation deep learning and renewable energy. 
James Canton asked the audience to imagine a future where embedded devices and technology automate the work, resolving issues that need to be addressed in our bodies. The truth is that nano and quantum technologies are expanding so rapidly that we are now in a game changing time for our health. Innovative ecosystems will start to do disease detection for us, hopefully before it turns into disease.
Drew Endy asserted that learning “how to” solve problems is the secret to sustaining life over the long haul. His deepest wishes include a future where biology will have distributed manufacturing and distributed systems and that humans will start to think of a world outside of themselves. Hear hear.
Casey Lynett addressed where we are going with Alzheimer’s pointing to some important finds for this disheartening disease that seems to be soaring not reversing. 
Artist and molecular biologist Una Ryan showed us her work, reminding us of the beauty inside our bodies through our cells, our protein and our blood. She refers to the image below as the Tree of Life since it contains everything that makes our bodies operate. 

 
The food they served at the dinner was not surprisingly farm-to-table and organic. It was also very purposely selected based on a fascinating premise — each ingredient was chosen to serve every vital organ of the body. Dishes ranged from salads and nori rolls to fresh fish and wine for the heart — two thumbs up for the Trefethen Cabernet Sauvignon that showed up on our table.

The most riveting part of the evening, at least for me since it touched on some of the most controversial conversations happening around healthcare today, was the fireside chat between venture capitalist and serial entrepreneur Vinod Khosla and renowned doctor Dean Ornish.
Both visionaries took the stage to share their take on the future of healthcare. Vinod formed Khosla Ventures to focus on both for-profit and social impact investments and as a big believer in the importance raw data can have the future of health, he invests in both healthcare and biotechnology.
Says Vinod, “almost nothing that is relevant in medicine today will be relevant in 20-30 years. Even though some of it may still be true, it will be too imprecise to be that useful so no one will use it.” He asserts that medicine will be mostly science and data driven over the next 10-15 years.  
He added, “we will have more research opportunities but we won’t use them because we won’t have the causality which is most important.”
He also went on to say that we won’t use doctors that much in the future to get a diagnosis and what we may pay more credence to is the doctor or (non-MD) who has the highest EQ not the highest IQ. Hear hear Vinod! I couldn’t agree more. Bedside manner, using common sense and logic and listening between the lines to a patient is something that so many traditional doctors so sadly “don’t get.”
 
Dean takes a slightly different approach although they agreed more than disagreed. While he agrees that data gives us a lot of useful information we may not have had access to twenty years ago, if all we are is a set of algorithms, then humans can simply be replaced by an app. The reality says Dean is that we are so much more.
What I love about Dean’s approach and always have ever since I first met him now over a decade ago, is that while he’s far from a luddite, he tries to get people (and the industry) to look at the underlying cause of an issue. He believes that lifestyle and diet shifts are fundamental game changers, pivotal to reversing symptoms and in many cases, the disease itself.
He’s interested in lifestyle medicine which is very low tech, but the power of low-tech interventions is very very real and something that techies sadly discount all too readily, focusing most of their time on connected devices, data and the Internet of Things.
Personally I lose sleep at night thinking about how so many brilliant scientific and medical minds can be so misguided, overlooking the raw fundamentals of what can keep us healthy and happy, holistically so.
Bottom line, we need to treat the underlying cause and also look at the mind, body and spirit, NOT just the body alone.
This integrated approach is what the techies and scientists keep missing and a sad reason why insurance companies put holistic care like acupuncture and body work, organic food, diet modifications and supplements last on the priority list.
It’s the same broken record when it comes to addressing the disgusting impact that processed foods are having on Americans today. (Note: processed food ingestion is increasing globally of course, but the yanks still sadly take the cake when it comes to fast food and boxed processed ingredients as their go-to- diet). I digress but the whole thing sickens me so much that I can’t help but vent at times like this.
Truth be told, as Dean took the provocative and controversial low-tech stance amidst so many tech-centered entrepreneurs in the room that night, I wanted to stand on my chair and boldly blurt out – “GO DEAN and oh btw, don’t stop here!”
He is a big advocate of lifestyle and diet changes and given recent research findings, they’re finding that the same lifestyle interventions that deter heart disease are the same ones that can keep prostrate and breast cancer at bay and even in some cases, Alzheimer’s.
You can apparently see a positive and reversing effects to 500 genes over the course of 3 months through lifestyle changes.  For most chronic diseases, which account for 86% of issues, we can reverse their onslaught through shifts in our lifestyle and diet. 
Dean thinks that we’ll see a future where the placebo effect will be more important not less. Why? Because, it works.
Vinod doesn’t disagree with Dean although he wants to see data behind it, proving that it’s real. In his view, the math is the math of networks, but agrees with Dean that diet is important and that symptoms are the wrong way to look at a disease. 
Given that we live in an information age and are drowning in so much data we don’t know what to do with it, I agree with Dean that while data may be important and there’s no doubt having access to what our bodies are doing and why is useful, its only part of the equation. Plenty of people have data but even if you know that smoking cigarettes can kill you, if you’re suffering from deep anxiety and depression, you’re not going to quit smoking anytime soon.
Anxiety and depression are very real, particularly in the states. The stats are going up and pharma companies are making millions on drugs, some of which cover up the real issues that lay behind what is making them depressed in the first place.  
Dean asserts that what is even more vital is the mantra I keep beating people over the head with every day: the more so called connected we are, the more disconnected we are….I mean physically and emotionally disconnected, not the fact that we can now communicate with people instantaneously on Facebook or Skype from our cell phones in real time.
What’s really missing is the deeper sense of meaning you get from being physically and emotionally connected to others. There’s no doubt that people need to rediscover inner peace, joy and purpose in their lives.
Bottom line, it’s all about changing the raw materials we give to people and place as a priority. I’ll end with this note and thought to reflect on: if we can take this “ground level” low-tech approach seriously by beginning with the things that provide deeper purpose and meaning, then we can really begin to accelerate healing. While data can continue to feed the bigger picture, if we don’t get back to the fundamental basics of what feeds the soul, we’ll remain a far cry from a truly sustainable solution to holistic health, happiness and well-being. A big high five to Dean Ornish!  
For more information on Arc Fusion, check out their site at http://arcprograms.net/ where you’ll also learn about their upcoming Arc Fusion Summit being held in southern California September 1-2, 2015. What David has created is a truly innovative, future thinking and leading-edge organization and he has managed to bring together some of the smartest minds to address what both plagues and interests us most today.

Soaring Fees & Declining Airline Service Do More Than Disempower Customers

While I’m not a 100,000 mile gal, I spend a lot of time on planes throughout the course of a year.  When it comes to flying these days, I think we can all agree — it’s a far cry from fun. Barely tolerable is what comes to mind.

Photo credit: Outsidethebeltway.com.
The saddening reality is that airlines worldwide brought in $31.5 billion in non-ticket revenue in 2013 — including passenger fees — which is MORE than 11 times their non-ticket revenue six years prior, adjusted for inflation according to CNN Money. Unfortunately, there’s little that we can do about it. There’s no plea here and our voices go unnoticed….otherwise, the price increases wouldn’t continue to soar year after year, not to mention new fees being added for incredulous things.

Photo credit: Dave Granlund.com.
Customer feedback no longer matters since it’s become an industry that treats people more like helpless cattle in tow than worthful customers they care about “serving.” Truth be told, I haven’t had a memorable and rewarding experience flying coach in about 8 or 9 years and it’s getting worse.
The smile comes on the video screen welcoming you prior to take off and if a video isn’t enough to make the whole experience feel less personal, I saw a recent clip where an unnamed airline actually replaced people with avatars.
During that “happy” video, you’re reminded that if you didn’t bring your own headset, you can get one from them for a mere $5 and that’s before you have to pay for the in-flight entertainment, no longer free. I’m old enough to remember when all of the “now” perks were just part of your normal travel experience — the headsets, the meals, the movie, changing your flight date or time and hell, American used to give away pens and decks of cards.
Meals in coach used real napkins laid out on the side of your plate and silverware — I’m not sure how I’m going to take a pilot down with a butter knife and silver fork, but hey, clearly they’re still worried about it. If it’s domestic, I oscillate between my two favorite U.S. carriers – Delta and American and if it’s international, I try to use one of their partners for the mileage points although frankly, it’s becoming less compelling by the day since it’s a helluva lot of work to get “status” points and once you’ve killed yourself on god awful flights to get them, your perks and benefits get set back to zero before you have an opportunity to relish in boarding ten minutes early and that one bag free perk.
I avoid United as they remain as anti-customer as Comcast does on the corporate brand list….the two companies should do joint seminars on how to piss off a customer the most in a one hour period.

Photo credit: www.thefinancialbrand.com 
 

If I don’t have a choice to go with a preferred airline partner for international flights, I choose an airline that is known for its service and simplifies traveling for me at a minimum, or in the rare case, doesn’t penny pinch me for everything. Virgin of course is the best known in this category stateside and they just came out with a credit card deal that allows you to change your flights for no fee. Remember those days? How bliss: “Customer-driven” decisions like that make me not want to ever fly another airline. When you purchase a car, design, color and safety matter a whole lot, but at the end of the day, the emotional reason for the purpose is how great you feel when you’re driving it.
Does it add to your experience and do you enjoy getting to your destination? The same applies to an airline experience. Too many airlines think they’re in the transportation business when they’re in the hospitality, service and customer experience industry, even more than a 5 star resort is and frankly, I’d argue than any other business.
That might surprise you but in a 5 star resort, I’m not counting on service non-stop for anywhere from 3 to 24 hours like I am on a flight. From movies, wine, blankets, headsets, your bag, to a fee for the privilege of sitting in a middle seat towards the front of plane or boarding a few minutes early in a line that is now longer than the regular one. I’ve even heard rumors that American is going to charge extra if you want to sit next to someone else, even if there are plenty of empty seats available. WTF?
In 2012, airlines raked in around $6 billion according to USA Today, and airlines made over $20 BILLION with my least favorite airline leading the way – United ($5.4 Billion) according to CNN Money. Australia’s Qantas Airways made $56.21 per customer — the highest amount in that particular survey. Apparently the revenue came mostly through selling frequent flier points to partners such as hotel chains and car rental companies.
Airlines that made the most from baggage fees in order of milking you dry (from a 2014 Marketwatch article), include Delta, United, US Air, America and Spirit.  Airline fees have risen from $2.8 BILLION in 2007 to over $30 BILLION in 2013 according to CNN Money. Below is a chart pulled from the same piece – original link below the image.
Photo credit: From CNNMoney.
Years later, I still hear arguments that they have to continue to rake us through the coals because of 9/11 and they’ll also argue that gas prices have gone up so they need to compensate for that too.
While that may be true, gas has also oscillated and while it was extremely high a couple of years ago, we paid $1.77 a gallon in America’s Midwest this past January. And, let’s be honest, ticket prices have also gone up and flights are fuller than they’ve ever been before – it’s very rare that I have an empty seat next to me and usually I’m sharing my paid seat with someone else when they can’t fit that comfortably in their own. (this happens a lot btw)
It takes the fun and the pleasure out of traveling. Travelaholics or business travelers who hang their hat on airlines frequently will admit that if we could skip the airline process to get to their destination, they would. In other words, it’s the worse part of the travel process — getting from A to B is NOT about transportation, it’s about the experience you have on the way.
This is why people smile when you mention the word Virgin — it’s because Richard Branson gets it. I also had the opportunity to meet Richard’s CEO of Virgin Produced Jason Felts at Idea Festival last year and he is one of the most down-to-earth souls you’ll meet sitting that high at the helm — authentic and fun! His persona and energy gives you the feeling that he actually “cares” about their customers and I’ll take it a step further, their experience of the world — inside Virgin and out.
When I fly coach, it’s such an uncomfortable experience that it’s often difficult to imagine the joy I’ll have when I finally get Italy, South Africa, Japan or wherever my journey might be taking me. Who doesn’t want to feel great on the journey there?
The problem is that most of us haven’t felt “great” on a journey to their destination in….well, years. We’ve all become accustomed to airline mediocrity, being treated as cattle (harsh, but true) and nickeling and diming every object we want to use and every move we want to make. As one woman put it who was standing in the security line before me at JFK recently, “now, it’s cattle in, cattle out, and no extra brownie points for being nice to the agent even when they were rude to you.”
Photo Credit: ECommerceInsiders.com.
Most airlines have lost the essence of what matters to customers and forgotten what business they’re in. Virgin gets it right most of the time even though they were forced by competition to follow suit with with some of those ridiculous charges. That said, Richard Branson understands that he’s in the “travel experience” business — my tagline, not theirs. It makes more sense for entrepreneurs who have successfully run high end theme parks or “high touch” resorts to run an airline since their approach to service and delivering an extraordinary experience are both so far beyond the mentality of most airlines, that their airline would likely very quickly stand out as the “Purple Cow”.
Branson realized he had to build in “aha” moments into the Virgin flying experience, from check in to behind the doors of the Virgin lounge and ultimately the on-board service.
There are a few airlines who can get away with being in the transportation business like Ryan Air, where service and quality matters a whole lot less since you’re paying so little for such a short flight. In a short flight scenario where the best deal is the order of the day, that free cushioned blanket and not paying for that tasteless processed meal isn’t your top priority.
Travel is all about the emotions and memories you have during your journey, whether it’s the journey of getting to a destination or an activity at a destination itself.  Think about it. The Eiffel Tower is just a structure – a very large and beautiful structure, but a structure in the middle of a city nevertheless. People have come to associate romance with this structure and as a result, there have been hundreds of proposals in front of it. The emotion that is associated with this structure is significant for many. Paris exudes romance and restaurants and hotels embrace it – it’s part of the French culture.
Exceptional service and including standards like a checked bag and more than just peanuts and pretzels on longer flights MUST BE the airline industry’s romance. Service and over the top customer care is to airlines what that memorable romantic experience is to Paris and why so many people flock to this popular European city.
While 9/11 was used as the primary reason airlines started tacking on additional charges, let’s face it — that was a long time ago and business & finance sites have reported how just how well the industry is doing. The additional charges have gone from annoying to ridiculous in some cases, outlandishly absurd in others. Rather than look for ways to innovate around customer service, they have looked for more ways to nickel and dime without creating more value and “high touch” moments for the customer.
Airline service used to be amazing however frequent flyers can attest that the “lack of caring” started before 9/11. And, it’s not as if airlines have been at the forefront of innovation. The same inflight magazines and barf bags line the back of the seats together with the traditional safety cards we had so many moons ago. And let’s be honest, the tray tables are cheap and flimsy and really not suitable for drinks. I remember useful cup holders on the back of some airline seats but haven’t seen those in years. There’s no place to put that cuppa coffee while you’re working on your laptop or even reading a book.
Rather than provide a memorable experience, what I’m left with today is a series of inconveniences, thanks to a direction that some operations head at one of the airlines started and others followed. Let’s look at a series of pissy moments I didn’t have to endure two decades ago, most of which defy logic and are nothing short of infuriating for a customer. That said, they have become so common that outlandish fees have become the status quo and we now live in a world where each trip is more painful than the last.

 Photo credit: FareCompare.com.
Booking a ticket: booking through an airline rep or agent on the phone now cost a fee – not the case 20 years ago. Since when did charging for a phone call to SPEND money with a company become okay? Imagine Macy’s charging you extra to make a purchase with a live person.
Booking a ticket online: while in theory, booking online has made things easier since you can jump online at 2 in the morning and purchase a ticket which I’ve done often, you incur fees and all sorts of cancellation policies that now get applied to the booking site as well as the airline.
Case in point is a ticket I booked through Expedia with Delta last year. When an emergency came up, I needed to change the ticket date and time from a flight from JFK to San Francisco. Expedia informed me that I needed to pay a fee to them as well as a fee to Delta for the change fee, on top of whatever the difference in fare was. After a whole lotta digging, I learned that the very same flight at the very same time 5 days later had many more seats than the original flight I was on, however the change fee for my $318 flight was slated to be $298.
When I looked at booking a new flight for that same route, there was only $14 difference in fare, and yet what I would be faced with was cost of a brand new ticket.
Blankets: Seriously? I once had a stewardess on United slip me a blanket saying she couldn’t bear to charge me because she found it so insidious. While I’m not a United fan, be assured that I have never forgotten that magic moment. Even though I still won’t choose to fly United because of so many previous bad experiences, she was a standout and her “out-of-the-box” attitude should be applauded, a rarity in the airline business today. Imagine a hotel charging for blanket and pillow use?
Headphone Charges: See above. Are you kidding? It is any wonder that there’s hundreds of articles out there begging the question, “what’s next on the nickel and dime me menu? Toilet paper or the privilege to use the bathroom?” Oh yeah, lest not forget I can keep them, like I need 25 flimsy plastic headsets at home. At the very least, they don’t charge you for using your own though it’s probably on someone’s list.
Change Fees: In the “we still care about customer service” days, we never had to pay for standby for same day flights if a seat was available in your class. Today, regardless of availability or the situation (see bullet 2 for an example of defying logic), you pay a change fee plus the difference in fare – same day, different day or anything in between. Bravo to Virgin for nuking that rule if you sign up for their latest credit card – oh so very smart! Doesn’t it just warm your heart to hear that?
Additional Leg Room Charges: Remember the days when you could move to a better seat if space was available on the plane? Even if something is open in the emergency row or a preferred section (which it never is anymore), you can no longer sit there without incurring an additional $50 fee. Shouldn’t seat leg room (and chair room) be ample to sit comfortably for a long haul?
Seats Are Getting Smaller And Yet: See above. It’s so politically incorrect to ask, but have the seats gotten smaller or are too many of us getting larger and larger? When I’ve raised this issue to other travelers and travel writers, they all agree that I shouldn’t publicly bring this up because of the sensitivity around it.
Even if that’s the case, if we don’t discuss it openly, how can we come to a politically correct resolution? If someone is so large that I have to share part of my space with them in a way that is uncomfortable, then I no longer have a full seat even if I paid extra for that seat in Economy Plus. If I should be forced to pay more for a seat that is simply closer to the front of the plane, shouldn’t I pay less for less than a full seat? It may sound insensitive, but we need to figure out politically correct ways to handle this moving forward, sensitive or not.
More $$$ To Sit Closer to the Front: See above. Beyond absurd, they have created a “class” that applies to sitting closer to the front of the plane even if it’s a middle seat – yes a middle seat with no additional leg room.
Paying More for a So Called Better Seat — What About Paying Less For A Lousy One? If the airline thinks that sitting in a middle seat closer to the front should cost more, what about charging less for the aisle seat right next to the toilet or galley?
Let’s be honest – these are lousy seats, from dealing with the foul smell from the bathroom to the noise and chaos around the bathroom from the door constantly opening and closing.  If they’re so hell bent on charging more for a middle seat closer to the front with no added leg space, why not charge less for a crappy seat where you can’t sleep or get any work done or if you get stuck in the back?
Wifi: Seriously, $30 for a flight? For those of you have used the various services know, wifi is rarely reliable for the entire flight. I have had so many touch and go issues with GoGo that I’ve been too frustrated to write about it yet. The codes either don’t work or when they do work, I’m connected but then thrown off 15 minutes or an hour later.
Meals: The worse thing about meals on airlines today isn’t even the extra charges even though we never paid for food 20 years ago either. Most of the food is processed or junk food (chips, nuts, processed meat and cheese and candy bars) and they charge a lot of money for the privilege of eating packaged food infused with sucralose, high fructose corn syrup, sugar and too many other unmentionables not worth naming.
For those who eat healthy and eating healthy is an important and integral part of your life, eating on airplanes today is a non-starter unless you’re in First Class or bring your own meal on board. Europe still “gets it” and hasn’t dropped to American airline food “flight” standards, at least not yet….
Drinks: Most airlines now charge more for a beer or glass of wine than at a pub or bar, even from an expensive city. And, the prices for the cheap labels they serve keep going up.
Baggage Fees: Fees, fees and more fees. Now of course, you can often get your first bag for free if you gladly hand $100 or more a year for the privilege of spending money on their credit card.
Photo credit: infinitelegroom.com.
Inflight Entertainment: Now, not only do we have to pay to see movies, but we often have to pay for each movie. The same applies to television. I was on a recent flight whose airline name I’ll omit, and on the TV menu, I had to pay $4-6 per episode.
TV used to be free for unlimited viewing and you never had to pay for a movie or the fee for a cheap plastic headset. In some cases, you can buy a bundle deal for a longer flight, but it’s not cheap, especially if you have fidgety children at your side.
Arguing with Airline Staff About Why X is Wrong or Some Hidden Fee: while we may have add to endure a frustrating moment when our flight was cancelled, delayed or we were re-routed, airlines used to sort it out and even apologize profusely for the inconvenience.
Even when it wasn’t a technical issue, you were sent to a nearby hotel and given a meal voucher – in other words, you felt understood and cared for, and that they felt sorry for the situation, which can sometimes result in missing a family reunion, an important birthday gathering, wedding, business meeting or worse. I chatted with about a dozen people on a recent flight who were over 35 but under 60 (it was a long delay) and I was disheartened by their countless horror airline stories.  
Perhaps there should be an “Airline Stress Tax” that gets reimbursed to the flyer? The toxic stress you often endure from flying is significant and has a price and yet airlines don’t seem to put a value on it. Trust me, frequent flyers do and, they are, but sadly there are few options today if any that make flyers feel empowered as a customer.
As extreme as you might think my bullets are, I’m simply trying to prove a point. These insidious add-ons have become so commonplace that we forget how emotional taxing each and every one is and how the combination of all of them has moved us out of an era of great service, something America was once notorious for, and into an era which focuses solely on increasing corporate profits over customer joy. A couple of exceptions are worth noting, something that would have been a normal airline customer experience in the past.
Sometime in the last six months, I ended a business meeting early in New York and wanted to get back to the west coast early. The thought of enduring the “fee” process or even calling to find out how ridiculous the additional charge would be, I decided not to make the call because of the stress involved in doing so, so simply headed to the airport instead. An odd thing happened. I was interjected in the queue by an overly friendly Delta representative who asked what flight I was waiting to check in for and when I explained that I had hoped to get on an earlier flight but wasn’t optimistic for all the reasons outlined above, he opened up a closed gate which led me immediately to a private area.
When I reached the service agent, I was checked into the earlier flight (4 hours before my original one) without getting out my wallet. A new boarding pass printed out with an aisle seat (my preferred choice) very close to the front on the 1 pm.  No fee or some saga story about “it’s our policy, I don’t make the rules.” What happened? I pinched myself not believing it was real and that I had somehow been transported back in time to a more formidable time.
Getting home earlier that day transformed my week given the grueling schedule I had gone through the previous ten days. I remember a time when it was simply a standard protocol for how an airline took care of their customers, an era where we weren’t nickeled and dimed for every transaction and every move, an era where we felt as if we mattered and our repeat business mattered.
A similar situation happened with American Airlines a week later when my baggage was 5 pounds overweight and the gleeful service agent let it slide. I was stressed about it for two days before my flight knowing that my bag for that trip would be heavier than most since I was heading to Vermont to review a ski resort and the temperatures were slated to be in the teens.
Most of the time, my bag weighs in at between 35 and 42 pounds, so why shouldn’t that one trip with a slightly heavier bag slide? In the above two cases, both service reps decided to let “policy” slide which resulted in memorable airline moments and a more loyal customer.  
Maybe the Delta rep saw how exhausted I was and maybe the American Airline ticket counter agent liked my smile or saw that I had just taken an American flight three days prior, OR maybe they are just rare individuals who don’t think of their roles as airline employees but as vehicles for customer happiness. (Note my current frequent flyer status on Delta is significantly higher than American)
There is a huge value to be placed on a happy customer, a loyal one who will not just come back again and again but sing their praises when they’re not flying. Most airlines have lost sight of who and what they represent as a business. When brands have been around for awhile, they can become complacent. Look at how god awful United’s brand was for years and while avid travelers still complain about them, their image has somewhat improved, but only marginally so.
Most people know the story of Canadian musician David Carroll whose guitar was broken by United — on YouTube as of writing this, his protest song has received nearly 15 million views.
As for soaring fees and service going down the drain, it appears that customers are powerless at changing the current status quo. The first shot in the war over bag fees came in May of 2008, when American Airlines announced it would be the first legacy carrier to impose a “first checked-bag” fee (Spirit and Allegiant had such a fee at least as early as 2007 from the research I’ve dug up).
According to a useful article on airline fees from Christopher Elliott (link below under useful resources), the North American airline industry collected an estimated $8.2 billion last year for just fees for items such as checked baggage, premium seat assignments and early boarding privileges — a $700 million increase from 2013.
 Isn’t it time that these rules got reversed?
A question to the airlines heads making these “fee” decisions at home base: do you want to be seen as a transportation company that gets a customer painfully from A to B or would you like to be in the “ultimate experience” business, creating memorable moments for your customers in the way that Zappos has done so successfully over the years? The airline who truly figures this out will transform the travel experience forever.
Useful Articles on Airline Fees

How Refundable Are Airline Fees from Elliot.org: http://elliott.org/the-navigator/refundable-airline-fees-not-much/#more-35966
Airline Fees Are Out of Control But Who Can Stop Them: http://elliott.org/blog/airline-fees-are-out-of-control-but-who-can-stop-them/
Are Airline Fees Being Properly Disclosed? http://elliott.org/blog/are-airline-fees-being-fairly-disclosed/
Are Airline Fees Anti-Family? http://elliott.org/blog/are-new-airline-fees-anti-family/
Maybe we should stop calling them Airline Tickets: http://elliott.org/is-this-a-scam/maybe-we-should-stop-calling-them-airline-tickets/
2010: Spirit Airlines breaks a new bag barrier by imposing a carry on bag fee (something Rick Seaney predicted one of the airlines might do, nearly a year before it happened)
2008: In August, JetBlue announces it will charge $7 for a pillow and blanket (but you can keep them, like I really want 25 of these at home after a year’s tally of flights)
2008: US Airways begins a highly criticized practice: charging for all drinks (including water, coffee, and soda)
2009: US Airways stops charging for all drinks (mainly because no other airline dared join them)
2009: Airlines began adding surcharges to tickets for “peak travel days” in September of ’09; originally this surcharge was imposed on the Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s holiday periods.
A great article on airline fees across most airlines from AirFareWatchDog: http://www.airfarewatchdog.com/blog/3801087/airline-fee-chart.html
Airline Fees Ultimate Guide (another great resource from SMARTER TRAVEL — you can even download as a PDF): http://www.smartertravel.com/blogs/today-in-travel/airline-fees-the-ultimate-guide.html?id=2623262

TEDxBerkeley Announces Speaker & Performer Line-Up for Feb 8 Event

The fifth annual TEDx Berkeley, which will be held at Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall on Saturday February 8, 2014, will feature 20 inspiring and innovative speakers and performers who will address this year’s theme Rethink, Redefine, Recreate.  

From education and healthcare to the monumental shifts we are seeing across technology, digital entertainment, sustainability, communications and the environment, the goal of this year’s event is to open up a global conversation around innovative ideas and transformations that happen when we don’t follow the status quo. The speaker and performer line-up for 2014 includes the following thought leaders and visionaries:
Kare Anderson: Kare is Say it Better Center founder, an Emmy-winning former NBC and Wall Street Journal reporter, columnist for Forbes and Huffington Post, and a translator of neuroscience research which improves how we connect and collaborate.
Nikki Borodi: Nikki is a musician, clown, aerial acrobatic, yoga instructor and artist who is in the process of writing a circus rock show to inspire people to manifest their dreams.
Vangelis Chaniotakis: Vangelis, who dreams of starting his own circus troupe, has been training on partner acrobatics since 2011 while also dabbling in hand balancing, tumbling, and static trapeze.  
Brenda Chapman: Brenda was formerly a story artist at Walt Disney Feature Animation, story supervisor on The Lion King, helped launch DreamWorks Animation Studios and created, wrote and directed for Pixar Animation Studios including Golden Globe winning Brave.
Dr. Al Greene: Dr. Greene is Medical Director at HealthTap, former President of The Organic Center, founding partner of the Collaborative on Health and the Environment and his site DrGreene.com, cited by the AMA as “the pioneer physician Web site”, has received over 80 million unique users.
Roberto Hernandez: Roberto co-directed and produced a documentary film which was nominated for three Emmy Awards and won an Emmy for Outstanding Investigative Journalism as a result of the film’s success in implementing an amendment to the Mexican Constitution.
Sarah Hillware:  Sarah is an outspoken advocate for young women’s health and women’s empowerment and founder and director of Girls Health Ed., a health education program for girl youth ages 8-17.  
Beth Kanter: Beth is a well-established international leader in nonprofits’ use of social media and her book “The Networked Nonprofit” introduced the sector to a new way of thinking and operating in a connected world.     
Guy Kawasaki: Guy is special advisor to the Motorola business unit of Google, former chief evangelist of Apple and a prolific author with 12 books under his belt.
Leslie Lang: Leslie is the Senior VP and General Counsel of Microclinic International, a global health nonprofit that is revolutionizing how chronic diseases are prevented and managed in under-resourced communities around the world.       
The California Golden Overtones: The California Golden Overtones are an all-female completely student-run A Cappella group on the UC Berkeley Campus, which has been around for over 20 years.
Yonat Mayer: Yonat and her band Yonat & Her Muse have shared the stage with artists such as post rock musician Fink and singer-songwriter Foy Vance.
Ted Miguel:  Ted is the Oxfam Professor of Environmental and Resource Economics and Faculty Director of the Center for Effective Global Action at the University of California, Berkeley, where his main research focus is African economic development.
Paul Rucker:  Paul’s work as a visual artist, composer, and musician combines media that integrates live performance, sound, original compositions, and visual art, and incorporates human rights issues, historical research, and basic human emotions.
Carol Sanford: Carol is the Founder and CEO of The Responsible Entrepreneur Institute and author of multi-award winning, The Responsible Business: Reimagining Sustainability and Success  and The Responsible Entrepreneur: Four Game Changing Business Archetypes.   
Dutta Satadip: Dutta heads up Sales Support for the Americas region at Google, where he is responsible for driving operational efficiencies and customer service across a multi-billion dollar portfolio of over 100 products.
Randy Schekman: Randy is an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and a Professor of Cell and Developmental Biology at the University of California, Berkeley, where his research is focused on the process of membrane assembly, vesicular transport, and membrane fusion. Schekman won the 2013 Nobel Prize for Medicine or Physiology.
Tim Shields: Tim is a desert biologist who has traversed a number of miles equivalent to circumnavigating the Earth and founder of Green Light Enterprises, now Hardshell Labs, which provides solutions to how to make conservation not only meaningful but fun.
Brian Sirgutz: Brian is the Senior Vice President of Social Impact at AOL/Huffington Post Media Group, where he leads all aspects of the company’s Social impact, CSR, business development and social innovation content and engagement strategy.
Ashley Stahl: An award-winning advocate for women in security, Ashley is Manager of the Enterprise Risk Management Center at Control Risks where she leads a team who advises companies on how to protect their personnel and assets from security threats in hostile environments around the world.
The New Orleans Manifesto: New Orleans Manifesto performs the various flavors of New Orleans Jazz with flair, funk and finesse, ranging from exciting groove oriented music to beautiful New Orleans serenades.
To attend this incredible event that takes over Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall at a special 25% discount, go our EventBrite page and use discount code: Renee25.
Disclosure: I am co-curator again this year and we are looking forward to an inspiring event next Saturday February 8. 

KEECKER’s Smart & Connected Robot Launches at CES 2014

Paris-based KEECKER is showing off its new smart, wirefree and connected robot on the International CES 2014 show floor in Las Vegas Nevada this week.  The new connected device will redefine the home entertainment and connected devices market. With a powerful video projection and 360° audio & capture system, KEECKER allows you to project movies, listen to music, browse the web, make video calls, play video games, transform the design of your home and more, all controlled through your smartphone. 

Using KEECKER’s innovative technology, you can transform your home with just one single device, eliminating the need for so many ”siloed” technology solutions we are forced into using today. KEECKER can project digital rich art, media, images and video anywhere as well as move around your home. Truly wirefree and mobile, KEECKER rolls alongside you using its advanced motorized wheels.
Moving beyond entertainment as we know it today, KEECKER transforms any room into an entertainment arena and any surface into a massive and immersive screen. Freed from its ”container”, content can be projected anywhere, whether its traditional entertainment, video, photos, interior design or beyond.

Equipped with a powerful video projection and 360° audio and video capture system, KEECKER allows you to project movies, listen to music, browse the web, make video calls, play video games and more. 

 
While many devices such as computers and smartphones are solely for personal use, KEECKER enables the sharing of collective experiences at home, bringing families closer together. Interested in taking a dive into the Milky Way or bringing your children under the sea in the comfort of your own home?

Want to draw monumental artwork on your walls or create pop up interior design just for a night? Whether you want to walk through your house Skyping with a friend in Tokyo, wake up to a view of Tuscany on your bedroom wall or countless other dynamic scenarios, KEECKER can create that experience for you. 

KEECKER can also be used to check home analytics (temperature, humidity, sound level, light level, CO2 level and more) and for security purposes, so you can check on your home remotely from the road.  From entertainment, games, web apps and home security to interior design creation, image and sound immersion, KEECKER can transform any room using your imagination.

 
KEECKER makes the nightmare experience of connecting home systems to game consoles, ISP boxes and mobile devices as well as the unsightly cables and wires in every corner of the house a thing of the past. 
KEECKER is 16 inches wide and 25 inches tall and is controlled via a free smartphone application (iOS, Android and Web). KEECKER’s prototypes are white with final colors to be announced at launch.
The device will come with one terabyte of local storage space, and be available to consumers in the $4,000-5,000 price range starting in Q4 2014. It will include the robot, free apps and its recharge base.
Disclosure: I provide consulting to keecker.

Kolibree Unveils World’s First Connected Electric Toothbrush

Kolibree, a company dedicated to innovative solutions to keep you healthy and smart, launched the world’s first connected electric toothbrush last night at the large renowned Unveiled Media Event in Las Vegas on the eve of the 2014 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES).  Unlike anything else that exists today, Kolibree’s smart toothbrush has a unique technology to analyze your brushing habits and display them on a mobile dashboard you can readily access from your phone.  
Kolibree’s connected toothbrush is paired with a mobile app. You simply download the free mobile app, connect via Bluetooth and every brushing is recorded. Then, the data about how you brushed automatically synchronizes to your smartphone telling you whether you brushed long enough and reached the hard-to-reach but important parts of your teeth and gums.
With the Kolibree connected toothbrush and mobile app, you can take control of your health and teeth with easy-to-understand monitoring and scoring. You can easily share your stats with your dentist and family or choose to keep it private. Designed for families, the app works with several toothbrushes so the entire family can participate. Kolibree rewards your progress and cheers you on when you are improving, allocating points to kids to encourage them to improve their brushing habits.

The Problem Kolibree Solves: Your dentist may have told you that plaque and tartar build up can lead to losing your teeth if not monitored and acted upon fast enough. Many people don’t realize that poor dental care can also impact the overall care of your health.
While Kolibree does not proclaim to solve periodontal disease or suggest that it can keep cavities or gingivitis at bay, the better you take care of your teeth, the more likely it is that you can and will avoid serious problems.
Before Kolibree, the issue is that there has been no easy and quick way to monitor whether you’re doing an A+ job or a C- one when you brush, so how can you improve on a habit you don’t have any data about? Kolibree solves that problem, making it easier than ever.
The Kolibree connected toothbrush will be available starting in Q3 2014 but ready for pre-order starting this summer. The price of Kolibree will range from $99 to $199 depending on the model and will include a free mobile app.  
Full Disclosure: I am providing consulting to Kolibree.

CES 2014: The Year of Wearables & Devices To Track Your Life?

The International Consumer Electronics Show (International CES) 2014 is around the corner once again and I’ll be there in spades as always like I have over the past two decades.
The event officially runs from January 7-10 in Las Vegas Nevada however pre-events, sessions and more start as early as January 5, including the fascinating UNVEILED Event which touts a number of new innovative products and services not yet on the market. I plan to be there in spades, so watch for tweets on my observations which will include photos as much as I can. (reliable wifi willing)

Major technology innovators will be talking about their latest and greatest in a keynote series called The Tech Titans.The keynotes will be held at The Venetian, on Level 5 in the Palazzo Ballroom. From Brian Krzanich of Intel, Audi’s Rupert Stadler and Sony’s Kazuo Hirai to Yahoo’s Marissa Mayer and Cisco’s John Chambers, the crowds will inevitably pour into these massive ballrooms to learn about what they’re doing and why. The Mobile Innovation keynotes at the LVCC (Las Vegas Convention Center) in N255 include John Donovan from AT&T,  Qualcomm’s Paul E. Jacobs, TechCrunch TV’s Andrew Keen and Ericsson Group’s Hans Vestberg. Twitter’s CEO Dick Costolo, Salesforce’s Scott Dorsey, and Ford’s James D. Farley also take the stage.
I’ll be there scouting out new products, services and innovations for the mobile warrior for an entire week. I will be looking for things like efficient designs, lightweight products easy for travelers to carry, useful products that help travelers connect or use services remotely (to access movies, music, photos and more), cameras, tablets, external drives, batteries (a godsend and critical for any traveler), battery chargers and alternatives, and wearables. This appears to be the year of the wearables so let’s see what comes out of the show. I’ll also be keen to see the explosion of where mobile meets quantified self in the areas of fitness and health — the more we can know about what’s happening with our bodies in real time, the more we can proactively take care of our health without having to solely rely on a doctor’s advice, often someone who barely knows us or what’s happening in our personal lives.

These devices will change the way we eat, think, sleep, exercise and yes, travel. New areas and events at CES this year which will be dedicated to the startup community include the Indiegogo Zone and UP Global LIVE Stage. The all-new Indiegogo Zone, housed within the Eureka Park TechZone, will feature hardware campaigners from around the world. The Indiegogo Zone provides an opportunity for anyone interested in learning more about crowdfunding for hardware. The UP Global LIVE Stage, sponsored by GE, will showcase the startup community, facilitate connections and provide programming in Eureka Park. The stage will feature panels with iconic entrepreneurs, leading investors, corporate executives and media. In addition to programming, UP Global will host mentor sessions and pitch competitions and provide resources and networking opportunities for exhibitors and attendees.
The second annual ShowStoppers Launch.it power session is a curated pitch event built exclusively for the young, transformative and entrepreneurial startups that exhibit in Eureka Park. Sixteen exhibitors will pitch to a panel of high profile angel/VC investors along with media, analysts and industry experts in the audience. An anchor for the startup community at CES, the 2014 Eureka Park TechZone will feature more than 200 exhibitors, 30 percent more than the 2013 CES. In partnership with UP Global, the National Science Foundation (NSF), General Electric (GE) and AT&T, Eureka Park provides a stage for new companies with technologies to market their innovation to venture capitalists, media and buyers. Eureka Park will have a French pavilion for the first time with UbiFrance bringing 11 French startups to the area. Viva La France!
Building off the success of Eureka Park, the new Eureka Park: NEXT hosts the progressing stage of Eureka Park startups. This TechZone is designed for mid-stage startups that have launched a product in the past year. In Eureka Park: NEXT, retailers, venture capitalists, manufacturers and more will discover established startups looking to expand their growth.
Floored within Eureka Park, Academia Tech focuses on the technologies coming from colleges and universities. CES also offers special networking events curated for startups and entrepreneurs like the invitation-only Entrepreneurs Reception and Tech Cocktail’s Startup Night.
This year, there will be over 3,200 exhibitors across 15 product categories.

GigaOm Roadmap 2013: The Intersection of Design and Experience

Before I learned that Tony Fadell was former SVP of Apple’s iPod division and had reported directly to Steve Jobs, there was a sense that he abided by the “Real Men Ship” rules and I hadn’t yet read his GigaOm Roadmap profile, where he presented on stage this week in San Francisco.

GigaOm events have always been more B2B and enterprise at their core regardless of the theme and this case was no different despite the fact that the conference was atypical in many ways, almost TED-like. Taglined “The Intersection of Design and Experience”, you were almost waiting for earth shattering insights from some of the best geeks, inventors, designers and visionaries in the industry.
In this case, I probably should have started with Tesla’s Chief Designer Franz von Holzhausen, except I sadly missed that session, or Adobe on design or even the very cool discussion around using data to program creative spaces, which included Jennifer Magnolfi’s design examples and experiences with Herman Miller and most recently, the Downtown Project in Las Vegas.

But, Tony intrigued me largely because he had a “say it like it is” personality which was refreshing and ever so beautifully arrogant at the same time. He acknowledged how easy it was to raise money now because he was a known and trusted entity because of his so many successes while reminding young 20-something year olds how much faster they could work alongside mentors and get their projects to “go” because of easy access to people compared to two decades ago. It made me want to have lunch with him, maybe even dinner. 

You can’t be in your forties or beyond and not disclose at some juncture that you stand by profitability and having real metrics in place to build not just a perception for a “perception sale” but a sustainable company with an inherent value-add for customers that solve real problems again and again.
Post Apple, he built an energy-efficient home near Lake Tahoe and in the process, was so frustrated with the limitations of the traditional “thermostat,” he redesigned it with former Apple colleague Matt Rogers. The end result became Nest Labs, his current entity and where he spends his energy and time.
While the man has authored more than 300 patents, has a history of successes and seems to get “design” and the design process, it was his going back to basics message (rarer in Silicon Valley) that had me at “go.” He spoke of magical moments, a phrase that made me think of Tony Robbins who talks about creating magical moments in life as a daily practice.
He thinks its just not just our duty to create daily magical moments for ourselves, but in that creation, the trickle effect has a significant impact on everyone and everything around you.
You create them, you don’t wait for them to happen. Once in motion, they have a spiral bowling ball effect. You give (e.g, provide magic in some way shape or form) and the universe gives back in profound ways you never imagined.
Says Tony, “rethink experiences from ground up to create magical moments.” Obviously in this reference, he’s directly referring to product design, yet it’s a way of thinking, a way of life, not a principle in a board room or behind a computer. Enuf said!
Other messages included how data and connectivity shape our world. There’s a ton of Einsteins here she thinks but not a whole lot of Picassos. (Refer to the Steve Martin play Picasso at the Agile which transformed my interaction with an engineering team earlier in my career) Perhaps design is and has always been as important as the technology itself and as it becomes more prolific in our lives as time marches on, more people realize it.  
In the play, both men are on the verge of an amazing idea (Einstein will publish his special theory of relativity and Picasso will paint Les Demoiselles d’Avignon) and they embark on a debate about the value of genius and talent. Who provides more value, the artist or the inventor? You can probably guess my take away on this one.
Instagram’s Kevin Systrom was on their A-list of speakers, someone I’ve heard speak at large business conferences, technology geek fests and in a more intimate setting with Sarah Lacy and Pando Daily. I’m a passionate photographer but still haven’t drunk the Instagram coolaid despite how many times I’ve tried.
I have an account yet never use it and when I compare Instagram to so many other “blow it out the park” examples of design genius, I’m dismayed.
Don’t get me wrong – it’s not as if I don’t get that filtering basic photos on a smart phone isn’t a good idea or sticky, but worth what Facebook paid for it? Worth the frenzy that market gave it? Worth the badge of honor that the industry labeled as a game changer? Cool is cool, but we have an industry which has crowned thy jewel as such when it really shouldn’t be a jewel at all but in the cool is cool category only.  
Says Tony of the service, “the filters thing created an initial wow factor so it created hope.” Hope inherently comes from creating a solution that provides a new way to do something, solves a problem people have had for a long time or in this case, something that makes people feel more creative with very little effort.
Renowned designer John Maeda, who is now President of Rhode Island School of Design talked about how Moore’s Law is influencing design. Connected devices and the web have fundamentally changed the world’s relationship with design, but compared to other aspects of information technology, design can be much harder to quantify.
I first met and hung out with John in the early TED Conference days where he spoke about design concepts on the main stage some 12 or so years ago. I was a fan then and remain a fan today. Says John, “you don’t ‘do’ technology, you ‘do’ people and the people thing and then you add technology back in.” I couldn’t help but want a bunch of Johns to replicate themselves in Silicon Valley. 
It’s basic enough but not being implemented on a grand scale today. Developers more often than not, still build for technology’s sake and the human piece is an after thought, so much so that the UI is often confusing enough that mass scale adoption doesn’t happen.
John spoke of empathy, one of my favorite words. “Take the empathy route,” he encouraged the audience. He asserts that empathy is the grounding force of the intersection of technology, art and design. If the root of technology is in fact art then figuring out where technology, art and design collide is fundamental to understanding art.
“Design is in the details – it is all about empathy,” says John. Great design is as much about taking away as it is about adding to a structure, a product, an idea or a concept. More is great when it is measured against enjoyment (we always want more of a good thing), but the concept of “more” is flipped on its head when it equates to more work or more effort.
Design balances the two and yet as we are learning, computers despite their ability to fabricate real situations and design, don’t do a great job at creating that balance. Today, we want more and more technology and yet “more and more of it” doesn’t necessarily serve us in the most productive way regardless of how much state-of-the-art technology we integrate into our lives.
Ten years ago, technology made things better and more useful, but when “more of it” stops being a continuous and consistent positive return, then we begin to look elsewhere, like design. Design is on the rise again because we are yearning for balance. Great design can help balance the two and re-teach (and remind) us that less is more.
Focusing less about product design (although that was part of his message) and more on creating compelling customer experiences, Square and Twitter’s Jack Dorsey took the stage with GigaOm’s Om Malik.

Jack spoke about simplicity (critical to great design and his work on Twitter is a great example of it) and how so many companies focus on what they do rather than the value they provide. With regard to Square, he asserts over and over again that they’re not in the payments business but the e-commerce business and it’s the entire e-commerce customer experience, not just a piece of it.

Offline merchants never had access to analytics before but by using Square, they can get simple data on customer behavior in real time which can dramatically change the focus and priorities of their business. “End-to-end is what its about,” says Jack. “We want to make sure they focus on the human experience of their business, not the transactional piece of it.” 
Jack says Square’s mission is to focus on the most meaningful pieces of small business, such as the daily human interaction and communications. Square essentially brings commerce to people wherever they happen to be and in this way, transactions, communications and relationships are all conducted in parts of the world that never would have been possible before.
Internally, Square is extending that attitude by showing transparency and trust with their employees, demonstrating an open and caring ‘voice’ inside the company’s walls. Jack’s philosophy is that when you keep things open, you empower employees and build trust.
Truth be told, some of the best ideas can come from employees in other departments or through random ideas they come up with at the water cooler over lunch. With trust comes new innovative ideas and it often happens randomly when you least expect it. ”
“You can’t schedule innovative ideas,” says Jack. It’s serendipity: ideas come, get formed and executed quickly and seamlessly when you gather great minds together in one place and say “go.” The same applies to instilling that behavior and culture across an organization so free flowing ideas can not just see the light of day, but thrive.
Hear hear! I think entrepreneurs with like-thinking like Richard Branson and Tony Hsieh would agree.
Photo credits: Two images from Tony Fadell interview snipped from the GigaOm Roadmap video and all other photos Renee Blodgett.

Discount & Agenda For Silicon Valley’s DEMO Fall 2013

DEMO Fall is coming to Silicon Valley October 15-17, 2013.  
Known as the launchpad
for emerging technologies and trends, they’ll be unveiling 50 new technology products from the DEMO stage, across multiple verticals and industries, including mobile, enterprise, health, wearable
computing, digital money, big data, the Internet of things and more. 
Some of the speakers and judges include Di-Ann Eisnor from Waze, Evernote’s Phil Libin, Ayr Muir from Clover Foods, Yelp’s Jeremy Stoppelman, Jonathan Abrams of Nuzzel, Josh Elman from Greylock Partners, CNBC’s Jon Fortt, Rock Health’s Malay Gandhi, Spark Capital’s Nabeel Hyatt, EchoSign’s Jason Lemkin, Hilary Mason from Accel Partners, Google Ventures’ Shanna TellermanBrian O’Malley from Battery Ventures, FitBit’s CEO James Park and others.
You can register here at a discounted rate of $700 off the normal registration price. It will be held at the Hyatt Regency for those heading out from the East Coast, Asia or Europe. Check out the DEMO Fall 2013 agenda. 
  

2013 AlwaysOn Power Players in Technology Business Media List Announced

AlwaysOn just announced their first annual Power Players in Technology Business Media List. The AlwaysOn Power Players in Technology Business Media list honors editors, writers, and bloggers in the technology world who are keeping technology entrepreneurs informed and connected. Reporting on the massive technology breakthroughs hitting the market almost every day, this list of media have become the voices behind the ideas that make the Global Silicon Valley an incubator for success.

Cool beans that We Blog the World made the cut, which at face value may not make sense, but it’s largely because I also write about technology trends, conferences, events, startups, launches and entrepreneurs on Down the Avenue, on the Huffington Post and of course on We Blog the World, mostly in the products and events section. The site also has a Mobile category as well as a technology category, however the products covered range from luggage and fashion to mobile devices, social apps, gadgets which may help the on-the-go warrior and digital cameras.
While the list is extremely long, and the more traditional cast of characters are listed (NY Times, Wall Street Journal, TechCrunch, Mashable, etc), numerous bloggers are also listed who not just cover technology trends, but also social media and various vertical market industries, such as digital music, technology that moms and/or women care about and lifestyle issues.
As venture capital-backed on-demand companies continue to bring new, innovative products and services to the world, the founders and their products and services are being covered by the people on this list. Many of the winners of this competition will be featured at the upcoming OnMobile 2013: Mobile Venture Summit, which will be held at the Fox Theatre in Redwood City, CA on October 10.

If interested in attending, you can register here to secure your ticket at the lowest possible rate while tickets are still available.   The list is below. (warning: it’s long, but it is an eclectic and interesting curation of writers and pundits, so it’s worth browsing through).

Introducing the 2013 Power Players in Technology Business Media
Byron AcohidoTechnology ReporterUSA Today
Kiran AdithamEditorMediabistro
Erin AilworthBusiness ReporterBoston Globe
Mickey Alam KahnEditor in ChiefMobile Marketer
Chris AlbrechtHost, ReporterGigaOm TV and GigaOM Podcast
Cristina AlesciProducer, M&ABloomberg Television
Anjuman AliMobile EditorThe Washington Post
Jason AlkenyExecutive EditorFierceWireless
Mike AllenReporterThe San Diego Business Journal
Monica AllevenEditor-in-ChiefWireless Week
James AltucherBloggerAltucher Confidential
Chris C. AndersonSenior EditorBusiness Insider: The Wire
Larissa AndersonProducerMarketplace Tech Report – American Public Media
Nate AndersonDeputy EditorArs Technica
Tim AndreacciSegment ProducerBloomberg Television
Robert AndrewsSenior Editor, InternationalGigaOM
Julia AngwinSenior Technology EditorThe Wall Street Journal
Robert AnthonyEditorStadium Circle Features
Simon ApplebaumProducer / HostTomorrow Will Be Televised / BlogTalk Radio
Charles ArthurTechnology EditorThe Guardian
Scott AustinSenior Technology EditorDow Jones VentureWire
Ed BaigReporterUSA Today
Brandon BaileyBusiness and Technology ReporterSan Jose Mercury News
Chris BakerContributing WriterWired
Roberto BaldwinStaff WriterWired
Eric BangemanManaging EditorArs Technica
Emily BanksManaging EditorMashable
Mike BartonEditorWired
Ronald BaruschColumnistThe Wall Street Journal, WSJ.com, MoneyBeat, The Wall Street Journal (Europe Edition), MoneyBeat (E.U.)
Zoran BasichEditorDow Jones VentureWire
Dusan BelicEditorIntoMobile
Shawn BenderDigital EditorWSJ.com
Kevin BenedictEditorMobileEnterpriseStrategies.com
Drake BennettReporterBloomberg Businesweek
David BenoitBlogger, DealsThe Wall Street Journal
Greg BensingerReporterThe Wall Street Journal
Andrew BergEditor in ChiefWireless Week
David BerlindEditor-In-ChiefProgrammableWeb / TechWeb
Nick BiltonTechnology ReporterThe New York Times
Jon BirgerContributing WriterFortune
Matthew BishopNew York Bureau ChiefThe Economist
John BlackstoneNews CorrespondentCBS News Network
Nancy BlairOnline Technology EditorUSA Today
Steve BlankBloggerSteve Blank
Dana BlankenhornContributing WriterSeeking Alpha
Beth BlechermanFounderTechMamas
Henry BlodgetCEO / Editor in ChiefBusiness Insider
Renee BlodgettEditorWe Blog the World
Rebecca BlumensteinDeputy Editor-in-ChiefThe Wall Street Journal
Robin Goldwyn BlumenthalSenior EditorBarron’s
John BlylerEditorial DirectorExtension Media
Katherine BoehretWriterAllThingsD
Christina BonningtonStaff WriterWired
Julie BortEditorBusiness Insider
Wendy BoswellWeb Search GuideAbout.com – Computing
John BoudreauBusiness ReporterThe Mercury News
Clint BoultonStaff WriterThe Wall Street Journal
Paul BoutinFreelanc Journalist / BitsThe New York Times
Toni BowersManaging EditorTechRepublic
Tim BradshawDigital Media CorrespondentFinancial Times
David BrancaccioHostMarketplace – Tech Report
Nic BrisbourneBlogger / Venture CapitalistThe Equity Kicker / Forward Investment Partners
Russ BrittBureau Chief, Los AngelesMarketWatch
Chris BroganBloggerChris Brogan
Joe BrownNew York EditorWired Magazine
Alexandra BruellReporterAdvertising Age
Wendy BrundigeWest Coast TV Bureau ChiefBloomberg TV West
Daniel BrusilovskyHead of Business Development and GrowthRibbon
Joshua BrusteinTechnology WriterBusinessweek
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VatorSplash, Where VCs, Entrepreneurs With Cool Apps & An Industry Ecosystem Meet

I haven’t had a chance to attend a VatorSplash event in awhile because of so much travel however I was in town for the latest one, held this week at San Francisco’s Cafe Du Nord on Market Street.

The event, as always, was packed full of interesting speakers, including renowned investors Jed Katz, Lars Leckie, Charles Moldow, Rory O’Driscoll, Keith McCurdy, Erin Hakansson, Alan Chiu, Dave Samuel, Rick Moss, Charles Hudson, Rob Coneybeer, Howard Hartenbaum, Tony Conrad, and others.
Docusign’s CEO Keith Krach keynoted on best practices and Jared Simon talked about lessons learned from their work at HotelTonight. In traditional VatorSplash style, the band Coverflow played in the basement at Cafe Du Nord following the event. With a new sound that has leapfrogged from their more well known 1980s standards, Raj Kapoor, Phil Kaplan, Ethan Beard, Prashant Fuloria, Tim Chang, Kristian Segerstrale and The Mule played through the night while the die hards danced.

Above, HotelTonight’s Co-Founder and COO Jared Simon on the VatorSplash stage.

Of the companies who presented, a few call outs include The Orange Chef Company, a great new product for foodies, which focuses on the notion that eating well starts at home. With the Prep Pad and accompanying iOS app, Countertop, you’ll have insight beyond your plate. Quickly assemble meals on Prep Pad and watch as Countertop presents you real time nutritional information on your iPad or iPhone. Set your own goals, discover more about your food and gain confidence in making the right choices. They’re taking pre-orders now.

SweatGuru was founded by two women and is based in San Francisco. SweatGuru is the first marketplace that brings people together around fitness classes and experiences. By allowing anyone to organize, discover, book and share fitness classes online, SweatGuru takes the work out of working out. They also help small and medium-sized fitness businesses get online and be more successful.

By offering easy-to-use tools for marketing, scheduling, payments and staying in touch with clients, SweatGuru allows fitness professionals to spend more time teaching and less time behind a desk.
TravelingSpoon is an online marketplace that connects travelers with vetted, local, and authentic food experiences — from cooking classes to homemade meals — in people’s homes around the world.
TravelingSpoon creates an alternative to traditional restaurant experiences that allows travelers to experience local culture and cuisine on the road, providing travelers with meaningful experiences and cultural exchange.  It has launched its beta in India, Thailand and Vietnam but they hope to expand to other regions later on.

In addition, they also offer in-home cooking classes as well as market tours as an extra add-on to many of the meal experiences. They say that all of their hosts have been vetted to ensure a safe and delightful culinary experience.

Kudos to Bambi and her team for always pulling off such an amazing event.