You are in meetings and various other engagements all week. You are looking into the eyes of many individuals and, as psychologists say, speaking a language uniquely embedded in human intuition and perception. You are capable of offering hope to business people while your product is capable of disrupting theirs or their customers' lives.

I am pinpointing a matter of hope amid tensions business people face. Do you and your co-workers find it challenging to convey to clients, “The things we do and innovate and charge customers for offers hope, but...?”

Disruption or disruptive technology may not offer people hope but if your business can go the way of imagining a hopeful outcome for customers – you can lead them to even more imagining. Still, disruption is first and foremost indicative of chaos and overwhelming change. Another subject, genetic engineering, sounds very hopeful to people suffering with diseases and has even shown incredible progress using advanced technologies. For others, genetic engineering means humanity is about to get strangely out of control, diabolical. How about the less tangible like one’s personal freedom? This week the Fed released alarming traffic fatality stats showing a 7.2% increase in deaths since 2014 (35,092 in 2015). My guess is; and it’s only a guess, it that texting and managing that big screen while driving may be causing the rising stat. Still, auto companies are not only bringing more home entertainment features to their vehicles but also the freedom to be fatally distracted. The consumer hopes he or she wont be the next fatality. This creates tension between the vehicle owner, insurers and car makers. And another, genetically modified grains are the fear of many while also the hope of farmers trying to survive unexpected climate changes that destroy crops.

Hope for a better world has shifted toward technological solutions while diminishing in government and institutions. The technology introduced to us is on one hand marketed as the “future is now” and on the other hand “disruptive” only for the purpose of being relevant. When a business taps the internet-of-things does it demand too much personal information? Is a robotic innovation the result of a bunch of zealous mechanical engineers with myopia about displacing skilled workers? The answers aren’t simple when ethical and cultural considerations obscure the better future we hope for. How do you and your firm communicate hope if the goal of disrupting lives is central to overall strategy?
RPW2016

While going through airport screening I overheard a man telling his wife that something on his back alarmed and yet, there was no object found. They shook their heads and moved on after a quick resolution process. He didn’t know that it was the high amount of sweat on his shirt that caused an anomaly – a biological factor on a hot day, not a concealed object.

Most people don’t understand technologies they experience at airport screening; there are actually many security layers with only a few being visible.
Then there's the automobile. Can you diagnose and fix your car's engine in the driveway? Those days are gone thanks to digitalization under the hood.
Medical devices are created as real-time body sensors requiring a listening network and upgrades similar to computers.
If you talk about the cloud it’s mystifying. They are "out there" but, where? Do Microsoft, Amazon, Apple or Verizon manage your digital cloud life? 

From the healthcare industry to media giants to car manufacturing, space industries and blockchain – the foundational technology is shared networks. And yet, there are still "telephone poles" across rural America. The Washington, D.C. progressive think-tank, the ITIF, advocates for increasing open society networks of personal information to fulfill their innovation-driven world view. From overhead wires to underground fiber cables to heart-rate monitoring smart phones -  one can see open networks leading directly to our human bodies because that's where the hottest data lies for many industries - in our bodies and brains and genomes.

It's time to distinguish personal data from biological. Both may be a competitive asset to certain businesses, both may also be biased or malicious, however, it's not all about research we're asked to participate in for the "betterment of mankind." It's more about marketing and profiting by acquiring and selling both data sources - the average personal kind and the biological. With anemic policy and ethical standards to lead the world through the bio-revolution, human-ness will represent its shared network with neuroscience and genetics sustaining the inevitable future promised in the context of the new evolution; less human and more connected. Humans are becoming the network.

robertpwaters.com 2016

Gentlemen, we have before us a physiological problem.  Romance is swiftly being replaced with digital intelligence expected from men when it comes to cars. My question is posed for both auto companies and men: can we lead a lady to love by impressing her with digital dexterity in our gadget-fixated automobiles? Get out the manual from the glove box!

I am not trying to confuse you. Millennials have no idea what romancing the wheels is all about but their fathers and grandfathers got it. Back in time when the car led to personal power and freedom, advertising hijacked pure utility for base human instinct to sell more cars. The beauty of female models posing with cars led to calendars on every mechanic’s shop wall and TV and magazine ads with pictures of romantic drive-in movies or a secret mountain top overlooking scenic valleys with the man’s arm around his girl.

In marketing's early role for autonomous cars do you see anything but pure digital mash-up? Do you foresee anything but date night “time-out” to reboot one of dozens of systems managing sensors, Lidar, GPS, screens and real-time other stuff? Instead, it'll be like having Silicon Valley CEO’s and engineers in the back seat and there is zero sex-appeal in this scenario. It is high time marketing get its act together by promoting romance amid boring computational and artificial intelligence.

Back in the 1950’s the big V-8 implied brawn and strength for men. Bench seats allowed shared space and a convertible meant romantic star-gazing. The autonomous cars I’ve seen have a top-load that Santa Clause would hardly envy. Up on the rooftop of autonomous cars rests a flea market of small cameras and sensors. Even so – the sense of our future seems to be with Silicon Valley bearded young guys and venture capitalists going out on date night and, sadly, that isn’t appealing.
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Marketers: where are you? Give men a bit of romance and possibility. Women are not wooed by a young man demonstrating tech prowess while downing his third energy drink after being up the previous night re-booting his autonomous car.  Auto makers – are you asleep at the wheel? Americans will never stop romancing their wheels. Market some romance!
RPW