TCAST: The Future of Data & AI

The world has been noticeably going digital since the early 1990s, though it’s a process that actually goes back much further. However, it was in the time of grunge that the corner was really turned and the process has seriously kicked into overdrive thanks to the response to COVID. Suddenly, millions of people were working from home, making use of cloud servers to prepare documents, apps for work meetings, all of which pushed the digitization of society ahead by years. As restrictions lift in many places, conversations are being had about just how much of that transformation should be continued. Should people go back to work at the office? Should we go back to the more set schedules of 2019?

At the same time, TARTLE is still going through certifications as a public benefit corporation. How do these two seemingly disparate things relate to one another?

One of the major things that those certifications look at is how TARTLE as a company takes care of its people. How do we treat those who work with us to transform how people view data? One of the major things we do is allow people a great deal of flexibility. For the most part, our team doesn’t have fixed hours. There are certain activities that require multiple people to be working at the same place at the same time, but they are few. Filming episodes of TARTLEcast is probably the most labor-intensive activity and that requires only a handful of people to get done. Otherwise, people get their work done as they are able. If they like to be up at night, they can get it done when the sun is down, or vice versa. If someone likes to break up their day with a visit to the gym or a walk in the park, there is nothing stopping them. Since nearly everyone works from home, they can get all their errands done when traffic is light, saving time and frustration. There is no sitting around an office either. How much time is wasted in the typical office building as people walk around the rows and rows of cubicles just to get the blood flowing again? Sure, the people are there for eight hours, but is eight hours of work getting done? Do eight hours of work even need to happen? Can someone get it done in six hours when they don’t have to deal with the company copy machine? 

That all makes vacations incredibly flexible as well. If someone needs a week or two away, they can do that. So long as the work gets done, it doesn’t matter. Whether it gets done before vacation, during, or things get caught up after, it isn’t really a problem, the individual gets to make those calls on his own. 

Speaking of staying out of the office, there is another benefit – the environment. Without the need for all those office buildings, there is much less environmental impact. After all, a person’s home is almost always heated or cooled whether they are there are not. Not to mention the emissions saved by not having to drive back and forth to the office. That also allows all those buildings to be used for some other purpose. Low-cost housing springs immediately to mind. Suddenly, there are all kinds of construction that don’t need to happen, tons of resources that can stay in the ground. All because TARTLE and other businesses are letting people adopt a life and work style that is more flexible and suited to their own needs and desires. 

So, how are digital acceleration and public benefit certifications related? They directly feed into each other. Digital technology allows us to treat our collaborators better, allowing them to live a life they want to live, which in turn feeds the digital acceleration in general. The net result is a cleaner world and people with a greater amount of individual freedom in their daily lives than ever before. 

What’s your data worth? www.tartle.co

Tcast is brought to you by TARTLE. A global personal data marketplace that allows users to sell their personal information anonymously when they want to, while allowing buyers to access clean ready to analyze data sets on digital identities from all across the globe.

The show is hosted by Co-Founder and Source Data Pioneer Alexander McCaig and Head of Conscious Marketing Jason Rigby.

What's your data worth?

Find out at: https://tartle.co/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TARTLE

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TARTLEofficial/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tartle_official/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TARTLEofficial

Spread the word!

The world has been noticeably going digital since the early 1990s, though it’s a process that actually goes back much further. However, it was in the time of grunge that the corner was really turned and the process has seriously kicked into overdrive thanks to the response to COVID. Suddenly, millions of people were working from home, making use of cloud servers to prepare documents, apps for work meetings, all of which pushed the digitization of society ahead by years. As restrictions lift in many places, conversations are being had about just how much of that transformation should be continued. Should people go back to work at the office? Should we go back to the more set schedules of 2019?

At the same time, TARTLE is still going through certifications as a public benefit corporation. How do these two seemingly disparate things relate to one another?

One of the major things that those certifications look at is how TARTLE as a company takes care of its people. How do we treat those who work with us to transform how people view data? One of the major things we do is allow people a great deal of flexibility. For the most part, our team doesn’t have fixed hours. There are certain activities that require multiple people to be working at the same place at the same time, but they are few. Filming episodes of TARTLEcast is probably the most labor-intensive activity and that requires only a handful of people to get done. Otherwise, people get their work done as they are able. If they like to be up at night, they can get it done when the sun is down, or vice versa. If someone likes to break up their day with a visit to the gym or a walk in the park, there is nothing stopping them. Since nearly everyone works from home, they can get all their errands done when traffic is light, saving time and frustration. There is no sitting around an office either. How much time is wasted in the typical office building as people walk around the rows and rows of cubicles just to get the blood flowing again? Sure, the people are there for eight hours, but is eight hours of work getting done? Do eight hours of work even need to happen? Can someone get it done in six hours when they don’t have to deal with the company copy machine? 

That all makes vacations incredibly flexible as well. If someone needs a week or two away, they can do that. So long as the work gets done, it doesn’t matter. Whether it gets done before vacation, during, or things get caught up after, it isn’t really a problem, the individual gets to make those calls on his own. 

Speaking of staying out of the office, there is another benefit – the environment. Without the need for all those office buildings, there is much less environmental impact. After all, a person’s home is almost always heated or cooled whether they are there are not. Not to mention the emissions saved by not having to drive back and forth to the office. That also allows all those buildings to be used for some other purpose. Low-cost housing springs immediately to mind. Suddenly, there are all kinds of construction that don’t need to happen, tons of resources that can stay in the ground. All because TARTLE and other businesses are letting people adopt a life and work style that is more flexible and suited to their own needs and desires. 

So, how are digital acceleration and public benefit certifications related? They directly feed into each other. Digital technology allows us to treat our collaborators better, allowing them to live a life they want to live, which in turn feeds the digital acceleration in general. The net result is a cleaner world and people with a greater amount of individual freedom in their daily lives than ever before. 

What’s your data worth? www.tartle.co

Tcast is brought to you by TARTLE. A global personal data marketplace that allows users to sell their personal information anonymously when they want to, while allowing buyers to access clean ready to analyze data sets on digital identities from all across the globe.

The show is hosted by Co-Founder and Source Data Pioneer Alexander McCaig and Head of Conscious Marketing Jason Rigby.

What's your data worth?

Find out at: https://tartle.co/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TARTLE

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TARTLEofficial/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tartle_official/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TARTLEofficial

Spread the word!

Daniel Burrus is an entrepreneur’s entrepreneur. He has started six businesses and written seven books, two of them bestsellers. He is also one of the leading tech forecasters on the planet. Daniel has been right in his predictions of where we are going in regards to technology so often that he has acquired the status of a prophet in the field. 

Given his area of expertise, it seems logical to ask Daniel his opinion on the way technology has been developing in recent years. It seems that as the pace of technological development accelerates that it is no longer doing so in a way that benefits people but rather in a way that simply leads to more technology. Does he see this trend continuing or will the technology in the end actually bring people up so that we really can benefit from all of our hard work? 

Daniel’s response is that the answer is really up to us. Technology is merely a tool. In and of itself, it is not necessarily good or bad. We can use radiation to give cancer or to cure it depending on how we use the tools at hand. That means that we are in control if we want to be. We can be lazy and let technology shape our future for us or we can be proactive and use it to build the future we want. 

That means you can’t just coast. Unless you are content with going downhill. As my football coach said, you are either getting better or you’re getting worse. You never stay the same. It’s the same with everything. You can either work to make the change you want or you just wind up getting swept along by the change someone else wants. It really is that simple. Work for what you want or be content with what someone else gives you. 

The good news is that there are literal mountains of opportunity available for the proactive. It may not seem that way, but that’s because you are probably watching too much news and letting it turn you into a pessimist. If we could send people to the moon with slide rules while fighting the Vietnam War, what couldn’t we accomplish now if we just put our minds and resources to it? This kind of optimism is usually met with a chorus of ‘buts’ and ‘what ifs’. However, it is the optimist who gets things done, the pessimist usually does very little because he is sure it will fail. Don’t be that guy. 

The truth is, there is a lot we take for granted today that would not have been possible just a few years ago and that trend is likely to continue. How likely it depends on which trend you are talking about. One of the things that have made Daniel so successful at predicting technological development is that he has realized that there are hard trends and soft trends. Hard trends are things that will develop in a predictable pattern so long as we don’t get hit by a stray comet. Think of cellphone technology. We went from 3G to now 5G on a predictable path, a path that will continue through 6G and beyond. A soft trend is one that depends on a variety of variables and can be directed or stopped. Here, think of health care costs. The trend has been a sharp increase but a number of variables can be changed to alter that trend.

All of those trends, all of that change is disruptive to some degree. And it will happen. The question then is not whether or not there will be disruption but what will you do with it? Will you ignore it and allow it to shape you? Will you be a negative disruptor and harness it for your own gain at the expense of others? Or will you be a positive disruptor and harness it to benefit others and bring about needed change? The choice is yours.

What’s your future worth? www.tartle.co

Tcast is brought to you by TARTLE. A global personal data marketplace that allows users to sell their personal information anonymously when they want to, while allowing buyers to access clean ready to analyze data sets on digital identities from all across the globe.

The show is hosted by Co-Founder and Source Data Pioneer Alexander McCaig and Head of Conscious Marketing Jason Rigby.

What's your data worth?

Find out at: https://tartle.co/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TARTLE

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TARTLEofficial/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tartle_official/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TARTLEofficial

Spread the word!

Daniel Burrus is an entrepreneur’s entrepreneur. He has started six businesses and written seven books, two of them bestsellers. He is also one of the leading tech forecasters on the planet. Daniel has been right in his predictions of where we are going in regards to technology so often that he has acquired the status of a prophet in the field. 

Given his area of expertise, it seems logical to ask Daniel his opinion on the way technology has been developing in recent years. It seems that as the pace of technological development accelerates that it is no longer doing so in a way that benefits people but rather in a way that simply leads to more technology. Does he see this trend continuing or will the technology in the end actually bring people up so that we really can benefit from all of our hard work? 

Daniel’s response is that the answer is really up to us. Technology is merely a tool. In and of itself, it is not necessarily good or bad. We can use radiation to give cancer or to cure it depending on how we use the tools at hand. That means that we are in control if we want to be. We can be lazy and let technology shape our future for us or we can be proactive and use it to build the future we want. 

That means you can’t just coast. Unless you are content with going downhill. As my football coach said, you are either getting better or you’re getting worse. You never stay the same. It’s the same with everything. You can either work to make the change you want or you just wind up getting swept along by the change someone else wants. It really is that simple. Work for what you want or be content with what someone else gives you. 

The good news is that there are literal mountains of opportunity available for the proactive. It may not seem that way, but that’s because you are probably watching too much news and letting it turn you into a pessimist. If we could send people to the moon with slide rules while fighting the Vietnam War, what couldn’t we accomplish now if we just put our minds and resources to it? This kind of optimism is usually met with a chorus of ‘buts’ and ‘what ifs’. However, it is the optimist who gets things done, the pessimist usually does very little because he is sure it will fail. Don’t be that guy. 

The truth is, there is a lot we take for granted today that would not have been possible just a few years ago and that trend is likely to continue. How likely it depends on which trend you are talking about. One of the things that have made Daniel so successful at predicting technological development is that he has realized that there are hard trends and soft trends. Hard trends are things that will develop in a predictable pattern so long as we don’t get hit by a stray comet. Think of cellphone technology. We went from 3G to now 5G on a predictable path, a path that will continue through 6G and beyond. A soft trend is one that depends on a variety of variables and can be directed or stopped. Here, think of health care costs. The trend has been a sharp increase but a number of variables can be changed to alter that trend.

All of those trends, all of that change is disruptive to some degree. And it will happen. The question then is not whether or not there will be disruption but what will you do with it? Will you ignore it and allow it to shape you? Will you be a negative disruptor and harness it for your own gain at the expense of others? Or will you be a positive disruptor and harness it to benefit others and bring about needed change? The choice is yours.

What’s your future worth? www.tartle.co

Tcast is brought to you by TARTLE. A global personal data marketplace that allows users to sell their personal information anonymously when they want to, while allowing buyers to access clean ready to analyze data sets on digital identities from all across the globe.

The show is hosted by Co-Founder and Source Data Pioneer Alexander McCaig and Head of Conscious Marketing Jason Rigby.

What's your data worth?

Find out at: https://tartle.co/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TARTLE

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TARTLEofficial/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tartle_official/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TARTLEofficial

Spread the word!

The European Union (EU) has gotten very interested of late in the concept of data sovereignty. They’ve realized that almost all the data in the world (92%) is hosted in the United States. As such, they want more of it under their purview. 

Statements from German Chancellor Angela Merkle and others in the EU sound very good. So good in fact that they read like something stolen from TARTLE’s own website. They talk about security, competition and ‘fostering trust’. Yet, there is plenty of reason to think that those good words are not genuine and the politicians aren’t necessarily thinking of the best interests of their citizens. Are they even looking at things in the proper light?

As an example, does it really matter where the servers are? It might in the sense of the host country’s government potentially having easy access to them. However, the real power comes from the people generating all the data in the first place. The individuals are the ones who really hold the power of all that data since they are the ones generating it. The servers really are just storage. 

What about the big tech companies? Don’t they have the real power in the situation? They are the ones who own the servers and the apps so it makes sense that they have the real power. In a sense, this is true. They can delete and sell data at will in most places, making a ton of money in the process. It’s also a place where the EU lags far behind the rest of the developed world. None of the top twenty tech companies are based in the EU. Perhaps it’s understandable they are feeling slightly inadequate. 

Despite the obvious and real power of the tech companies, the true power still lies with the individual. The individual generates all the data. In fact, he decides whether or not he will generate any data at all. That power, however, is largely untapped. That’s because the laws don’t recognize that power for the most part, making it harder for individuals to understand it as well. So, does the data sovereignty focus by the EU address that issue at all? Will it help people realize the power they really have? Sadly, it doesn’t look that way.

First, they are wanting to force a lot of that server space to their shores. The rule they are wanting to enforce is that any server with data from EU citizens on it has to be located in Europe. What does that accomplish? They get all the access they want for one because they set the rules. They also get taxes, and lots of them, something the EU certainly plans to take advantage of. Recent statements indicate this very clearly, wondering when “cross-border transactions” fall under certain tax regimes. In plain English, this means “when do we get to take people’s money?”

Sadly, all of this means that the EU is really only interested in data sovereignty as it pertains to them. And even then, only as a means of control, to be able to access data and tax others for their own purposes. There isn’t anything there about actually empowering the individual. 

TARTLE though is doing exactly that. We have set up a system that lets people take control of their digital lives in a way that is easy to do and understand. Our TOS are simple, our website easy to use, and our goals clear. We take no money from the individual sellers that join us. We are in 195 countries around the world so we have no national agenda. All we want to do is help people protect their data so they control when it gets shared and to whom. That shouldn’t be asking too much.

What’s your data worth? www.tartle.co

Tcast is brought to you by TARTLE. A global personal data marketplace that allows users to sell their personal information anonymously when they want to, while allowing buyers to access clean ready to analyze data sets on digital identities from all across the globe.

The show is hosted by Co-Founder and Source Data Pioneer Alexander McCaig and Head of Conscious Marketing Jason Rigby.

What's your data worth?

Find out at: https://tartle.co/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TARTLE

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TARTLEofficial/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tartle_official/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TARTLEofficial

Spread the word!

The European Union (EU) has gotten very interested of late in the concept of data sovereignty. They’ve realized that almost all the data in the world (92%) is hosted in the United States. As such, they want more of it under their purview. 

Statements from German Chancellor Angela Merkle and others in the EU sound very good. So good in fact that they read like something stolen from TARTLE’s own website. They talk about security, competition and ‘fostering trust’. Yet, there is plenty of reason to think that those good words are not genuine and the politicians aren’t necessarily thinking of the best interests of their citizens. Are they even looking at things in the proper light?

As an example, does it really matter where the servers are? It might in the sense of the host country’s government potentially having easy access to them. However, the real power comes from the people generating all the data in the first place. The individuals are the ones who really hold the power of all that data since they are the ones generating it. The servers really are just storage. 

What about the big tech companies? Don’t they have the real power in the situation? They are the ones who own the servers and the apps so it makes sense that they have the real power. In a sense, this is true. They can delete and sell data at will in most places, making a ton of money in the process. It’s also a place where the EU lags far behind the rest of the developed world. None of the top twenty tech companies are based in the EU. Perhaps it’s understandable they are feeling slightly inadequate. 

Despite the obvious and real power of the tech companies, the true power still lies with the individual. The individual generates all the data. In fact, he decides whether or not he will generate any data at all. That power, however, is largely untapped. That’s because the laws don’t recognize that power for the most part, making it harder for individuals to understand it as well. So, does the data sovereignty focus by the EU address that issue at all? Will it help people realize the power they really have? Sadly, it doesn’t look that way.

First, they are wanting to force a lot of that server space to their shores. The rule they are wanting to enforce is that any server with data from EU citizens on it has to be located in Europe. What does that accomplish? They get all the access they want for one because they set the rules. They also get taxes, and lots of them, something the EU certainly plans to take advantage of. Recent statements indicate this very clearly, wondering when “cross-border transactions” fall under certain tax regimes. In plain English, this means “when do we get to take people’s money?”

Sadly, all of this means that the EU is really only interested in data sovereignty as it pertains to them. And even then, only as a means of control, to be able to access data and tax others for their own purposes. There isn’t anything there about actually empowering the individual. 

TARTLE though is doing exactly that. We have set up a system that lets people take control of their digital lives in a way that is easy to do and understand. Our TOS are simple, our website easy to use, and our goals clear. We take no money from the individual sellers that join us. We are in 195 countries around the world so we have no national agenda. All we want to do is help people protect their data so they control when it gets shared and to whom. That shouldn’t be asking too much.

What’s your data worth? www.tartle.co

Tcast is brought to you by TARTLE. A global personal data marketplace that allows users to sell their personal information anonymously when they want to, while allowing buyers to access clean ready to analyze data sets on digital identities from all across the globe.

The show is hosted by Co-Founder and Source Data Pioneer Alexander McCaig and Head of Conscious Marketing Jason Rigby.

What's your data worth?

Find out at: https://tartle.co/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TARTLE

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TARTLEofficial/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tartle_official/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TARTLEofficial

Spread the word!

Aeron Zentner is an accomplished leader in the world of analytics, supply chain management, research, and a couple dozen other things. Currently the Dean of Institutional Effectiveness at Coastline College, Dr. Zentner has helped in the completion of thousands of research projects and has been published dozens of times. In his spare time, he works as an editor and author for SAGE Publications and McGraw Hill.

Aeron first started to get into analytics back in 2008 when he practically fell into a research analyst job. At the age of only 29, he became a Dean and not long after was asked to teach analytics to people who did not have a major in it. To do that, to teach analytics to people who were not necessarily steeped in it, he developed an experiential learning program with SAGE. He worked with twelve other experts around the U.S. to develop the program which will be coming out soon. 

Teaching others about the importance of data is a genuine passion for Aeron. He sees it as a bridge that will help us achieve a greater understanding of the world around us. This can help people, regardless of the field they are in to get beyond mere intuition and gut reaction that is based on immediate observations and provide a bigger picture of what is going on beyond what they directly experience. It helps actually provide the ‘why’ to what they are seeing and experiencing. The data then can be the bridge that will help people utilize their available resources more efficiently, to get the most bang for their buck. 

How does one stop bias from creeping in though? Bias after all is a part of the human condition, we naturally see things in a way that is favorable to ourselves. The first step is to actually take a hard look at the questions that we are trying to use data to answer. Is the question itself biased? How is it being framed? It is also worth looking at what is influencing us. How much is based on our interpretation of customer behaviors and how that will affect our activity going forward? Finally, any company should check itself against its mission. Is your personal bias, or even the success of the company in a particular area influencing decisions in a way that is contrary to the mission? That mission becomes a standard by which the company can measure itself. 

So, not to put too fine a point on it, how does Coastline College measure up? Does the college and its students live up to Coastline’s own high standards? Does the college produce students who are competent to analyze data? One thing the college is doing is tracking students post-graduation to see how they themselves are actually performing according to their own goals at the time of graduation. And of course, they go directly to the students when they come into the college as well. Surveys ask them why they selected Coastline and the particular courses they did. What are their goals? What do they hope to get out of their time at the college?

All of that data helps the college be a lot more flexible than other similar institutions. It also helps that they are small, which allows them to more easily tweak their classes, how they are constructed, how long they are, and to make changes to the overall college experience if they identify a problem.  

With such a focus on getting direct data from their students, Coastline College is setting itself up to be a true beacon of the next stage of the digital age, one that will be instrumental in getting people to better understand the changing world.

What’s your data worth? www.tartle.co

Tcast is brought to you by TARTLE. A global personal data marketplace that allows users to sell their personal information anonymously when they want to, while allowing buyers to access clean ready to analyze data sets on digital identities from all across the globe.

The show is hosted by Co-Founder and Source Data Pioneer Alexander McCaig and Head of Conscious Marketing Jason Rigby.

What's your data worth?

Find out at: https://tartle.co/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TARTLE

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TARTLEofficial/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tartle_official/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TARTLEofficial

Spread the word!

Aeron Zentner is an accomplished leader in the world of analytics, supply chain management, research, and a couple dozen other things. Currently the Dean of Institutional Effectiveness at Coastline College, Dr. Zentner has helped in the completion of thousands of research projects and has been published dozens of times. In his spare time, he works as an editor and author for SAGE Publications and McGraw Hill.

Aeron first started to get into analytics back in 2008 when he practically fell into a research analyst job. At the age of only 29, he became a Dean and not long after was asked to teach analytics to people who did not have a major in it. To do that, to teach analytics to people who were not necessarily steeped in it, he developed an experiential learning program with SAGE. He worked with twelve other experts around the U.S. to develop the program which will be coming out soon. 

Teaching others about the importance of data is a genuine passion for Aeron. He sees it as a bridge that will help us achieve a greater understanding of the world around us. This can help people, regardless of the field they are in to get beyond mere intuition and gut reaction that is based on immediate observations and provide a bigger picture of what is going on beyond what they directly experience. It helps actually provide the ‘why’ to what they are seeing and experiencing. The data then can be the bridge that will help people utilize their available resources more efficiently, to get the most bang for their buck. 

How does one stop bias from creeping in though? Bias after all is a part of the human condition, we naturally see things in a way that is favorable to ourselves. The first step is to actually take a hard look at the questions that we are trying to use data to answer. Is the question itself biased? How is it being framed? It is also worth looking at what is influencing us. How much is based on our interpretation of customer behaviors and how that will affect our activity going forward? Finally, any company should check itself against its mission. Is your personal bias, or even the success of the company in a particular area influencing decisions in a way that is contrary to the mission? That mission becomes a standard by which the company can measure itself. 

So, not to put too fine a point on it, how does Coastline College measure up? Does the college and its students live up to Coastline’s own high standards? Does the college produce students who are competent to analyze data? One thing the college is doing is tracking students post-graduation to see how they themselves are actually performing according to their own goals at the time of graduation. And of course, they go directly to the students when they come into the college as well. Surveys ask them why they selected Coastline and the particular courses they did. What are their goals? What do they hope to get out of their time at the college?

All of that data helps the college be a lot more flexible than other similar institutions. It also helps that they are small, which allows them to more easily tweak their classes, how they are constructed, how long they are, and to make changes to the overall college experience if they identify a problem.  

With such a focus on getting direct data from their students, Coastline College is setting itself up to be a true beacon of the next stage of the digital age, one that will be instrumental in getting people to better understand the changing world.

What’s your data worth? www.tartle.co

Tcast is brought to you by TARTLE. A global personal data marketplace that allows users to sell their personal information anonymously when they want to, while allowing buyers to access clean ready to analyze data sets on digital identities from all across the globe.

The show is hosted by Co-Founder and Source Data Pioneer Alexander McCaig and Head of Conscious Marketing Jason Rigby.

What's your data worth?

Find out at: https://tartle.co/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TARTLE

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TARTLEofficial/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tartle_official/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TARTLEofficial

Spread the word!

No doubt you have heard a lot about what is going on with the world’s oceans, especially all the junk floating around in them. Perhaps the most famous example in recent memory was the sea turtle with the straw sticking out of its nose. I’m also old enough to remember concern over fish and other ocean critters getting caught in the plastic six-pack holders that were almost all over the place. Now you hardly see them anymore, showing that sometimes you can get something changed, even if it is something small. 

Marcus Eriksen is one of those people trying to get a whole lot changed. Marcus is an environmental scientist who has been working for years to not just bring awareness, but actual change that will reduce the number of plastics in our water. While there are many accomplishments we could list here, his most well-known endeavor was sailing from California to Hawaii back in 2008 on his homemade raft, lovingly named JUNK. Why? Because it was literally made out of junk, including 15,000 bottles and a Cessna fuselage for a cabin. He published a book about the experience named Junk Raft, published in 2017. 

When asked why he does unusual things like that, the scientist points out that just the science, the raw data, doesn’t reach as large of an audience as art, or a good story like sailing across the ocean on a raft of junk. Those things have a much larger impact on people. There is a reason Plato wrote dialogues. Aesop wrote fables, and the Bible is full of parables instead of systematized theology, these things hold the attention better than numbers, graphs, and syllogisms. 

Speaking of things that get attention, when asked why he cares so much about the ocean, Marcus brings up a video he made during his Pacific voyage. Having fished a fish, he was getting ready to clean it and noticed the stomach was weird. He touched it with his fillet knife and the stomach popped open, revealing seventeen bits of plastic. Yes, that’s a bit gross. On the subject of plastic in stomachs, he has also examined camels with plastic bags in their guts just outside of Dubai. A local vet had a lot to say about the suffering of the camels. It doesn’t matter who you talk to, that is not a good thing. 

What kind of plastics are getting found in the oceans? Where do they come from? Not surprisingly, they largely come from fishing activities. Buoys, nets, bottles, fishing line, and anything else associated with fishing is found in abundance in the ocean. Now, that doesn’t mean that those things are just carelessly tossed overboard, but lines break, a bleach bottle bounces out in rough seas, and things get lost. There are plenty of other things out there too, car tires, textiles, and more are currently littering the oceans of the world. How much of it is actually out there? Up to a quarter-million tons according to a 2014 study. What is it now? Marcus doesn’t have another weight estimate but the trends are that the problem is getting much, much worse. 

So, what do we do about it? The standard response has always been to just go clean it up. However, that is not necessarily the best use of resources. The best bang for the buck, and where the trend is finally heading is to focus on prevention. If we can convince people not to use so much plastic in the first place, or dispose of and reuse it in a responsible way, then we don’t have to worry so much about cleaning them up at all. That reflects a circular economy, one that has little waste, instead of our highly inefficient linear economy. Fortunately, there is a lot of innovation and out-of-the-box thinking going on that fits in the circular mindset. That is happening on the corporate and the individual level. Just think of the brisk second-hand business that happens on Craigslist. Or I just saw a backpacking video where a company is repurposing gelato containers as cold soak jars. Make the space for some innovation and a little profit and it’s amazing the different solutions people will come up with. 

Naturally, there isn’t anyone silver bullet solution. This is exactly why Marcus works so hard to let people know what is going on, sharing the solutions that people have found, and encouraging others to find even more. Perhaps together, we can actually work to get this done.

What’s your plastic worth? www.tartle.co

Tcast is brought to you by TARTLE. A global personal data marketplace that allows users to sell their personal information anonymously when they want to, while allowing buyers to access clean ready to analyze data sets on digital identities from all across the globe.

The show is hosted by Co-Founder and Source Data Pioneer Alexander McCaig and Head of Conscious Marketing Jason Rigby.

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No doubt you have heard a lot about what is going on with the world’s oceans, especially all the junk floating around in them. Perhaps the most famous example in recent memory was the sea turtle with the straw sticking out of its nose. I’m also old enough to remember concern over fish and other ocean critters getting caught in the plastic six-pack holders that were almost all over the place. Now you hardly see them anymore, showing that sometimes you can get something changed, even if it is something small. 

Marcus Eriksen is one of those people trying to get a whole lot changed. Marcus is an environmental scientist who has been working for years to not just bring awareness, but actual change that will reduce the number of plastics in our water. While there are many accomplishments we could list here, his most well-known endeavor was sailing from California to Hawaii back in 2008 on his homemade raft, lovingly named JUNK. Why? Because it was literally made out of junk, including 15,000 bottles and a Cessna fuselage for a cabin. He published a book about the experience named Junk Raft, published in 2017. 

When asked why he does unusual things like that, the scientist points out that just the science, the raw data, doesn’t reach as large of an audience as art, or a good story like sailing across the ocean on a raft of junk. Those things have a much larger impact on people. There is a reason Plato wrote dialogues. Aesop wrote fables, and the Bible is full of parables instead of systematized theology, these things hold the attention better than numbers, graphs, and syllogisms. 

Speaking of things that get attention, when asked why he cares so much about the ocean, Marcus brings up a video he made during his Pacific voyage. Having fished a fish, he was getting ready to clean it and noticed the stomach was weird. He touched it with his fillet knife and the stomach popped open, revealing seventeen bits of plastic. Yes, that’s a bit gross. On the subject of plastic in stomachs, he has also examined camels with plastic bags in their guts just outside of Dubai. A local vet had a lot to say about the suffering of the camels. It doesn’t matter who you talk to, that is not a good thing. 

What kind of plastics are getting found in the oceans? Where do they come from? Not surprisingly, they largely come from fishing activities. Buoys, nets, bottles, fishing line, and anything else associated with fishing is found in abundance in the ocean. Now, that doesn’t mean that those things are just carelessly tossed overboard, but lines break, a bleach bottle bounces out in rough seas, and things get lost. There are plenty of other things out there too, car tires, textiles, and more are currently littering the oceans of the world. How much of it is actually out there? Up to a quarter-million tons according to a 2014 study. What is it now? Marcus doesn’t have another weight estimate but the trends are that the problem is getting much, much worse. 

So, what do we do about it? The standard response has always been to just go clean it up. However, that is not necessarily the best use of resources. The best bang for the buck, and where the trend is finally heading is to focus on prevention. If we can convince people not to use so much plastic in the first place, or dispose of and reuse it in a responsible way, then we don’t have to worry so much about cleaning them up at all. That reflects a circular economy, one that has little waste, instead of our highly inefficient linear economy. Fortunately, there is a lot of innovation and out-of-the-box thinking going on that fits in the circular mindset. That is happening on the corporate and the individual level. Just think of the brisk second-hand business that happens on Craigslist. Or I just saw a backpacking video where a company is repurposing gelato containers as cold soak jars. Make the space for some innovation and a little profit and it’s amazing the different solutions people will come up with. 

Naturally, there isn’t anyone silver bullet solution. This is exactly why Marcus works so hard to let people know what is going on, sharing the solutions that people have found, and encouraging others to find even more. Perhaps together, we can actually work to get this done.

What’s your plastic worth? www.tartle.co

Tcast is brought to you by TARTLE. A global personal data marketplace that allows users to sell their personal information anonymously when they want to, while allowing buyers to access clean ready to analyze data sets on digital identities from all across the globe.

The show is hosted by Co-Founder and Source Data Pioneer Alexander McCaig and Head of Conscious Marketing Jason Rigby.

What's your data worth?

Find out at: https://tartle.co/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TARTLE

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TARTLEofficial/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tartle_official/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TARTLEofficial

Spread the word!