Disqus - Latest Comments for rtoennis

Re: New Book: The Entrepreneur’s Weekly Nietzsche

Roger Toennis — Tue, 25 May 2021 16:36:55 -0000

Brad, Do you have copies in Boulder Book Store yet. I'll walk over as I'm at St J Lobby working today. R

Re: Humans Just Don’t Understand Complex Systems

Roger Toennis — Sun, 28 Jun 2020 14:38:12 -0000

Nonlinearities in continuous mathematics modeling are indeed tricky. The simplest approach to controlling systems with nonlinearities is to first do a complete job of what's called "Characterization of the plant. This means doing a full analysis of the experimental data gathered from a system operating in open loop mode to show where the nonlinearities show up. Then its possible to design control systems that keep the system inside its linear zones you allude to above.

What prevents this simple approach from working in public policy topics such as pandemic response, employment, economics, etc. is when politicians(lawyers) with one sided agendas ignore the portions of the data and the system that don't fully align to their unbalanced agenda.

If all politicians had engineering/science or other fact based professional training all human problems would always get rapidly solved in an balanced, optimal way. Fact based professions are taught how to balance what are called "interdependent opposite polarities".

Lawyers are taught to become 'polarity blind' advocates of one or the other side of any polarity.
Shakespeare was right about lawyers in Henry VI, Part 2, Act IV, Scene 2. ;-)

We shouldn't of course take his prescription literally about how to handle them, as that would be barbaric, and my brother is one. But IMO having a law degree should disqualify a person from holding public office at any level; as their minds are corrupted by legal training into being polarity blind advocates for one-sided positions. Not all become polarity blind; but they have been specifically trained on HOW to be polarity blind to the interdependent and valid opposite position in any given polarity.

Highly recommend Barry Johnson's book on Polarity Management.

"Polarity Management: Identifying and Managing Unsolvable Problems"
https://www.amazon.com/Pola...

Re: Humans Just Don’t Understand Complex Systems

Roger Toennis — Sun, 28 Jun 2020 14:26:58 -0000

Thx for you reply!! https://media1.giphy.com/me...

Re: Humans Just Don’t Understand Complex Systems

Roger Toennis — Fri, 26 Jun 2020 16:53:18 -0000

As someone who studied multivariable feedback control systems and built them for many years and did his graduate research in complex adaptive systems I can say: you are absolutely right on this observation.

Complex systems modeling mathematics; and the design of closed loop multivariable control systems to drive systems to desired states, flatted curves for example, is not a trivial thing. You have to have baseline college calc and diffy Q as a foundation and then several years of advanced engineering and control systems mathematics.

So in short; understanding in an instinctive way how multi-variable systems with feedback dynamics operate is not something the average Joe orr Jane is going to be able to do well. Thats why the key for leaders who do understand is to make sure they build trust with the people they need to influence into behaving in ways that drive the outcomes of a complex system to desired states. Leaders should all read The Speed of Trust by Stephen Covey Jr and work on leveraging his observation that "Progress in a large organization moves at the speed of the trust networks in that organization."

Recent years have deeply damaged and slowed down the speed of trust in this country and between all countries. If it slows to a full stop we will see chaos and collapse and an increase in the speed of fear.

Re: Book: Stillness Is The Key

Roger Toennis — Sun, 01 Dec 2019 10:27:13 -0000

I’ve read his book Ego is the Enemy and really liked it. I’ll grab this one also.

Re: A Game of Giants

Roger Toennis — Thu, 29 Aug 2019 18:20:22 -0000

Yes, John Nash. The "Nash Equilibrium". Nobel winning paper on that here. http://web.archive.org/web/...
Recently proved mathematically to be the general proof of n-person game theory optimization. Yes it really does help the individuals to trust the other members of the group. Win/Win.

Re: A Game of Giants

Roger Toennis — Thu, 29 Aug 2019 18:12:21 -0000

Have you read "Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brinas Cities and Software"?
https://www.amazon.com/Emer...

I've been studying emergent complexity since grad school days on fellowship with NASA at CU-Boulder. Been waiting a long time for human race to get these concepts.

Re: To Build Truly Intelligent Machines, Teach Them Cause and Effect

Roger Toennis — Sun, 27 Jan 2019 14:39:21 -0000

He’s correct but to accomplish this will require AI researchers to better understand better he mathematics of multi input multi output closed loop comtrol systems mathematics.

Most AI folks don’t come from this area of study. They tended to try and build open loop models Without any complex feedback elements that would result in a real approach to causal reasoning.

Re: Two Weeks Ago …

Roger Toennis — Tue, 04 Sep 2018 13:25:55 -0000

Man do I resonate withe the "45 to 55 breakage" concept. SO far I'm staying healthy but I definitely at 53 am feeling age's affect on my energy level.

Re: Relentlessly Turning Input Knobs To 0

Roger Toennis — Tue, 10 Jul 2018 17:39:09 -0000

Very interesting. I'm noticing lately how distracted and fractured I seem with my attention span. I thin first I will turn off all social media notifications popups and see how that feels.Then I may take both a Twitter and Facebook sabbatical for a month.

I wish there was some kind of "in between" solution for social media. I think we still have the problem Simon Synek called out when he gave his "It's not information overload, it's filter failure" talk at Web 2.0 in 2008. https://www.youtube.com/wat...

I know there are aggregation tools but frankly I don't think any of them has figured out how to curate information uniquely well for each of us.

I wish I had the Samantha AI assistant from the movie "Her" that I could tell what I want to accomplish and then have that AI schedule my attention daily to get me where I want to go.

Thats how AI will enhance human experience, by protecting us from overload an guiding us to experience life in the present in a way that deepens our connections to others and also develops us as individuals at the same time.

Re: Exploring “The Great Cholesterol Myth”

Roger Toennis — Mon, 12 Feb 2018 09:21:29 -0000

I hypothesize that when scientists look into the differences in morbidity from heart disease comparing those who remain largely in fat burning metabolism, ketosis, versus those who remain largely in glucose burning metabolism, it will be found that the most effective foundational variable to prevent heart disease will be found to be.....diet. In control systems engineering when attempting to design controllers that deliver optimal “control effort” in driving a system to desirable states, you analyze and model the baseline systems to find these variables. You then calculate for those what is called the controllability and onservability of the variables. Diet will be found in human metabolism to be a highly observable and co trollable variable and therefore will become the focus for driving a human body tonnore optimal states of health related to heart disease.

Re: The Pessimists’ Future

Roger Toennis — Tue, 01 Aug 2017 11:29:28 -0000

#LOVE

Re: The Pessimists’ Future

Roger Toennis — Tue, 25 Jul 2017 11:03:55 -0000

The solution to all the angst over the impact of these step changes caused by technology accelerations is to proactively design the technology to close the loop around driving the future Tech-infused, human condition toward enhancing and magnifying our best attributes as humans.

We must balance competition with collaboration.

We must take direction from John Nash's "equilibrium" Nobel prize for his game theory insights on "enlightened self interest".

We must use that insight to make sure we apply technologies in balance to serve both "the One" and "the Many" for the optimal benefit of BOTH "the One" and "the Many".

www.versatilityfactor.com

Re: In The End, Entropy Always Wins

Roger Toennis — Thu, 29 Jun 2017 16:02:58 -0000

This is why living in the present moment, every single moment, is the key to happiness.

If you live always in the "now" you never get "old". Old is the plaque that builds up in your soul whenever you are worrying about the past or the future.

When you live in the present, every moment, your soul stops aging. Your body still ages but your mind stays clear and young.

This is the secret to a happy soul life; no matter how long your body lives.

Re: Solution: ‘Is Infinity Real?’

Roger Toennis — Tue, 13 Jun 2017 21:01:45 -0000

The Countably Finite Infinity Machine We Live in.

The "map", our current best mathematical cosmology, is in fact not the "Territory", our observed physical universe. But perhaps our observed "territory" is instead a "map"/mathematics constructed by extra universal engineers/coders. Perhaps these coders have in writing the code for our territory, designed it to have random probabilistic qualities overlaid on top of a foundation of closed form vector calculus, general relativity.

Then by having the code run inside a countable infinite multithreaded/multicore processor, that over the cycles and threads continuously generates self aware subroutines, they have created a Monte Carlo simulation that explores countably infinite scenarios across countably Infinite fractal dimensions.

God doesn't play dice, because there are no true Gods in the theme of primitive human concepts of God.

But engineers/scientists are geeks and we love dice. Dungeons and Dragons as a dice driven game in this territory/universe we inhabit, is a game engineers and scientists and coders love.

Ergo, we live inside a giant Monte Carlo simulation machine and the complexity of life that emerges out of and on top of the physics and math we have discovered is simply a stack of non deterministic emergent complexities arising from the multithreaded parallel processing simulation machine we all live in.

Surely you're joking, Mr. Toennis! :-p

Q.E.D.

Re: What are the things SaaS companies with over 100M ARR all have in common?

Roger Toennis — Thu, 01 Jun 2017 13:15:44 -0000

BINGO!!!! ...and here we come....sneaking up behind...with a well thought out stack...using latest tech... and super-flexible architecture....that can be easily deployed in decoupled fashion....in a special niche market...adding small unknown B2B SaaS ecosystem partners to roll with us as a crew all in ninja gear...where ALL our first customers are IT telecom and SW channel resellers....who ALL will suddenly, like a Twitter #ThunderClap start selling us as well as using us in house. #tiptoetiptoetiptoe #SaaSNinjasComingForYou ;-)

Re: Chart: Here’s How 5 Tech Giants Make Their Billions

Roger Toennis — Sat, 13 May 2017 15:25:10 -0000

Microsoft wins for diversification both in products mix and market mix between consumer and business. If this continues that they will rise to the top. They do have to get into AR/VR and back into hand-helds with a Surface Phone though. If they do those things also they will be hard to beat.

Re: Starting Is Easy, Finishing Is Hard

Roger Toennis — Wed, 26 Apr 2017 20:51:52 -0000

Well we got to he first finish line after 18 months start to merger with a real company. Now though we have a new start and a new finish to go get. One step at a time.
http://www.channelpartnerso...

Re: How many Silicon Valley startups succeed? Is it true that a

Roger Toennis — Fri, 23 Dec 2016 14:30:51 -0000

20th Century style VCs sadly have to choose either to suffer the curse of failure to invest wisely or the curse of the "Midas touch" that warps them and everything they touch. Power corrupts and silicon valley has, with some notable exceptions, allowed itself to become slave to instant massive money-centric gratification.

Re: As Long As We Have 20-30 SaaS Decacorns by 2021 … All Is Good

Roger Toennis — Mon, 21 Nov 2016 13:14:04 -0000

Jason, Would you be willing to take a meeting with me? I would like to tell you about how my SaaS startup out of Boulder CO is going to build the world's first "Costco for B2B SaaS". This includes having our own "Kirkland-Branded" SaaS products (mTusker.com) selling next to dozens other emerging SaaS brands with less than $5M ARR right now. I call them "The second wave of B2B SaaS". We handle the sales and support and e-commerce for those SaaS brands on our shelves lkeveraging our channel partner . We also will have B2B SaaS personal shoppers we call #CloudGenius's. AppDirect wants to be Costco of SaaS but they are failing at it. We have figured out how to not fail at this. roger@mtusker .

Re: What the legendary Clayton Christensen gets wrong about Uber, Tesla and disruptive innovation

Roger Toennis — Sun, 06 Nov 2016 20:22:19 -0000

You really should closely read Christensen's article you linked to in your article. It's seems like you don't understand how he defines disruptive innovation. Years ago I read both his original book The Innovators Dilemma AND the next two followup books "The Innovators Solution" and "Seeing What's Next: Using The Theories Of Innovation to Predict Industry Change". Have you read these, or even the first book?

Using Christensen's model of what he calls disruption, Uber is not disruptive. Neither is AirBNB disruptive. Taxis still exist and so do hotels and they will for a long time. Both Uber and AirBnB are what Christensen calls sustaining innovations for those industries. He never says anywhere that sustaining innovation entrants to a market can't be successful. They very very often are!!

His definition of what he calls disruption is a very very specific set of circumstances and those circumstances describe how a new entrant serving low end, underserved customers at the low end of existing markets come in and serve those customers at prices attractive to those customers. Then that new entrant grows up quickly to serve more demanding, and in B2B larger customers, well enough to reach a point where suddenly the upmarket, more demanding customers suddenly migrate quickly AWAY from the incumbent companies to the new entrant. THAT is what Christensen calls disruption. It does not apply ANY new company that comes into an existing market and from day one competes with the incumbent For exactly the same customers. This latter describes both Uber and AirBnB.

Does that explain how you are misreading this situation and coming to an inaccurate conclusion?

As Christensen says "Despite broad dissemination, the theory’s core concepts have been widely misunderstood and its basic tenets frequently misapplied. Furthermore, essential refinements in the theory over the past 20 years appear to have been overshadowed by the popularity of the initial formulation. As a result, the theory is sometimes criticized for shortcomings that have already been addressed."

Re: My Last Post About This Election – Don’t Waste Your Vote

Roger Toennis — Sat, 05 Nov 2016 13:33:40 -0000

Turns out we have similar heritage. My great grandfather (Glaser) came to the US in 1904 through Ellis Island by way of Ukraine where he and the previous 2 generations of Glaser's(Jewish) lived after immigrating from Germany to Russia/Ukraine. This immigration to Russia/Ukraine happened as Katherine the great was German and convinced her husband the czar to allow this. This German ancestry group that came to US fleeing Cossacks are called in US "Germans from Russia". My Uncle Dick is a bit of an expert in this area of history and immigration.

Re: I am over male power

Roger Toennis — Mon, 31 Oct 2016 12:22:17 -0000

Yes, Our goal is to build versatile schools by teaching administrators and teachers how to talk the language of versatility to kids. We are also now engaged with several large tech companies to help them understand this inclusive model that makes both men and women and men and women of all gender identities feel safe and valued in the organizations where the work. We have a profiling tool on our website for free that you can take. This is the beta 2 version and we are working on improving it now. Soon we will be doing some data analytics work to tease out for a given organization what we call the "Gender Versatility MRI". Would you be willing to spend 30 minutes talking with Patty and I? Would love to get your fresh eyes looking at our the model.

Re: I am over male power

Roger Toennis — Mon, 31 Oct 2016 09:41:55 -0000

Nicole, my wife Patty Beach and I would like to tell you about some work we are doing in gender inclusivity. We are Boulder based and we reviewed it with Brad Feld in June and he gave us good advice. We are training 150 school principals on this model in December. It's called Versatility Factor See it at www.versatilityfactor.com .

Roger

Re: Biden waiting on Clinton endorsement

Roger Toennis — Sat, 11 Jun 2016 10:06:22 -0000

My thoughts as a Bernie supporter who will now vote Hillary unless Bernie runs as independent...

There is no doubt Hillary is tough and is a fighter. I just wish Hillary's fighting spirit believed in disruptive innovation versus sustaining innovation. Some on the left, as they have aged past 50 and grown comfortable as baby boomers who have achieved comfortable wealth, have lost their belief in fundamental change and have in many cases lost their belief that fundamental change is even needed. They have enough wealth as upper middle class 50 and 60 somethings to make sure their children still have a ladder to success. I call it comfortable "leftist in their minds only" complacency. These formerly fired up progressives have lost their fighting spirit. Meanwhile, those in the lower middle class in their 20s and 30s no longer have a ladder they can climb to the level of the boomer upper middle class. The True remaining progressives of 2016, of all income levels, don't have this complacency. They voted for Bernie. Bernie lost because he started his campaign 6 months too late. If he had started 6 months earlier and focused on registering millennials to vote in states that limit democratic primaries by requiring early registration, a different outcome may have resulted. Now we of this "clear vision progressives" cadre vote for Hillary despite our disappointment.

"It was like coming this close to your dreams... and then watching them brush past you like strangers in a crowd."
- Dr. Archibald "Moonlight" Graham