In this three-part series, Futuri CEO Daniel Anstandig dives deep into robots. The more innovative we get with robotics, the more we’re faced with existential questions. Are robots on a course to becoming indistinguishable from humans, like in the sci-fi drama Westworld? And if so, then what makes humanity unique?

In part one, Daniel looks at the mind in the machine. So far, artificial intelligence operates a lot like a better brain, capable of problem-solving, spotting patterns, and recalling information. But “mind” indicates a sense of identity and consciousness that robots may never achieve. We can see that when they're programmed to create art, like an AI that wrote a Beatles song or another that painted a portrait in the style of the Old Masters: There’s something eerily off-putting about their creations because they lack an essential emotionality or humanity. Should we digitize our own humanity? Or is there a happy medium where AI and humans collaborate, instead of competing?

Hear all about the robot mind in this episode, and don’t miss the follow-up episodes on Body and Soul to get the whole picture of the future of robotics.

People associate virtual reality with gaming because it's been introduced to us through games. Eventually, VR will shape the future of fitness, the workplace, commerce, enterprise, and much more.

In today’s episode of Anstandig on the Future, Daniel Anstandig of Futuri Media walks us through the reality of virtual reality. While it might be used for games, its potential can change all of our lives.

Before your strap on your VR headset to explore (virtual) worlds unknown, listen to this episode about the optimistic future of VR!

GET READY TO LEARN:

• The capabilities of VR (2:10)

• Types of VR software being used in the business environment (3:09)

• Use cases for VR (4:45)

• How VR can help with both mental and physical health (6:37)

• VR and its impact on commerce (8:24)

• The power of photogrammetry and what it means for VR (9:05)

• Does VR water down real in-person experience? (10:59)

eSports are more than just a game.

While many of us know of eSports, most of us don’t really just how BIG of a following they have.

And, as with every growing form of entertainment, eSports present ample opportunity for creative marketing and advertising channels that some companies have yet to explore.

For example, some of the largest e-sporting events have audiences bigger than that of an NBA Finals game… and they last for 8 hours! That’s a long time to have an audience looking at your logo.

To take a deeper look, Daniel Anstandig of Futuri Media is here to guide us through the world of eSports and what it can mean for players, fans, and companies around the world.

As you boot up your PlayStation or computer to drop into a game of Fortnite, enjoy this episode about the optimistic future of eSports!

GET READY TO LEARN:

● The story of the very first eSports match.

● How much money game companies make from tournaments (it will surprise you!).

● How companies and celebrities are tying their brand into games.

● Why eSports events might offer a better ROI than traditional channels.

● How do you stay on top of the eSports boom if you’re a media company?

● How eSports can become more influencer-focused.

KEY POINTS:

● A game of truth vs. myth: eSports edition! (1:51)

● How major media companies are investing in eSports. (4:23)

● Benefits of eSports advertising compared to more traditional channels. (5:28)

● Companies such as Riot (behind Valorant) are getting creative with marketing efforts. (8:31)

As online shopping continues to rise in popularity, does this mean the end for ordinary brick-and-mortar retail stores?

Hopefully, the omnichannel approach can breathe new life into the struggling industry!

In this episode of Anstandig on the Future, Daniel Anstandig, CEO of Futuri Media, explains the omnichannel approach and why many retail companies are shifting toward it. The omnichannel is more than just balancing a physical and online store—it’s combining and interconnecting them within the shopping experience!

The collaboration between the two allows the consumer to use both, creating a more comfortable environment in which individuals can make purchases.

Ready to learn about the future of retail shopping? Daniel Anstandig is here to help.

Whether you’re driving to your favorite store or shopping online, enjoy this episode!

GET READY TO LEARN:

● What is omnichannel shopping?

● Why reviews are becoming essential for online purchases.

● How are companies transitioning toward an omnichannel approach?

● Can omnichannel shopping be done incorrectly?

● What makes people go to brick-and-mortar stores?

● How will omnichannel shopping look in the future?

KEY POINTS:

● Defining omnichannel. (0:55)

● Two prominent consumer behaviors occurring. (3:26)

● Examples of existing businesses shifting to omnichannel. (5:39)

● Physical and online stores cannot be treated as separate divisions. (8:01)

● The power of personalization within brick-and-mortar stores. (9:44)

● Technology will continue making the shopping experience fun. (11:36)

Did you have a favorite quote or topic? Do you have a preference between physically shopping versus online shopping? Don’t forget to share in the comments!

Tune in to the next episode for a brand-new look at a new topic. Don’t forget to follow on your favorite podcast platform. Reviews are always appreciated, too.

Are you ready to enter the metaverse?

While the roots of the word trace back to science fiction, the metaverse is rapidly becoming a reality. Companies like Epic Games and Facebook are already showing the power of the metaverse for work and play.

But what is the metaverse, and how can it make for a better and brighter future? This episode of Anstandig on the Future will answer these questions while also uncovering more topics that will arise as the metaverse continues to come to life including the networking ramifications, digital ownership, and the technological requirements to enter it.

Host Daniel Anstandig is the CEO of Futuri Media and an expert in all things digital. If you’re ready to get a glimpse of our collective online networking future, Anstandig is the ultimate tour guide.

Whether you’re listening while washing dishes, driving to work, or perhaps while entering your own metaverse on Fortnite, this is an episode you need to hear!

GET READY TO LEARN:

● What is a metaverse?

● Origins of the metaverse and how we could be headed toward it.

● How do you enter into the metaverse?

● One way the metaverse can be experienced today (hint: it’s Epic!)

● How gaming, business, networking, and entertainment will use the metaverse.

● What real-world tech is needed for the metaverse.

KEY POINTS:

● Introducing the metaverse. (1:30)

● How Epic Games, Facebook, and other tech companies are mainstreaming the metaverse. (2:22)

● The future of social interaction and business on the metaverse. (4:02)

● Getting into the metaverse—and what we mean by that. (4:40)

● Practical applications of the metaverse. (6:10)

● Real-world benefits we’re seeing from the metaverse. (7:28)

SOME QUOTES WORTH SHARING:

● “A metaverse is a collective digital experience that can be shared by multiple individuals at once.”

● “The easiest way to picture a metaverse is the game Fortnite, where there are tons of avatars piloted by real people, and they converge and play together in a virtual world.”

● “Typically the first step in being part of the metaverse is deciding who you want to be. Almost all metaverses allow for avatar creation.”

● “Hardware is progressing so quickly that the lines between the digital and physical worlds are going to continue to blur. When we can have a physical experience in a virtual environment, the sky’s the limit.”

REFERENCES:

● Soul Machines avatars: https://www.soulmachines.com/

● Epic Game’s Billion-Dollar Funding Round: https://www.epicgames.com/site/en-US/news/announcing-a-1-billion-funding-round-to-support-epics-long-term-vision-for-the-metaverse

● Mark Zuckerberg calling Facebook a “metaverse company.”: https://www.theverge.com/22588022/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-ceo-metaverse-interview

Did you have a favorite quote or topic? What are you most excited about when it comes to the metaverse? Don’t forget to share in the comments!

What is the future of NFTs?

This question has gained attraction after the recent growth within the NFT market and its ability to heighten digital property value.

Within the NFT market, collectors and businesses are now able to purchase one of a kind digital art that is exclusive to them by the form similar to a certificate, which identifies the digital asset as solely theirs.

At first glance, the NFT market may not seem like it has a significant impact on our world and aspects such as health or the environment, but there is a lot to be discussed regarding NFTs and their future.

Luckily, Daniel Anstandig, CEO of Futuri Media, has studied the NFT market and has come prepared to help! In today’s episode, join Daniel for a look at what NFTs’ future holds.

Whether you collect stamps, sports cards, or digital tokens, enjoy this episode as you contemplate the optimistic future of NFTs!

GET READY TO LEARN:

● What is the future of NFTs?

● How NFTs shifted the value of physical objects.

● The variety of options an NFT can be presented as.

● Ways to take advantage of this golden age of NFTs.

● The concerns regarding the expansion of the NFT market.

● How to minimize concerns and still engage in the NFT market.

KEY POINTS:

● Brief background and current understanding of NFTs. (3:25)

● Some approaches to how NFTs can be created. (5:51)

● Are NFTs going to have a big impact on contracts? (7:45)

● The benefits NFTs could provide by reducing fraud. (9:07)

● How do NFTs hurt the environment? (10:05)

● What’s the best way to participate in the NFT marketplace while being environmentally friendly? (11:11)

SOME QUOTES WORTH SHARING:

● “NFTs paved the way for the future of digital goods for collectors and even for businesses. NFTs are breaking ground for the relationship between art and consumer.”(2:58)

● “With digital property, there is virtually no limit to what you can create and sell. If you can imagine it, you can tokenize it.” (06:18)

● “Digital natives consider digital goods as valuable as physical ones.” (9:52)

● “A single Ethereum transaction consumes more than 70-kilowatt hours, which is enough to power a U.S. household for 2 and half days.” (11:08)

● “If you or your company enter the NFT marketplace, do our planet a favor please, and check where your NFTs are coming from. You can go green by supporting cleaner cryptocurrency.” (11:47)

Did you have a favorite quote or topic? Would you ever purchase or create an NFT? Don’t forget to share in the comments!

Tune in to the next episode for a brand-new look at a new topic. Don’t forget to follow on your favorite podcast platform. Reviews are always appreciated, too.

How will we work?

This was a question on everybody’s mind as the world slowed down and masks and hand sanitizer became more prevalent.

Now, as vaccines spread and we look at how COVID-19 changed work expectations, we have a chance to reflect on some ways that the pandemic, albeit devastating, actually helped improve business models and showed us new possibilities.

From a look at remote work productivity to understanding implications of hybrid work models in the future, there is a lot of ground to cover in an evaluation of the future landscape of work.

Fortunately, Daniel Anstandig is an expert that has navigated the terrain first-hand as CEO of Futuri Media. In today’s episode, join Daniel for a look at how work-from-home can become a more permanent solution for many companies.

Whether you’re listening in the car on a commute to your office or while preparing lunch in your own kitchen, enjoy this episode as you contemplate the optimistic future of remote work.

GET READY TO LEARN:

* What is the future of work-from-home?

* The new expectations for work when portable devices become our “desks.”

* How freelancers are taking on a more prevalent role post-COVID.

* The value of balancing social and work interactions.

* COVID-19’s implications for professions moving forward.

* Stakeholder benefits for a mixed remote/in-person workflow.

KEY POINTS:

* Some approaches to work-from-home from major tech companies (1:44)

* Are people actually less productive while working from home? (7:31)

* What’s the best way to evaluate stats and move forward with work moving forward? (9:35)

* Areas for leadership to consider when contemplating work conditions in the future (11:31)

* Major opportunities in the coming years that stem from remote possibility (13:34)

SOME QUOTES WORTH SHARING:

* “Now that we’ve tried this new model of working from home, do we really want to go back to normal?” (1:48)

* “Workers who could do their job remotely were over 50% less likely to ask for time off and more likely to stay in their jobs due to a reported better work-life balance.” (7:56)

* “The stats show that we love to work from home, and we can do it successfully, but they also prove that when we’re forced to only work from home, we end up feeling depressed.” (9:20)

REFERENCES:

* The Documentary, WeWork: Or the Making and Breaking of a $47 Billion Unicorn: https://www.hulu.com/movie/wework-or-the-making-and-breaking-of-a-47-billion-unicorn

* A Stanford Study on Remote Work: https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/faculty-research/working-papers/does-working-home-work-evidence-chinese-experiment

* New York Times article, “Are Companies More Productive in a Pandemic,” by David Gelles: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/23/business/working-from-home-productivity.html

Goldman Sachs CEO calling WFH an “aberration,” from Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertglazer/2021/05/11/the-ceo-of-goldman-sachs-called-remote-work-an-aberration-heres-why-his-employees-may-disagree/

Did you have a favorite quote or topic? How has working from home impacted you? Don’t forget to share in the comments!

Tune in to the next episode for a brand new look at a new topic. Don’t forget to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. Reviews are always appreciated, too.

What does our future hold?

Author S.B. Divya might have the answers. Or, more specifically, perhaps her debut novel does.

In today’s episode, the author of Machinehood joins the podcast to talk about her novel, which projects the future of humanity out to the year 2095.

Divya is a Hugo and Nebula Award Finalist as a fiction writer, but all of her fiction is heavily based on reality. She studied computational neuroscience and signal processing and has worked for nearly twenty years in the electrical engineering field before ever writing her first novel. That scientific background infuses her work.

In today’s episode, Divya joins Daniel Anstandig for a conversation about not only her book, but the real ramifications of the science that drives her fiction.

Grab your headphones, turn up your speaker, or perhaps turn on your brain-implanted audio receptors for this mind-bending episode about the optimistic future of biotechnology.

TODAY’S GUEST:

S.B. Divya is a scientist-turned-novelist who holds degrees in computational neuroscience and signal processing. She worked for twenty years as an electrical engineer before writing her debut novel, Machinehood. Divya is also the Hugo and Nebula-nominated author of Runtime and co-editor of Escape Pod, with Mur Lafferty. For more about her, visit www.sbdivya.com, or tweet her at @DivyasTweets.

GET READY TO LEARN:

● What does the future of humanity look like through the next century?

● How biotechnology could maximize the human body’s capability.

● A scientist’s mindset when becoming a novelist.

● Why COVID-19 could spur investment in biotechnology.

● Roadblocks in the way of achieving a brighter future of biotechnology.

● When aliens will arrive (or how we might interact with them).

● The difference between speculative fiction and predictive fiction.

KEY POINTS:

● Why Divya wrote Machinehood. (1:13)

● Divya’s hope for the future of humanity. (9:53)

● The future of consumer culture and capitalism. (12:16)

SOME QUOTES WORTH SHARING:

● “Any time you’re playing with realistic near-future fiction, you’re really just borrowing from the present and the past and recasting it into a slightly different setting.” – Divya

● “Overall, I think human beings want, ultimately, to love their families, and have friends, and love a good life, so they tend to find solutions to these problems.” – Divya

REFERENCES:

● Divya’s personal website: https://sbdivya.com/

● Machinehood by S.B. Divya

● “The Henry Ford of Rockets,” as described in this MIT article by Neel V. Patel: https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/05/26/1025350/phantom-space-startup-jim-cantrell

● MIT Technology Review’s Newsletter: https://www.technologyreview.com/newsletter-preferences/

● ScienceX: https://sciencex.com/news/

Did you have a favorite quote or topic? Do you have thoughts on Machinehood? Don’t forget to share in the comments!

Tune in to the next episode for a brand new look at a new topic. Don’t forget to follow on your favorite podcast platform. Reviews are always appreciated, too.

“Apple has become the largest company in the world by market cap not by trying to become the largest smartphone vendor, but the most beloved.” (5:53)

Apple is everywhere.

You can stream Apple TV+ on your Apple TV while reading emails on your MacBook and sending texts on your iPhone. Even the word podcast is a portmanteau of the words “broadcast” and “iPod.”

But how did we get to this point—with Apple becoming a lifestyle for many consumers—and where does the world’s largest company go from here?

On the first episode of Anstandig on the Future, join Daniel Anstandig on a guided journey that looks at Apple’s past, mistakes, innovations—and most importantly—its future.

As a tech investor and CEO of Futuri Media, Anstandig is the perfect business mind to launch the journey into the super-company, so grab your seat, strap in, and get ready for blastoff!

GET READY TO LEARN

• Which Apple device was the most revolutionary

• The Six Principles of Apple Design

• How Apple could augment reality with new glasses very soon

• Why Apple is getting into chips (and if there’s queso involved)

• Apple’s approach to changing fitness and healthcare

• The Apple philosophy for dealing with customers.

• Apple’s missteps, including problematic designs that fail to put consumers first

• And more!

KEY POINTS

• The release of the first iPhone. (0:44)

• The history of Apple (2:33)

• The release of the iPod in 2001 changes everything (4:44)

• Apple’s upcoming tech releases and innovations (8:56)

• Drawing conclusions about Apple’s future (21:09)

SOME QUOTES WORTH SHARING

• “Apple is not just good technology—it’s beautiful technology. The marketplace has proven that people will pay a premium for that combination.” (6:50)

• “Apple has always been different in the way they think. It’s a philosophy that can be boiled down to thinking about the consumer first.” (21:15)

• “That Apple logo is only worth so much.” (23:27)

REFERENCES:

• Fast Company. “The 6 Pillars of Steve Jobs’s Design Philosophy,” by Cliff Kuang: https://www.fastcompany.com/1665375/the-6-pillars-of-steve-jobss-design-philosophy

• The Late Show with Stephen Colbert’s “How We Improved Apple AirPods Headphones.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnuWbclO070

• Futuri Media https://futurimedia.com/

Did you have a favorite quote or topic? What company are you interested in learning more about? Don’t forget to share in the comments!

Anstandig on the Future is a new podcast and blog launching July 7, 2021 for today’s visionaries, seekers, and builders to inspire your next great idea.