TCAST: The Future of Data & AI

We are big fans of transparency at TARTLE. In fact, if you listen to TARTLEcast (and if not, why not?) you might remember that it is one of the big seven things we are most concerned with, especially as it applies to government and corporate entities. We particularly like transparency when it comes to how these entities are using the data that they gather on a regular basis. Being that data transparency is important not just as a matter of principle but as a matter of individual privacy and security, we were very happy with a recent decision by the Minnesota Supreme Court. 

The case brought by Tyler Halva is an interesting one. As a software engineer, he had been requested to pitch a registration system for the state back in 2015. He never got a response, positive or negative. What’s the big deal? For anyone who has ever worked freelance, the big deal is apparent. First, a freelancer would always like to know what he can do better, meaning that even rejections are important learning opportunities for his business. Second, intellectual property theft is a big problem in the freelance world. There are plenty of people out there who think that if a person isn’t protected by a business and the lawyers that typically go along with that, they can take advantage of the situation and not pay for the freelancer’s hard work. That’s why Mr. Halva went to the trouble of submitting five requests for the data he was looking for. 

This is where the case gets interesting. Halva was able to learn that another developer had gotten the job and even got the evaluation that went into making the decision. What he couldn’t find was the original marked up proposal, which is something that he thought should exist. That is the real basis of the case, whether or not a person should be able to sue for data that should exist. 

Why is that important? If you have paid attention to digital privacy and transparency over the course of the digital age at all, you know that records have a habit of not being able to be found. Whether one is a fan or not, the Obama administration was noteworthy for the amount of hard drives that had crashed, losing the data requested. Governments and corporations both can conveniently delete incriminating information in order to deter investigations into questionable behavior. This new ruling means that in Minnesota at least there should be accountability even if the data that is desired should be there but isn’t. 

As the article states, this is a massive win for transparency advocates. One, the whole case should be a reminder to governments that at the least they should be communicating better with others and offering information outright. That means not waiting around for someone to ask for something they have reason to expect would just be granted as a matter of course. If the Minnesota government had just let the software engineer know his pitch had been rejected outright and given him the reasons why, he probably would not have pushed as hard. That would have saved the state’s legal system time and money. Two, it’s also a notice that people should think before deleting information, whether digital or hard copies. You never know what information might be requested and the absence of that information can now have legal ramifications, even if there is nothing out of order. Therefore it serves both the public and the government to hold onto that data, at the least for the sake of transparency and making sure that everyone can see that things are as they should be. 

What’s your data worth? www.tartle.co

Transparency for corporate and government entities is important for everyone. It protects individual privacy and security. As such it is part of TARTLE’s big seven issues to solve. Jason and Alex sit down to discuss a recent transparency win from the Minnesota Supreme Court. The victory has big implications for how governments store and share data. www.tartle.co

TARTLE is on a roll. We’ve had a bunch of great guests over on T-Cast of late and today is no exception. This time, Alex and Jason chat with Patrick J. McGinnis. Patrick has done a lot as a venture capitalist, the author of the book, The 10% Entrepreneur, and as a public speaker. What he is most well-known for is coining the term FOMO. For those who don’t follow the latest slang terms flying around the internet, FOMO is short for the Fear of Missing Out.

So, how is it that the invention of an internet slang term makes one's name known to many outside of the investment world? Because FOMO is a legitimate social phenomenon, one that has become more and more significant with the rise of social media. It began back in 2003 when the young Patrick was at Harvard, coincidentally at the same time Zuckerberg was working on Facebook. However, even though social media had yet to really take off, Harvard was full of choices and opportunities that would make one’s head spin. There was so much to do, it was literally impossible to do it all. Patrick noticed the effect this was having on people, himself included and wrote the article that coined the term. Since then, it has been added to the Oxford Dictionary and become part of the common parlance of the modern world. 

How does FOMO actually work? It can apply in a variety of ways. It can of course be a situation in which you see or learn of something going on and you just wish that you could do that because it seems great. A more acute experience is feeling as though you’re being excluded from some kind of group experience. Patrick uses the example of the show Tiger King. It reached a…shall we say, surprising level of popularity at the beginning of COVID. How many people watched the show not because it actually sounded interesting to them, but because they just wanted to be part of the discussion? Just so they could understand the memes and the tweets? That’s just one example of something that happens all the time, the herd plays a huge role in determining the interests of the individual, which in turn determines how the individual spends his time and money. You are literally handing over your individual agency to the herd. 

In a certain sense, FOMO has always been a part of the human experience. As Patrick points out, back in the early days of humanity, if you were out of the information loop on the latest antelope movements, you would likely starve to death. You definitely don’t want to miss out on that. What is different now is that it is virtually constant, about a variety of things, things that in themselves aren’t all that important. Does it matter objectively if you are up on the latest Tiger King or Game of Thrones episode? No, there are zero existential consequences. Yet, the level of anxiety a person feels may be on par with the tribesman who missed the wildebeest update. 

FOMO is also intentionally used as a marketing or motivational tool. Which of course can have good or bad results depending on the ends. But we absolutely need to develop some self-awareness about how we are being manipulated. For one, the more time we spend on social media, the more we are getting manipulated and getting fed a distorted sense of reality. There are of course tons of satirical videos making fun of this, but a real world example involves a lake in Russia. The lake itself is very beautiful and a bunch of influencers go there to take photos. You are given the impression they’re chilling at a beautiful vacation spot. In reality, they are just there for the photo because if you actually go in that lake, it is so toxic that you will then be going to the hospital. 

So, how to break that cycle? There isn’t an easy fix. At the end of the day, it’s the same as making decisions about health. Once you realize there is a problem, are you willing to take the necessary steps to deal with it? Can you come up with a plan to put the phone down and stick to it? Can you take back control, and are you willing to do so? That’s something that everyone has to answer for themselves.

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

FOMO, the Fear Of Missing Out is a term coined by Patrick McGinnis back in 2003. Since then, it has become part of the common parlance of people discussing the effects of social media on our lives. Jason and Alex discuss with Patrick the origins of the term, the effects of FOMO on our lives, and how to keep it from taking over. www.tartle.co

On the latest interview episode of T-CAST, Alex and Jason joined Robert Sieger for a conversation. Robert wears a lot of hats. He has been Chief Information Officer, Chief Technology Officer, and VP of Technology and currently employed as a CIO at Boomerang Carnets. Unless you are up on some of the finer points of international law you might be wondering what a carnet is. As Sieger describes them, they are a passport for stuff. Most countries have pretty tight controls on what you can and can’t bring in and out of them. This exists at least in part because of the desire to control trade. However, there are certain businesses that frequently bring goods in and out of a country with no intention of selling them. 

An example based on some of Boomerang’s clients is news crews. These have a large amount of equipment that goes with them into a number of different countries around the world. The carnets that Boomerang provides are essentially a way to record the movements of that equipment in order to ensure CNN or FOX isn’t selling random camera equipment to the locals. 

However, this conversation wasn’t about such esoteric matters. Robert is also a strong advocate for servant leadership. Sounds good, but what is it? Servant leadership is simply the idea that the leader should be empowering others to help them be their best. Part of the way this works is that it is really a two-way street. The leader helps those he leads to be their best and they, in turn, help the leader be his best. This requires a certain degree of humility on the part of the leader, who has to be willing to hire and develop people who are smarter than him in certain areas. He has to then be willing to learn from them. This is certainly true in regards to the technology world in which Siegel operates. He doesn’t need to know every aspect of coding and website design, in fact, he can’t. What he can do is direct all of the necessary elements to accomplish the specific goals of the company. Taking the time to also develop the people, to understand them, their talents, their desires, and their ideas help them, helps the leader, helps the company, and of course, helps the clients. 

A cynic will say that all sounds great in theory but does it actually work in practice? Can Mr. Sieger produce data to show that his approach is effective? As it happens, he surely can. When he joined Boomerang, Robert took a poll of its users asking how they felt about technology and its responsiveness and impact on their lives. The results were less than promising. He took the information from that poll and worked with his team. He also began taking the same poll every year and the results are now uniformly positive. He was also able to bring in a phone upgrade $30,000 under budget simply by really listening to his team.

That is what truly separates the real servant leader from a pretender. He actually listens. He does not just have a suggestion box, or an open door policy that everyone can tell is just lip service. All you have to do is have a real conversation with people and then if they have a good idea, follow through on it. Don’t just smile and nod. Yet, few take this simple approach, a fact that baffles Sieger, and frankly us as well. 

Robert was also able to take this approach to the rest of the company, getting the other VPs on board with servant leadership. Even that took plenty of patient listening. The VPs all had their own issues to deal with, which might require differences of approach, differences that you might not be able to detect unless there is real listening going on.

Sieger takes this approach even when team members don’t perform up to standards. Should an employee make a mistake, he gets coached and so long as it is addressed, that’s the end of it. In fact, the correcting of the mistake or behavior becomes a positive come to the next performance review. Should there be a chronic problem, a plan gets developed in conjunction with the person to figure out how to correct the issue. Most times, this corrects things and the employee improves. Though sometimes, there will still be someone who has to be let go. As they say, you can lead a horse to water but can’t make him drink. 

Robert Sieger represents exactly what a leader should be. He seeks not to control but to serve, treating people like people and not cogs in a machine, getting information, and ideas directly from them. This makes Mr. Sieger another excellent data champion.

What’s your data worth? www.tartle.co

Robert Sieger has worn many hats. Currently, he is the CIO for Boomerang Carnets. That, however, is not his most important role. That would be his role as an advocate for servant leadership. Sieger uses his position not primarily for his own gain but to help build up his team members, helping them to become the best version of themselves. www.tartle.co

Susanne Tedrick is a woman of many skills with a long list of accomplishments. She currently works for Microsoft, specifically as a specialist for Azure, their cloud computing platform. She also volunteers for several organizations devoted to encouraging minorities to pursue careers in the world of technology. These include Advancing Tech Talent, CompTIA, and Npower’s Command Shift initiative. 

She doesn’t always spend her time behind a desk though. Susanne also has a couple of marathons under her belt, though she says those days are behind her now. 

In case you weren’t impressed enough, she also has a book to her name, published in 2020 by John Wiley & Sons. Through her book, Women of Color in Tech, Susanne wants to let women know about the vast array of available careers in tech and how to get into those jobs.

With that array of accomplishments, one might say that Susanne didn’t even need to write the book. Her own life is an example of what you can accomplish when you have a clear vision and the passion to bring that vision into the real world. Of course, even with her many speaking engagements (quickly looking through her schedule at www.susannetedrick.com shows a very packed schedule), even this human dynamo can’t be everywhere at once. The book allows her to get her message out and positively impact as many people as possible. 

Now, some might be tempted to look at her work and dismiss it as more diverse buzzwords. Susanne understands well that diversity is about a lot more than race and gender. Those are encouraged of course, but largely because people have a tendency to feel signaled out and alienated in a situation where no one looks like them. And of course, there are a few who are happy to make them feel that way. Susanne just helps give women of color like herself the extra encouragement they need to step into what understandably seems like an intimidating field. It’s an uphill battle, a marathon if you will, thanks to all the cultural biases that affect the decision to even enter on a STEM path. Everything from people assuming that women can’t handle the logical world of coding to those in an urban environment thinking education is a sign of weakness and the only path to success is through sports. Fortunately, those battles are being won and more minorities are looking into the tech field.

Beyond mere race and gender though are far more important aspects of diversity, thought, and experience. A person’s background and basic beliefs about the world can provide unique ways of thinking that will look at problems from different angles and so present different solutions. If everyone has exactly the same mindset, problems can become much more difficult to overcome or even identify. When a company has a diversity of thought and experience (which does have some overlap with race and gender) amongst its employees that company actually does better financially. 

So, what is it that drives Susanne to do all of this? Given the amount of volunteer work she does, it clearly isn’t about the money. She says it is simply watching the next generation develop. There is a great deal of satisfaction in working with a young novice and watching her learn and grow. With a good mentor like Susanne, someone fresh out of school can go from having a lack of confidence to being ready to be a leader for the next generation of young professionals. 

Susanne Tedrick is the perfect example of a woman who talks the talk and walks the walk. A lifetime steeped in the world of technology has not made her lose sight not just of the data that helps are do her job but of the human beings behind the data.

What’s your data worth? www.tartle.co

Susanne Tedrick works on Azure, Microsoft’s cloud computing platform. However, she also has run a couple marathons, volunteers for a number of organizations and has written the book, Women of Color in Tech to inspire women like herself to enter the technology field. Jason and Alex sit down for a conversation about her goals, her book, and what drives her the most. www.tartle.co

You know what’s fun? Sitting down to talk with amazing people doing amazing things. Recently, Alex and Jason had the chance to do just that. This time, the amazing person was one Zion Miller, the CEO of MS Money Moves. What is MS Money Moves? It’s a trading team that helps subscribers learn the ins and outs of the biotech industry so they can buy and sell stocks and make a profit doing so. As one can imagine, that involves a lot of data, which of course catches our interest here at TARTLE. 

One of the things that a person might notice about Zion is that he’s young, which begs the question, how does someone so young get to be the CEO of a successful stock trading team in a hyper-specialized field? As Zion puts it, it started with him wanting to avoid getting caught up in a mountain of student debt so he was looking to find ways to fund his education. After doing a bit of research into what approach would have the best risk to reward ratio, he took his savings from working double shifts at a restaurant and invested it all into the biotech field. He quickly learned how the field operates and developed a system that has a good track record of predicting the ups and downs of biotech stocks. He has since built up a team of people with PhDs and others to help analyze these companies so they can see where things are going before anyone else. It’s that approach, talking with experts in the field who really understand what those companies are doing and how likely it is to succeed that really sets Zion apart from other investors. He goes as close to the source as SEC law allows. His team then takes all the information they get and break it down into a digestible format that can be understood by his subscribers. 

Yet, they don’t just provide a summary report. The Money Moves team also provides all the data backing up their report, making it possible for members to do their own due diligence. This makes Miller’s company an incredibly transparent and efficient investment firm as compared to most who don’t even provide their data and are likely just reacting to whatever goes on in the market. Zion’s team can actually predict what is going to happen. Miller also is committed to being open and honest with his subscribers in that he doesn’t sell any of their data to third parties. This is in contrast to popular trading apps such as Robin Hood. After all, he’s there to trade and so are the subscribers. Therefore he only makes money from trades that are made. 

Yes, MS Money Moves doesn’t do free trades. Yes, others offer free trading. Yet, we know that there is no such thing as a free lunch. The cost of using those platforms is you allow them to sell all your data. That’s not a game Zion is willing to play. That’s just another reflection of Zion’s altruistic approach to investing. He recognizes that these companies he and his subscribers are investing in are trying to help solve major health issues. Because of this, Miller believes it is the responsibility of investors to not just try to make money but also accelerate the development of the companies that are doing the best work to help improve a lot of people around the world. 

Like we said at the beginning of this piece, we like to talk to amazing people doing amazing things. Zion Miller and MS Money Moves exemplify the best of what people can do when they really make data work for them. When they do that, the data doesn’t just work for them, it works for everyone. 

What’s your data worth? www.tartle.co

Zion Miller is the CEO of MS Money Moves. This is a company that helps people understand how to effectively invest in the biotech industry. Alex and Jason had a chance to speak with the young CEO and learn how he got involved in the field and what it is that set his company apart from others. www.tartle.co