WiSTEM Demo Day at 1871

1871 CEO Howard Tullman Speaks on Tech Trends at Northwestern Engineering School

Howard Tullman addresses a packed audience at the January Dean's Seminar Series event.

CEO of startup hub 1871, Tullman discussed this concept and more technology trends of the future before a packed audience at Wednesday’s Dean’s Seminar Series in the Ford Motor Company Engineering Design Center.

Two years ago, Amazon received a patent for “anticipatory shipping,” a system that ships desired items before the customer even orders them. Although many people think this sounds outrageous, serial entrepreneur Howard Tullman thinks it’s a sign of similar technologies to come.

Here are the ten technology trends that Tullman said we can expect to see in the future.

Saving Time

Tullman predicts that, like Amazon’s anticipatory shipping, more companies will find ways to save customers’ time. He cited Sprig, a new service that delivers food to your home within 15 minutes, and Digiboo, an app that downloads a movie to your computer within 1 to 3 minutes at the airport.

“You’re selling convenience; you’re selling time,” Tullman said. “This is happening in every industry you can imagine. Most of us don’t want to wait at all. It’s all part of the world of immediate gratification. I want it, and I want it now.”

Customization

More companies are realizing that customers want to set the terms, prices, and location of services. Tullman said industry learned this from the gaming world, which is a “prototype for consumer behavior.”

“Every time a consumer engages with a game, they decide what it’s worth,” he said. “How much do they want to spend and commit? We’re in a new world, and it’s driven by the desire to have it right now, at your convenience, at your location. The fixed price is gone.”

Tullman referenced how this has already happened with television. More people now watch recorded, on-demand, or streaming television than live programming.

Attention as Currency

As people become busier and lured by the many different smartphone apps at their fingertips, companies must compete with everything that requires attention and engagement. Tullman said that as quickly as people adopt new technologies, they discard them ten times faster.

“Attention is more and more at a premium just because of the clutter,” he said. “There are almost 50,000 new apps in the Apple Store each week. Try to bust through that to get your message out there. You have to demonstrate to the customer that you are delivering a value proposition: saving time, saving money, increasing productivity, helping make them better, and increasing status.”

Context is More Important than Content

According to Tullman, business messages today are less important than they context in which they are delivered. If the target consumers are not listening, then the message is lost.

“If you can’t be found, if you’re not out there, if you’re not in the conversation, you can basically forget it,” Tullman said.

Constant Connectivity

Most people — all over the world and of all ages — live constantly connected to others. More than a billion people, for example, login to Facebook every day. Tullman believes that more companies will arise that take advantage of this connectivity and the data that it generates. For example, NFL players have started testing wearable devices that measure physical response times to deduce when the players are getting tired, signaling to the coach to remove them from the field.

Messaging Drives Everything

Tullman said people want services that provide answers and information. The automobile industry is beginning to outfit cars with service apps. Tullman predicts these apps will eventually be able to recommend new restaurants and then help make a reservation and give driving directions. He also predicts that traditional search engines, such as Yahoo! and Google, will compete with search applications within social media. Users will opt for the services that provide better information.

“Google’s engine can’t see within apps, so it can’t see the whole social sharing revolution,” Tullman said. “Facebook already has about a billion searches.”

Importance of Personal Data

The more people are connected, the easier they are to track and mine for data. Tullman cited how companies can use Instagram to mine potentially valuable information, such as viewing lunch photos to learn what, when, and where people eat.

“We’re moving to a point where we can use this information to change the game,” Tullman said. “We can change the way the consumer behaves. We can interrupt the consumer’s behavior.”

Access Trumps Assets

From Uber to AirBnB, many of today’s fastest growing companies do not own anything. Instead, they have access to their users’ surpluses. Tullman believes that many future companies will follow this model. He mentioned Flightcar, a company that covers your airport parking costs by renting out your car while you travel. This concept might have seemed foolish a decade ago, but people in today’s world are growing accustomed to sharing.

Sharing/Surplus

On the same note, more people are participating in shared services. Tullman said the sharing economy is particularly powerful for retirees, home-bound senior citizens, and stay-at-home parents who can offer task services.

“We can now reach out and pull them back into the workforce,” he said.

Internet of Everything

Not only are people becoming more connected, but more machines are now connected to the Internet as well. Products like Big Belly Solar Trash Compactors are transforming the waste collection industry. The smart trash cans give waste management administrators information for optimizing collection routes, thus saving time and fuel. Tullman said the world can expect to see similar machine-to-machine business arise in the future.

As technology companies start to follow these ten trends, those that resist will struggle. Tullman said companies need to move forward with the future in order to succeed.

“People just trying to maintain their positions will lose,” he said. “If you’re trying to just hold steady, you are slipping backward.”

Words of Wisdom - "P"

Paid from the neck down.

Pain is brief - pride is forever.

Pain is weakness leaving the body.

Pain makes man think; thought makes man wise; wisdom makes life endurable.

Pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until in our despair there comes a wisdom through the awful grace of God.

Painting is easy when you don’t know how, but very difficult when you do.

Paintings are lies that tell the truth.

Paralyze their resistance with your persistence.

Parenting is not a popularity contest – but grandparenting is.

Parents: I was once their dream; now they are mine.

Part of being an adult is developing the capacity to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over.

Part of the problem with perfectionism is that, by nature, you’re always failing.

Participating in a gun buy-back program because you think that criminals have too many guns is like having yourself castrated because you think your neighbors have too many kids.

Past results are no guarantee of future performance.

Past sins never vanish, they simply wait.

Patience is a professional liability.

Patience to go slow to go fast.

Patience will achieve more than force.

Patton:  Don’t like to pay twice for same real estate.

Pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend.

Pay peanuts and you get monkeys.

Paying for his own beating.

Peeing on the electric fence.

Peerspective.

Pentimento:  The paint becomes opaque and you can see beneath the paint the lines that were in the layers down below.

People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are.  I don't believe in circumstances.  The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them.

People are disturbed not by what happens to them, but by their view of what happens to them. (Epictetus)

People are herd animals – heat begets heat.

People are more important than things.

People are not afraid of change.  They fear the unknown.

People are starving for spontaneity.

People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them.

People ask you for criticism, but they only want praise.

People die for these little pieces of cloth.

People do not decide to become extraordinary. They decide to accomplish extraordinary things.

People do not lack strength; they lack will.

People do what you inspect, not what you expect.

People don’t always know where they’re going; they just know they don’t want to go there alone.

People don’t buy what you do; people buy why you do it.

People don't care who made the first one.  They only want to know who makes the best one. 

People don’t embrace change for the sake of change.  They have to believe in it.

People don’t know what they like. They only like what they know.

People don’t know what they want until they’ve seen it.

People don't know why they come to work until they don't have to come to work.

People don’t leave jobs; they leave managers.

People don’t like change, but they can manage change. They can’t handle uncertainty. It’s the leader’s job to eliminate uncertainty.

People don’t resist change. They resist being changed.

People don’t want to be marketed to; they want to be communicated with.

People feel good or bad about a deal – not because of the money – but because of how you arrive at the deal.

People finding out they are not destined to be who they were convinced they were.

People get the history they deserve.

People get used to change when change is expected.

People hope vaguely but dread precisely.

People learn more from observation than from conversation.

People look at the living and wish for the dead.

People may or may not say what they mean.  But they always say something designed to get what they want.

Today people increasingly move from online (discovery) to on-air.

People need to be reminded more than they need to be instructed.

People never learn anything from a happy ending.

People notice only what you tell them to notice. And then only if you remind them.

People of ferocious emptiness.

People only see the things for which they are looking.

People process the world through story.

People quickly forget how fast you did a job-but they always remember how well you did it.

People respond to incentives.  The rest is commentary.

People respond well to people who are sure of what they want.

People see only what they are prepared to see.

People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.

People seldom want to walk over you until you lie down.

People think luck is something that comes to them, but it never does.  You have to go out and catch it, and grab it with your own two hands.

People think that local media is this one-ton gorilla, but in fact, it’s 2,000 one-pound monkeys.

People today worship their work, work at their play, and play at their worship.

People want an eagle to lead them, but usually a chicken is running against a duck.

People want talent, but all too often they can't accept those things that go along with it.

People were blown around the country like dust on the wind.

People won’t remember what you said, but how you made them feel.

People who become legends in their own time usually have very little time left.

People who come from backgrounds suffused with love, praise and security often have the ability to dismiss criticism out of hand; people who don’t often devote great effort to building structures of refutation.

People who don’t experience shame have no capacity for human empathy or connection.

People who eat white bread have no dreams.

People who have given us their complete confidence believe that they have a right to ours.  The inference is false; a gift confers no rights.

People who have no weaknesses are terrible.

People who have severe mental disabilities often argue with one another because arguing turns out to be one of the least cognitively challenging ways to interact.

People who live entirely by the fertility of their imagination are fascinating, brilliant, charming and not fit to live with.

People who make things happen, people who watch things happen, and people who wonder what happened.

People who once believed nothing could happen now believe anything can happen.

People who not only manage change, but have an appetite for it.

People who say they’re not afraid of anything are liars.  I’m afraid every time I go up there, not of being hit, but of failure.

People who will lie for you will lie to you.

People wish to be liked, not endured.

People won’t behave if they have nothing to lose.

People work for money.  If you want loyalty, buy a dog.

Perception is discontinuous. You are what you are, whatever it is. And then there’s an aha! moment when people say you’re something else.

Perfect is nice, but no one can afford it. (Have a Plan B) (Zeno’s Paradox)

Perfect results count . . . not perfect processes.

Perfection of means and confusion of goals seem, in my opinion, to characterize our age.

Perfection of planning is a symptom of decay.  During a period of exciting discovery, growth and progress, there is no time to plan the perfect anything.  The time for that comes later, when all the important work has been done.

Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.

Perhaps we miss the vision not because the vision is not there, but because we darken the window.

Permanently enshrined in the reptilian hall of fame.

Permission can’t hurt, but it rarely helps. You’ve got to sell your own story.

Permission to fail without acceptance of failure.

Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.

Perpetual self-improvement requires you to go on to the next big thing (for new “challenges”) even if doing so means being promoted beyond your natural abilities.

Persistence prevails when all else fails.

Persistence without empathy is a form of mental illness.

Persistent prophecy is a familiar way of assuring the event.

Personal data is the oil of the digital age.

Personality—an unbroken series of successful gestures.

Perspective is worth 30 IQ points.

Persuasion, not compulsion, is the only way to convince people.

Pessimism always sounds more sophisticated than optimism.

Pessimistic, joyless, deracinated, trapped in his own charmlessness and isolation, with a yearning vulnerability, a brooding self-hatred and an eye that could cut through any hint of phoniness or complacency, he had the psychological acuity of an artist – or a sociopath.

Pets:  a worry sponge.

Pets:  responsibility without romance.

Philosophy teaches hopelessness and hopelessness teaches comedy.

Photography is one percent talent and ninety-nine percent moving furniture.

Physical beauty is enormously, almost morbidly, important to me.

Pick a lane.

Pick any 2: Good, Cheap or Fast. Today Cheap and Fast = Good

Pick the future as against the past.

Pilot’s life:  Long periods of boredom interrupted by moments of sheer terror.

Pity was invented by the weak.

Pixar: Story is the big picture. Story is process. Story is research.

Placate the people you can't avoid, and avoid the people you can't placate.

Plan for the worst, hope for the best.

Plan meticulously, execute mercilessly.

Plan with audacity and execute with vigor.

Plan the dive and dive the plan.

Planning for the future without a sense of history is like planting cut flowers.

Planning:  You want to avoid being at the airport when the ship arrives.

Planning is great; analysis is great.  But most of the time, when you get 80% of the facts, that’s really all you need.  We want our people to be unafraid of making mistakes.  The only time people don’t make mistakes is when they’re asleep.

Plans are useless but planning is indispensable.

PLAs = Product Listing Ads

Play has begun to do real work.

Plausible impossibilities are more acceptable than implausible possibilities.

Poetry is what gets lost in the translation.

Point of view is worth 80 IQ points. (Alan Kay)

Point the camera at the money.

Pokemon:  a Jamaican proctolought

Politics are more dangerous than war, for in war you are only killed once.

Politics is for losers.  Business is for those who can get things done.

Popular theatre:  It wants to tell us a truth that we already know or a falsehood we want to believe in.

Portmanteau – “Classting” – combo of “class” and “meeting”

Potential counts for nothing until it's realized.

Power concedes nothing without a demand.

Power in a motorcycle is like revenge.  You never get enough until you get too much.

Power is a function of value added—if you don’t add value to your employees, you’re ignored.

Power is delicate-you must handle it carefully.

Power is like the skin of a leopard.  Two people can't sit on a single spot.

Power is more important than dignity.

Power is not revealed by striking hard or often, but by striking true.

Power is when your circle of influence is greater than your circle of control.

Practice doesn’t make perfect; practice makes permanent.

Pragmatism – an account of the way people think.

Praise by name, criticize by category.

Pray, as if everything depended on God, act as if everything depended on you.

Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living.

Preaching patience in an impatient age

Precise execution is as important as precise strategy.

Precision guesswork.

Predicting rain doesn't count.  Building arks does.

Predicting the future based on the past is a fool’s game.

Preferring punctuality to productivity

Premature pliability, agreeableness, so that the underlying stubbornness is never touched.

Preparation is everything.

Presentation is as important as context.

Presume not that I am the thing I was.

Preternatural talent depends on preternatural ruthlessness

Pretty is what it's about.

Price might make a sale, but quality and service make a customer.

Pricing transparency is to a dealer what daylight is to a vampire.

Pride goes before a fall.

Primum non nocere.  (First, do no harm.)

Printed lyrics of a folk song are like a photograph of a bird in flight.

Privacy is a technical, economic and aesthetic inconvenience.

Problem with recovery of seriously depressed person is that they’re finally organized enough to carry something out.

Process is more important than outcome.

Producers peddling their scripts were just dogs with bones in their mouths that they couldn’t let go of.

Producing is an invisible art.  If you're any good at it, you leave no fingerprints.

Producing results, not predicting results.

Productivity gains are the foundation of prosperity.

Productivity growth is sustainable when driven by creativity, risk-taking, innovation and new technology.  It is fleeting when it is driven simply by downsizing and longer hours.

Productivity-the real ability to do something combined with the desire to do it.

Productivity should be about producing more with less rather than more with more.

Products are not released, they escape.

Profit is like the horizon; it always recedes as you get closer.

Profit is not the objective of a business.  The objective is to provide a service or product that's good enough for people to pay you a profit for providing it.

Profit-proof

Profitless prosperity

Profusion of confusion

Program passionates

Progress depends on the belief that things can always be better.

Progress grows out of motion.

Progress is not merely doing away with what is bad, it is replacing the best with something better.

Progress might have been all right once, but it has gone on too long.

Progress, not perfection

Project management:  careful planning, followed by flawed execution, rescued by heroic effort as the deadlines loom.

Prolonged life has ruined more men than it ever made.

Promises always come with peril.

Propeller heads.

Protect me from what I want.

Protect the thing that allows you to do what you do.

Proud but not happy.

Psychoanalyst:  why do you hate me?  I haven’t done anything to help you?

Public money drives out private money.

Publicity is selling what you have – Marketing is selling what you don’t have. (The art of the tease.)

Pure scientists have become more detached from the mundane needs of humanity, and applied scientists have become more attached to immediate profitability.

Purity of Heart:  To will one thing, to sell all that you have, and take up your cross.

Purveyors of false demand.

Put a rookie into the line-up every year.

Put quality ahead of schedule and cost.

Put on your big girl panties and deal with it.

Put your hands on some available object and make something new.

Put your heart where your mouth is.

Put yourself on the line.

Pygmies placed on the shoulders of giants see more than the giants themselves.

New Inc Magazine Blog Post by 1871 CEO Howard Tullman

READ THE WHOLE PIECE HERE: http://www.inc.com/howard-tullman/doing-nothing-is-doing-something/html.html

READ IT ALL HERE: http://www.inc.com/howard-tullman/doing-nothing-is-doing-something/html.html

Thanks to My Friends at NU Law School for Their Help in Getting This Issued

1871 Welcomes State Treasurer to Announce New Growth and Innovation Fund

State to invest $220 million in venture funds

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JOHN PLETZ ON TECH

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Michael Frerichs

The state of Illinois is getting back in the venture-capital business for the first time in several years.

Treasurer Michael Frerichs says he'll start investing more than $220 million of state treasury money with venture funds across the state.

The Legislature first authorized the state to invest up to 1 percent of its funds in venture capital in 2002, which resulted in over $65 million that ultimately flowed to startups such as Diagnostic Photonics, SpotHero and Sittercity. (The original legislation was co-sponsored by then-state senator Barack Obama.)

Some of that money ended up with Illinois Ventures, which led a $2.5 million initial investment in Diagnostic Photonics, a Chicago-based medical device company spun out of the University of Illinois.

“Having that ability to close with a local investor made the difference between our company starting and not starting,” said Andrew Cittadine, CEO of Diagnostic Photonics, which makes a device to detect cancer cells.

The fund invested $66 million in 18 venture and private-equity funds, which made investments in 276 companies. The state does not invest its money directly into individual companies.

“We plan to spread the investments across 15 to 20 funds,” Frerichs said in a statement. “No more than 15 percent of the money will be placed within the same fund.”

Legislators reauthorized the fund, known as a Technology Development Account, in 2011. But Treasurer Dan Rutherford, who ran unsuccessfully for governor, never implemented it because of concerns about the state's budget situation. The funding comes from the $13 billion in state funds that the treasurer invests.

“People ask how can you afford to make these investments at a time like this?” Frerichs said this morning at 1871. “I ask, how can you afford not make these investments?”

The biggest benefit is in jobs. But the state gets a financial return, too, he argues. it already has received a return of $27 million on investments that have sold, and the remaining portfolio is valued at about $56 million and could still go higher. That works out to a rate of return of about 6 percent, compared with the 0.5 percent the state normally gets from bond funds and other less-risky investments.

The funding comes from the $13 billion in state funds that the treasurer invests.

“We've all been hoping it would move forward,” said Ira Weiss, managing partner of Hyde Park Venture Partners. “It was a very good program.”

Northern Trust, which oversaw the investments in various funds the first time around, will manage this one, as well.

Illinois' venture-capital investment scene is still in the early stages, with a number of sub-$100 million funds. Several of them are reloading for follow-up funds, including Hyde Park Venture Partners, Illinois Ventures, OCA Ventures and Origin Ventures.

It can be hard for small or relatively young funds to attract institutional capital from insurance and pension funds or endowments. But such funding is important to venture-capital firms raising bigger funds that are crucial to a thriving startup scene.

“One of the challenges is not having enough capital to invest,” said Mark Tebbe, a longtime tech investor and entrepreneur who chairs ChicagoNext, a tech-focused arm of World Business Chicago, which is focused on recruitment and retention of companies. “I think it will be a good thing for the startup community.”