Month: October 2016

I don’t know about you, but I am weary of the bickering we see daily.  Seldom does anyone take a deep breath and think critically about issues anymore. The Presidential and Vice Presidential debates set a new low water mark in my mind, but I am getting tired of almost all of the news broadcasts …

That is why the phrase “Cool Your Jets” came into my mind.  I remember hearing it many times over my life … not so sure where it started.  Maybe it was just a natural evolution of language. Most everyone knows it means you should calm down and become less agitated.  That seems so wise.

According to the Internet, which of course can be fully trusted, the phrase originated with a quote in the January 1^st (1973) edition of the Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune:  “If you want to cool your jets, just step outside, where it will be about 10 degrees under cloudy skies.”

Maybe so.  I just remember that Abraham Lincoln said you should not trust everything you read on the Internet.  As for me and my house, I will go back to some old wisdom from the Old Testament book of Micah that seems to fit the current situation perfectly.

Micah 6:8 New King James Version (NKJV):  He has shown you, O man, what is good; And what does the Lord require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?

Justice, mercy, and humility … an Old Testament form of the phrase “Cool Your Jets” with some real meat.

 

 

No, I did not mistype the short expression for Cosmopolitan magazine.  This is one of the latest robotic gadgets. Read more about it here. 

What intrigues me about this is not just that it is the latest in the stunning set of artificial intelligence gadgets hitting the markets such as the Amazon Echo.  What seems especially interesting about this is it’s about a robot with an attitude … something terribly human.

Take a look at some of its moves.

Perhaps that is a clue to cracking today’s consumer engagement challenges:  Attitude.  Not sure I hear that much as a persona.  Not sure, that even fits today’s preoccupation with the customer journey.  Likeability as a result of attitude.

That is truly something to think about.

Oh, by the way, it appears that there is an open API to write sequences.  And, for those of you who are still thinking all the intelligence has to be in the device, read this:

The robot can employ facial recognition to remember faces and recite names. It also uses sophisticated path planning — aided by its three sensor-imbued toy cubes — to maneuver environments and avoid falling off tables. Most of these computations are not happening on the robot’s internal hardware, which keeps it light and relatively durable. Instead, Cozmo connects to an iOS or Android app, which communicates with Anki’s servers where more of heavier lifting is taken care of.

We at Apogee are experimenting with this to see if we can unlock some of this potential in the otherwise boring day-to-day engagement of customers.  Stay tuned.  It should be fun to watch.

 

It is funny how phrases enter into common use.  I am almost sure you think the title of this blog refers to Tom Brady and the Super Bowl.  Nope.  This blog is about data claims, and in this case, by Facebook.   Here is the article posted in the Wall Street Journal.

We hear data claims all day long: the biggest storm in the last 10 years, tax credits that could avoid taxation for almost 20 years, and the list goes on.  But, these soundbites often hide either the bias of the reporter (who knows the way they say things gets your attention) or the more difficult problem we all have with our preconceived bias on how we interpret it.

For example, when Susan and I considered buying the time-share in Cancun, I asked the question: How often do hurricanes hit here.  The sales representative’s answer was correct: they had not had a hurricane hit Cancun in 37 years.  Susan and I accepted that as confirmation that hurricanes don’t hit Cancun very often.  True enough.  But, another more accurate interpretation would have been that Cancun was due to be hit … which it was … the very next year … with a hurricane named Gilbert.

Go figure.

The reason I suggest reading the Facebook article is that our industry is also in the midst of measurement challenges, especially as we answer senior leadership questions.  Facing the music is tough.  What we call facts and figures may not survive close scrutiny.

Our industry is not scrutinized by the media like our politicians.  I don’t see claims being rated by the number of “Pinocchio” lies.  Noses don’t grow bigger when we do.  In fact, rarely does anyone even seem to care any longer whether they are distorting the truth.  Troubling.

It’s interesting that the Wall Street Journal indicates the value of the Mexican Peso is a proxy for who will win our presidential election.  I guess we can all see that this certainly is an emotional barometer for the consequences.

That thought made me check on how this word entered our lexicon.  Here are some common uses of the word:

• An agent or substitute authorized to act for another.
• The authority to act for another, especially when written.
• A measurement of one physical quantity that is used as an indicator of the value of another.
• An interface for a service, especially for one that is remote, resource-intensive, or otherwise difficult to use directly.

What struck me was the combination of the last two.  Measuring something that is an indicator, especially when measuring directly would be expensive and difficult.

As many of you who know me have heard, the common tendency in life among very smart people is to let the perfect become the enemy of the good.  You have heard me blog about this in the past.

It is a natural tendency when you know precisely how to measure something.  But, that misses the bigger question.  Would, perhaps, the proxy make more intuitive sense than the true measurement itself?

In our world at this time, might our precision temperature monitoring make more sense to the average American than trying to explain smart grid data …, which only you can understand?

Proxy … another great word for the day.