I'm gonna share a story with you, America. One morning, in 1996, I woke up for school, came downstairs, toasted some rye bread (we can reasonably assume), and turned the on the television to MTV. And I see this music video featuring a bunch of ladies in halter tops and leotards, singing some pop music with the most trite sounding lyrics I had ever heard in my life nary a musical instrument to be seen.

"Whell, this will never catch on," thought I. After all, even most of the music on MTV then was either R&B, hip-hop or the more radio-friendly alternative/angry chick folk rock. Everyone I knew was, at that time, totally denying they'd ever listened to New Kids on The Block or Paula Abdul. Even the preppy kids were mostly listening to stuff like Dave Matthews, Barenaked Ladies and Hootie and The Blowfish. The only pop that seemed to be around was Madonna, and even she was putting shit out like Bedtime Stories that could hardly be considered bubblegum. And I thought I had a good grip on the way things were and what people were into.

And it was probably the most wrong about anything I have ever been in my life.

It was then that I first started to understand that not only can you never account for taste, but that people's tastes often depend less on what they are intrinsically and naturally drawn to than on what they are being sold and how effectively that thing is being sold to them. If you pay attention, you can see it happens all the time with music, media, fashion, food, and, yes, even political opinions and causes.

It is with this in mind that I would like us all to look at the results of the recent Quinnipiac poll showing Trump versus every Democratic candidate.

Now, sure. This does not take into account the electoral college. It doesn't take into account third party challenges. It does not take into account the fact that a lot of people don't so much know what Mike Bloomberg is about, other than his commercials that he has bought with his buttloads of money that he has. But if it shows any damn thing, it shows that there is not one magically super electable Democrat in the running, and that they basically all, at least, have a chance to be electable. With the right marketing.

To borrow a phrase from Martha Stewart, that's a good thing.

It means that we can all just vote for the people we genuinely and sincerely like the best, instead of trying to use our psychic powers to try to vote for who we think other people will vote for. Just as we might all be wrong about people going all in on our most beloved candidate, we also might be wrong that they won't. My theory has always been that people should vote for the candidate that speaks to them the most, because that's really all we have to go on. If someone really rocks your world, why assume that you are some special unique snowflake and they won't be able to do that for anyone else?

The problem with voting for someone based on their perceived electability and only their perceived electability is that one small thing can knock them off their game, and then what do they have to fall back on? If they have policies and stances that people want (like really, really want), those setbacks are so much more survivable. Trump was not wrong when he said he could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and would not lose any voters, because people care more about the stuff they feel he will do for them outlaw abortion, be super horrible to immigrants in a way that makes them feel good about themselves, lower the bar for acceptable human behavior etc. than they do about anything else he does. He's got a buffer. It's a gross buffer, but it's there.

Trying to do the "practical" thing here is not actually practical. It is not "practical" to believe you have psychic powers and know what everyone else in the country is going to do. If we learned anything from 2016, it should be that polls and what we think of as "electability" are really not to be trusted.

Vote for who you actually want, because "Eh, I could give or take" is not what we need right now if we're going to beat Trump and his legion of freakishly devoted followers. Trust that if everyone does that, the most "electable" person will win, and that whoever wins, we will all find a way to sell the shit out of that candidate. And the best chance we have of being able to do that is if there truly is a strong contingent of people who truly believe in them.

[Quinnipiac]

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Hey! Do You Know Who Is Electable? Literally All Of The Democratic Candidates! - Wonkette

Human Behavior

CRM Watchlist 2020: And the winners are… – ZDNet

February 11, 2020 medical

With every edition of the Watchlist winners, I explain my choices, identify the patterns that emerged from the entries, and to identify some of the changes that I made this year and am possibly making for next year. So, here's how it's going to go down:

So, let's get this show on the road. Though I suspect you've already demonstrated you couldn't contain your excitement and have checked the "And the winners" part. [Sigh.] You kids.

I've said this every year about the CRM Watchlist and it always bears repeating.

It is an impact award. To win the award you have to show that in the year immediately prior to submission (same year) you had a significant impact on the market and that you have the corporate infrastructure, strategy and resources to sustain that impact over the next three years.

What do I mean when I say "impact?" That means significant influence in the market that you participate in. It doesn't have to be global. It can be specific e.g. a vertical market, or a sized (small, midsized, enterprise) or a geographical market. It can be a market specific to your offering. For example. The Big 4.8 (Salesforce, SAP, Microsoft, Oracle, and Adobe) are in global markets. Xactly is focused on Sales Performance Management our newest official (no longer other) category though they were judged for their impact in the "value add" part of the sales technology ecosystem not just SPM. A few years ago, when consulting companies were still part of the competition Solvis Consulting won because of their impact in Latin America. Veeva won for their incredible dominance in the Life Sciences market. It can be specific.

However, at the same time, there is no winner by category. If I group together a set of reviews it's because it is convenient for me. You cannot be #1 winner in CX. There is no such thing. You win. Period. And if there is more than one in a grouped review (which by definition, there is), the listing is alphabetical, not in order of importance. There is also no ranking revealed beyond the #1 scorer in the entire competition regardless of market.

Additionally, though it's been called the CRM Watchlist for the last 10 years of its 15- year existence, it is open to all that provide customer-facing technologies. There are 53 categories to choose from on the registration and the questionnaire and something called "Other" in case you are doing something that doesn't fall under the 53 other choices.

Several of the winners used the following paragraph last year in their press release on the victory (I'm telling you that in advance because I don't give out individual quotes) to show what it takes to win so I'm literally putting it in here and if you want to issue a press release on this and want to use the following paragraph to show why you won, then go ahead.

For that impact to be sustainable, the company must be a complete company that has been doing this long enough to have established a rhythm. The company has to be well-rounded: it has financial stability, solid management, excellent products and services, superb culture, and a strong partner ecosystem to help sustain its efforts. It has to have a clear vision and mission and also clear-cut strategies for outreach to get external forces - customers, analysts, journalists, prospects, influencers, etc. - engaged. That takes a complete (and complex) set of tools and activities, which could include marketing, analyst relations and public relations programs, the subject matter expertise via the content produced and distributed for consumption, and the "theatrical" activities that establish the corporate identity necessary to stay top of mind, as well as capture share of wallet.

Ultimately a company has to prove that it had impact in the year that they submitted for (2020 = calendar year 2019) and that they have the infrastructure and resources going forward to sustain that impact three years further. If you can't prove them BOTH, you lose. So, this is not only looking at achievements, but more importantly how you are building your company for the longevity it needs to succeed in the market. This is about sustainable impact. That eliminates a one-hit wonder that lucked into a big year.

Another thing: While I do independent research on each qualifying candidate and also take note of how much I have run across them during the year, ultimately it's the quality of the submission that counts. If I have to give it relative weight it works something like this: 30% for my independent research and anecdotal and quantitative information I've gathered over a year in the course of my work as an analyst. The other 70% is the submission itself. The submitting company has to make the case for their impact. You may have had it and if my 30% doesn't put it over the top because you have made such a poor case for it (and that does happen) then you lose. A couple of years ago, two companies that should have made it given my research and what I already knew of them in the market would have made it but the submissions were so poor that they didn't make it.

Conversely, the case is the case, regardless of the quality of the writing. I place a real value on the presentation the quality of the writing and the look and feel. You can gain a marginal part of a point if it is really good but not lose if it really isn't. Though I will notice it and I'll let you know. But you can write poorly and sloppily and still even if it seems accidental make the case. This year one of the winners submitted a lazy submission (and I'm being kind about it) and yetthey still won because their case was irrefutable. As the sole judge, I have to separate that from the "facts of the matter." So, I do. But that doesn't excuse something written badly. Companies that submit are companies proving they have an impact. If they do, the face they present to the public should be something that engenders trust because the company clearly put an effort into it.

Think of it this way: When I write on customer engagement, I define customer value as "feeling valued." In other words when the customer feels valued, they are more than likely to continue to be your customer. To do that you have to show the customer that you care enough to about who they are to make them feel as if you value them. The same goes for a Watchlist submittal or anything a company does in analyst or public relations. Make the recipient feel as if you value them. Learn the lesson, please. It's important. That means not just tell the truth, but make sure that you tell it well. The failure of many companies is their inability to present and stay true to a corporate narrative. They lose the trust or don't gain the trust of those they need to trust them meaning not just their customers but their potential customers. In the case of this submission, the facts were indisputable, but the submission seemed to be an afterthought.

A factor that weighs heavily (and not positively) even though it might have been a good thing that happened to create it is uncertainty. For example, if you were acquired and/or had significant management turnover or if you were addressing a new market that you didn't have much history in I penalized you as harsh as that sounds. Sometimes, all other things being equal, the company would have won the Watchlist, but the uncertainty was the tipping point in their loss. Sadly, I have no way to see impact two or three years out when I don't even know how your new management team or new CEO is going to perform in their new environment, or you gave me no discernible proof of the results of your bold move into a new market. I have no way of knowing if you were going to be successful there over time even if you were successful in this year. Again, this is an impact award, not a "smart strategy" award. I might think that you made the right move, but you rarely are going to have impact in the new market in the first few quarters you are in it. Also, it's impossible to say that the new person or people are the right choice until they are. Even if I think that.

This year there were two companies that unfortunately suffered due to transitional uncertainty. They would have won if it wasn't for significant management turnover that led to the uncertainty. Both companies had,for the most part, important and positive changes but for the purposes of the Watchlist it damaged their ability to prove that they were going to be able to sustain the impact that they had this year.

The score is also driven by a raw score and then a weighted score and the weights vary year to year depending on macroeconomic conditions, industry movement, and trends that are discernibly more than self-serving justifications for hiring a "thought leader" or buying a vendor product. Based on that the weights vary every year though the raw score perfect total and the weight's perfect total never does. There are some 40-50 "intangibles" that I am looking for that are not indicated in the questions asked mostly negative but some positive. There is one larger question (I'm not telling you which), two if you stretch my definition, where you can gain some positive intangible points. Keep in mind, the intangible deductions or additions come off or are added to the final weighted score. Because they are so important to the outcome most of the time they are incrementally small though on occasion can be substantial (e.g. transitional uncertainty)

This year as the questionnaire makes clear, privacy and corporate social responsibility -- aka philanthropy or community participation -- makes a lot more of a difference than it ever had. They weren't questions or parts of questions last year. This year they are. Also, customer success and the organized programs around it (and their KPIs big and important part) are additions to the effort.

These changes are all playing a much bigger part in gaining and retaining customer trust, which is why they are now standing out in the crowd rather than either a part of the crowd or not even in the crowd as they were in the past.

The only other real changes are along the lines of changes made each year. I changed he weights for each category and the absolute positive or negative increment for some of the intangibles based, as I said, on current macroeconomic, market and sociological conditions. I also added one other factor to the scoring that made it once again MUCH harder to earn winner with distinction and almost impossible to win Elite. What won even last year would no longer be sufficient to win this year by a significant amount. However, to alleviate the almost suffocating difficulty in winning this, I now vow there will be no change in the scoring ranges for the remaining two years of the Watchlist. (You heard me!)

Overall Best Submission THREE WAY TIE: SAP, Verint, Pegasystems No one was perfect (Oracle was in 2019) but these won because of a combination of most well-articulated narrative and the fewest "not answered" questions. In other words, their submissions made the best case and paid attention to what I asked them to, please.

Most Creative Submission Oracle (including an overview video and a submission that was substantially visual as well as informative)

Highest Score in a category

There were several noticeable gaps and weaknesses in general in the submissions that stood out. They weren't universal meaning in most cases, except the privacy one, there were some standout but all in all it was too frequently an issue to not make mention of it.

Privacy Almost all the submissions were missing any mention of a Chief Privacy Officer anywhere. In fact, the ONLY submission that mentioned a Data Privacy officer of any kind was Thunderhead. Given that I know that several companies who submitted have them in accordance with GDPR requirements it was head scratching that they didn't say so and makes me wonder how they think about it.

Marketing Strategy, Outreach, Thought Leadership A Trio Marketing strategy, outreach and thought leadership were a trio that a significant majority were poorly prepared for. The vast majority of the time but not always all three were weaknesses simultaneously. The strategies lacked focus, direction and at times were disorganized to the point of random. The outreach was noticeably short-sighted and misaligned with current market realities. For example, while many of the companies had a Gartner, Forrester relationship, their lack of relationships with boutique firms, independent analysts and outright influencers tells me that they don't seem to have a clear picture of how this all works these days. The claim of thought leadership was there but the assets and the game plan weren't when it was discussed. Again, this was a significant enough plurality or majority to be weak or misaligned in all three to show me that the concept of being a trusted adviser, while given lip service when it is raised, is still foreign to a lot of companies

Social Good/Corporate Social Responsibility As you will see in the "trends" part social good or CSR or philanthropy is on the agenda of almost every company that submitted but on the downside of that is a severe reluctance to include it as part of their public discussion. I suspect that's due to a fear that it would appear "markety." Let me put it this way. A company spends $130 million (let's say) on grants, free software and professional services, community effort time etc. Then they say nothing about it because they fear it will be seen as marketing if they do talk about it then I'd worry more about their perception of what marketing is. Who spends $130 million on a marketing campaign and then doesn't say anything? You could not say anything a lot cheaper. Like for free. But the value of actually showing that you are a company who cares about people and the world and solving inequities and doing good says volumes to the world about what kind of company you are. People aka customers are looking for companies that support philanthropic good and they won't know that you do unless you tell them. If you want companies that communicate it in a way that doesn't feel like marketing to them and thus, their customers, or observers then look at what Sandvik AB (here is one of many examples) is doing. Or closer to home, what Salesforce and Zoho do and say.

Customer Journeys Customer journeys are very much in the conversation (see below), but not so much in the offerings. At best there are a few companies offering what I would call journey builders, not journey tracking. Some are confusing personalization at multiple touchpoints with journey tracking and orchestration. And those are the good ones. Most give it lip service and then just talk about personalization and hyper-personalization. The offerings need to be there for aligning with customer engagement and CX. They aren't there .

Market Impact Question 2 says the following "In 2019, in your own view, what impact did you have on what market and what form did it take? Multiple ways you impacted the market are perfectly alright to describe. This means that you might have developed a staggering product that changed the way that people thought of things, you might have done something for the social good, you might have become a company that changed the way that something was done. You might have achieved a dominant market position; other companies were so impressed by what you had done, they imitated you. Whatever you think regarding your own view of your own impact, works for me." This was a bit of a trick question. The result was pretty much astounding and a bit scary One short of 100% outlined only their technology and nothing else. That is NOT what I hoped for, because it indicates that the company is seeing itself through the eyes of its products not as an entity that is multi-faceted. Instead of taking the big picture view of the company as a whole and its impact in the world via specific areas, they outlined how important their technology was and their road maps which is actually question 6. A few of the companies ALMOST broke out but all but one only mentioned the technology ultimately.

The purpose of the above is to provide guidelines about where companies can look for holes in their evolution as organizations that will impact markets that lead to more revenue and a better world and the company viewed as a trusted adviser. There is nothing to be judgmental about the gaps are the gaps and they should be considered as means to identify areas of improvement.

But now, on a more positive note, patterns emerged that would be called trends under other conditions.

If I had to make a 30,000-foot observation of the submissions and the market, I would say that, first, they are well aligned with each other. Second, and most important, the 30K view of that movement is a move to the right-brained. Not the right. The right-brained. The market and the companies that inhabit and compete in it, thanks to the ongoing digital communications revolution, are now finally getting it human behavior and the likes, dislikes and efforts made by individual human beings to be happy are what drives customer behavior today. They now also recognize that they have to anticipate and then accommodate that behavior to stay competitive in the market. The Watchlist 2020 trends absolutely support this supposition.,

CX and customer engagement are now standard to the thinking of companies Eighty percent of all submissions -- and ALL the winning ones -- focused their efforts on proving customer experience and customer engagement, not CRM. It permeated everything they wrote and all that they offered. From the marketing, service and sales the pre-eminent theme was the improvement of the customer's experience. From the actual technology portfolio, the platforms were being rejiggered or evolved or developed around engagement, with the exceptions of Adobe and Oracle CX which are building out the technologies that foster consumable experiences (e.g. Disney-like). Not the overarching experience, which can't be enabled by technology. But it was enlightening to see the transition in thinking over the past five years of Watchlist entries to see that it has shifted from more operational solutions and thinking to ecosystems, and platforms designed to improve customer engagement and thus the overall customer experience due to the improved engagement. This was MANIFEST throughout nearly all the submission.

Personalization and Humanization Personalization -- which tends to be defined by the vendor submitters as "data driven individual insights used for optimizing offers" -- is now part of pretty much every single technology portfolio and also all discussions around marketing. There is a market awareness that the individual customer's interests and concerns have to be addressed, not just some broader demographic. In the technologies there are dozens of analytics applications, personalization engines, and engagement options that are offered to provide individual attention to the customers as per extant thinking in the marketplace. In marketing, a lot of the 1:1 thinking is reflected by the adoption of Account Based Marketing (ABM) by most of the best in class and even beyond that to the mid-level performers. Humanization is beginning to show up more frequently but is nowhere near as ubiquitous as personalization nor is it the same thing. Here is a piece I wrote on it if you'd like to dig a big deeper. Several companies are beginning to make that distinction notably, Salesforce, Oracle and about 10 others. While personalization is ubiquitous and embedded in the offerings of almost everyone humanization of culture and the externalization of that is just beginning to arrive on the scene.

User experience as a matter of culture Throughout the submissions, noticeable attention was paid to the look and feel of the user interfaces and the user experience. That has been apparent for the last two or three years. There is an evolutionary trend that is peaking out (meaning in enough of the submissions to be something to pay attention to) which is the interface between design and the culture of the companies. Which of course goes back to humanization. While I first noticed the intersection of design and organizational culture as far back as 2013 with Infor and their creation of internal design agency Hook and Loop, it is only now we are seeing mostly the largest companies beginning to incorporate design thinking into their actual cultural imperative so that it permeates not only the look and feel of their technology but also the design of their offices, the principles of their employee interactions etc. Notably Hillel Cooperman and Oracle and their Redwood initiative is a prime example of this. But far from the only one.

Microservices Architectures The most far-sighted companies are developing their own variations of a microservices architecture and platform. While sparse and almost non-existent in the CRM Watchlist 2019 (meaning 2018), this year, there were a noticeable spike in the number of companies who either were well along developing it or had it on a roadmap that started in the near future. The best example of microservices done well is the WeChat "apps" market which has what appear to be apps but are actually microservices offerings for the consumer numbering in the millions. This article doesn't really explain the concept well but tells some stories that do.

Ecosystems & Platforms For years, Esteban Kolsky (so VP of Strategy at SAP CX) and I among others have been pushing the importance of ecosystems and platforms. Esteban wrote this in 2018andI wrote this in 2016. We are redeemed. LOL! The vast majority of the vendors who submitted made at least a platform claim for their technology and most of them met the standard some not quite but they all understand that providing a platform at this juncture is pretty much the way that they will succeed with their offering. Ecosystems are a tad (scientific term for a little less) ubiquitous but they are both explicit and implied (via GTM partnerships to fill holes in their end to end customer requirements or something like that) enough to see that the age of ecosystems and platforms has arrived meaning that no one has to be convinced or almost no one any longer and now its who does it better.

Hopefully, these are helpful. They are a clear indicator that we are in the age of the customer, the age of CX or the era of engagement or whatever you want to call it but the stars and the markets are aligned to it so tightly that it is a prerequisite for success and at least, the companies that submitted know that, if not the broader market yet.

For those that didn't win: a free 30-minute consultation on why you didn't win. Hopefully, it will be of some value in pointing out areas that will be better when strengthened and also explain at times why you not winning was a closer decision that you might think.

For those who did win: A free one-hour consultation on any topic you want to cover. (That is an $1,875 value.) Plus, you will be getting a write up either individually (Winners with Distinction) or grouped with one or two other winners in the first half of the year.

There is a caveat to this though. Whether or not you won or not, you have until March 31, 2020 at 6pm ET to schedule the hour or half hour. After that, tough luck. You're outta luck.

If you are truly anxious to get the discussion scheduled, here's what I'm willing to do. If you can email me at paul-greenberg3@the56group.com by February 15, 2019 at 6pm to ask me for an appointment, I'll set it up with you previous to the launch. I'm gamifying!! It'll prove to me you read this post and didn't just look at whether or not you won and that you are interested enough to query me and get it set up. Plus the window is short. So let's see how you do. The only way to set it up is via email. Not Facebook, not LinkedIn, not Twitter, not ZDNet. The email here. Go!

None

Two companies would have won if it weren't for deductions for transitional uncertainty. Given that there will be a year of the story under their belts by next year, they are most likely to win, barring significant unforeseen things (which happen) or a bad submission (which happens too) and while they don't win, they should be at least called out. The two companies most likely to make it next year are:

ServiceNow - The only reason they didn't win is the transitional uncertainty generated by the departure of their CEO and the installation of the new, very different CEO. Here is where the analyst side of me and the Watchlist side of me diverge and it's a good example of how the Watchlist works. As I've repeatedly said, to win the Watchlist you have to be absolutely able to prove that you have had the impact in the year you submitted and going forward for a three year period, the infrastructure and the plan to sustain that impact. A new CEO (even if as an analyst I think it's a great choice) is unproven in the role until he/she is proven in the role and needs a good yearat least to establish himself or herself. Thus, there is a significant deduction for the uncertainty that is there since there is no history at the company to prove the case one way or the other. In the case of ServiceNow, their hiring of Bill McDermott to replace John Donahue which as an analyst I applaud, still provides that transitional uncertainty and if it wasn't for the deduction for that, ServiceNow, would have won in their first year. In fact, they would have leapt ahead of some of the lower scoring winners.

SugarCRM This was a different case that actually went deeper. They were acquired in 2018 by Accel KKR who has a vastly different model than SugarCRM or other PE firms have. Episerver, one of this year's two new winners, was sold in 2018 successfully by AKKR with this strategy. It is a strategy that as an analyst, I like a great deal. But that sale led to a significant number of senior level management changes in 2019 and that creates that transitional uncertainty that is unavoidable. But for the changes, SugarCRM would have won.

So, as a human being, I apologize. I know how hard that these companies worked on their submission and each made a good case. They didn't win but they are being recognized. As a Watchlist judge orthe ONLY Watchlist judge, it's a reality that has to be considered when it comes to identifying one of the many factors that go into sustainable impact in a marketplace. Though I'm still sorry.

If these two companies enter next year, their chances are good if they had good years and the uncertainty has vanished in the wake of a good or great effort by the CEO or those other newly minted execs who were fresh during the company's Watchlist submission year.

There were, if you do the math, 55 companies that didn't win. Two of them you already heard, would have won if it wasn't for transitional uncertainty. They deserved to be noticed even if they weren't winners. There were a couple of companies that didn't win that had genuinely interesting technology even though they didn't have the maturity necessarily to either have had an impact in the market in 2019 nor could they sustain it three years out. But their technology is worth calling out because of its combination of intelligence and use value.

That would be:

Techsee

In their own words from the submission:

"TechSee's cognitive visual engagement platform is built on multi-patented Computer Vision AI. The system recognizes devices, their parts and issues, with accuracy levels of over 95%, and delivers Augmented Reality guidance on customers' smartphone screens to resolve a huge range of issues.

TechSee Live for Contact Centers enables agents to remotely guide their customers in interactive video sessions, while the system automatically diagnoses issues and suggests steps toward prompt resolution. This "Smart Assist" feature works by cross-referencing each issue with a vast image knowledge base.

TechSee Live for Field Services provides field technicians with guidance from remote supervisors or other field agents via smartphone or smart glasses, enhanced by Computer Vision capabilities that can shorten costly training time and reduce time to resolution.

EVE, the world's first visual self-service assistant, enables consumers to receive visual guidance through their smartphone screens while interacting with a conversational visual tech assistant that can correct them if needed."

I will literally say no more because they didn't win, but they are worth paying attention to.

As always with the announcement of the CRM Watchlist 2020 winners, the registration for the CRM Watchlist 2021 is now open. Nothing really has changed from last year though the questionnaire will be tweaked (e.g. Sales Performance Management will be added as a category on the registration form and the questionnaire) The format for submission remains the same. Request the registration form, once received, you have 14 days (not business days, total days including weekends) to return it or you will not be able to participate in the CRM Watchlist 2021. Once you return the registration form you will be getting the questionnaire that is due on December 31, 2020 by 6pm PT or you will not qualify.

However, before I get to the calendar I'm going to make a point that I want any potential registrant to pay CLOSE ATTENTION TO. Part of the process is that if you haven't withdrawn by a designated date (see the calendar below for the date) you will be penalized. The reason is that the day after the final withdrawal date, I start doing corollary research for all the expected submitters. That takes me weeks. I mean, weeks of work that take me away from any leisure time, family etc. My expectation is that you will submit if you haven't withdrawn by that date. I send notices out to companies who have registered as we get close to the withdrawal date telling them it's coming up and please withdraw by then. Every year a few withdraw by the date and I'm sorry to see them go. But every year there are several who don't withdraw and at the last minute tell me after I've done HOURS of research on them that they aren't submitting, which I find incredibly disrespectful given I've made it very public and sent reminders more than once and yet they choose to ignore them and let me go on with the research. I realize that things happen and I'm pretty reasonable as those who know me. But now that I'm 70 I get to be crotchety -- so I have penalties that I exact.

First penalty: The company can't submit for the next year's competition. That's not a big deal really is it? Also, as an analyst, I will not cover you at all and I don't care if you are my client, my best friend or my parents I ain't showing up at the house for a full year. And worse, while I won't proactively do anything if anyone asks me about the company, I'll tell them why I'm not covering them that year. All of that, of course, given that it can be a multi-billion dollar company that does it (happened this year though they apologized to their credit it was a company that I had a good relationship to and a former client) it is relatively a yawn-inducing penalty. But the optics for you aren't real good.

The reason I'm spending so much time talking about this is that if you have any reason that you think you might not submit that is palpable then don't register please. I spend hundreds of hours ultimately on the Watchlist including once you register I begin tracking you throughout the year. So please note this is a competition for serious companies.

That said, I truly am honored that companies have been submitting for the last 14 years. This is year 15 but competition #14 because I skipped one year to revamp the Watchlist to reflect what the world now looks like and change the questionnaire significantly and tighten up and make the scoring much tougher. So thank you for all of the companies that have been submitting for all of these years. I know I can be hard on you but I truly appreciate the effort that you put into this its not just my effort its yours too. I also appreciate and am honored that you even care enough to submit. Again, my thanks and I bow my head to all of you who have been supportive along the way.

Here is the calendar for the CRM Watchlist 2021 (the time is always 6pm PT)

If you're interested in the submission criteria for 2021, here is a brief version. If you want a fuller detailed version before you request the registration form, please email me at paul-greenberg3@the56group.com and I'll be happy to email you with them.

The 30,000 foot view: Be a company that produces a customer-facing technology and have $3 million or more revenue (USD or the equivalent) in the prior fiscal year. Note the big change is that the revenue requirement is up from $2 million to $3 million this year.

Here is a simplified set of details:

All in all, this is a tough thing to win, and if you do, I think at least you deserve to be honored for it. If you win in any way, you will get a review on ZDNet about why you won and things that you could do to be even better, if I have anything to say about it. I say that every year and typically only get about half of them done because they are extensive reviews and I have to earn my living too but this year I'm going to do the Winners with Distinction first and then work to put out the repeat winners who haven't gotten reviews due to my failures to produce them. My way of apologizing.

This is hard to win but I hope that you feel it is well worth it. It's kind of a tough love thing. Even with all the harsh behavior I'm really very touchy-feely.

The rules in this section are unbreakable. What that means, to be clear, is that if you break them in any way at all, there will be some form of penalty assessed, ranging from your final score being affected to disqualification and being taken off my radar.. In advance, I apologize for being so draconian, but at this stage, there are still too many registrants and submissions that are ignoring what I ask. If you'd like the full version of these rules again, email me at paul-greenberg3@the56group.com and ask specifically for the qualification rules for the Watchlist, NOT the registration form.

USUAL RELATIVELY CHEEKY DISCLAIMER: Several of the winners are clients of mine; several of the non-winners are clients of mine; several of those companies who didn't submit at all are clients of mine. Several of the winners are NOT clients of mine; several of the non-winners are NOT clients of mine - and thousands of NOT clients of mine didn't submit at all.

My newest book, the Commonwealth of Self Interest was published in April 2019. Sales are going very well, thank you. You can get it here if you really want it. If you are interested in bulk copies, contact me at (once again) paul-greenberg3@the56group.com and we'll make sure you get a significant discount.

I promised a website that I was launching last year (and the year before) but, alas, I didn't. It will be coming this year or else I'm going to can it. It's a great website but it's a lot of work and money to get it running the way I need it to run. So stay tuned. The site is The 56 Group, of course. If you look now, you'll just see my apology for not having it up last year. Pretty much what you read here .

Once again, thank you to all the Watchlist submitting companies for their effort. Even if you didn't win, I trust the exercise was worth the effort. The idea is that you get to step back and look at your company as a whole rather than just the technology that you offer and see where your strengths and weaknesses are. If you of course want me to help you with that request the free half hour if you didn't win and the hour if you did and I'll be happy to tell you and hopefully help you by a pair of third-party eyes or -- given my glasses four third-party eyes.

But I truly appreciate the honor of having the opportunity to learn more about you win or lose. See you this year!!

Human Behavior

Smarsh Teams with Brainspace to Provide Customers Advanced Analytics and Visualization Tools for Electronic Communications – AiThority

February 11, 2020 medical

Smarsh Enterprise Archive customers can leverage Brainspace machine learning to find new patterns in complex data, reduce time and cost for e-discovery

Smarsh, helping customers get ahead and stay ahead of the risk within their electronic communications, announced an integration with Brainspace, the worlds leading data analytics platform for investigations, e-discovery, and compliance, at Legalweek 2020.

The combined power of Smarsh and Brainspace allows users to take full control of their data to greatly accelerate the eDiscovery process, enabling teams to work both smarter and faster

Smarsh Enterprise Archive customers can now leverage Brainspaces advanced data analytics and machine-learning engine across their archived electronic communications. This enables users to drill down into complex sets of messages and draw actionable insights for e-discovery, litigation and investigations.

Smarsh customers can harness Brainspaces machine learning and natural-language processing to visualize their communications data, revealing hidden themes and relationships between various messages, terms and participants, said Adam Miller-Howard, Vice President of Business Development for Smarsh. In this way, in-house discovery teams can quickly uncover hidden patterns in their data to reduce the need for expensive e-discovery software and outside counsel.

AiThority.com News: David Kovar Brings Industry Expertise, Leadership to Comptia Drone Advisory Council

The Smarsh Connected Suite enables the capture, archiving, supervision and discovery of more than 80 communication channels behind a single pane of glass. Content is captured in its native format with full fidelity metadata, enabling users to review content in its full conversational context. Customers can both leverage the productivity benefits of the latest social, mobile and collaboration tools, and strengthen their compliance and e-discovery efforts.

Brainspace applies machine learning capabilities to automatically organize archived data into interactive visual displays. The solution applies augmented intelligence to rapidly surface data insights while reducing false positives. Users can identify hidden patterns in their data, saving time and reducing their reliance on third-party case assessments.

AiThority.com News: GoodData Delivers Out-Of-The-Box Compliance With California Consumer Privacy Act

The combined power of Smarsh and Brainspace allows users to take full control of their data to greatly accelerate the eDiscovery process, enabling teams to work both smarter and faster, said Miller-Howard.

In addition, Brainspaces supervised machine learning enables users to train the machine to identify specific human behavior or intentions. Customers will be able to transmit data from Brainspace back to the Smarsh Enterprise Archive for retention, or to third-party review and production tools.

Brainspace is excited to work with Smarsh to provide a next-generation solution for e-discovery analytics and archiving, across electronic communications, said Barry Fields, Chief Revenue Officer for Brainspace. Now users can really dig into their archived communications data to visualize unforeseen connections, improving their outcomes for litigation and investigations.

AiThority.com News: Wirecard Becomes Official Development Partner Of SAP To Drive Innovative Customer Experiences

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Smarsh Teams with Brainspace to Provide Customers Advanced Analytics and Visualization Tools for Electronic Communications - AiThority

Human Behavior

How to Protect People against Phishing and Other Scams – Scientific American

February 11, 2020 medical

About 15 years ago, phishing went from a virtually unknown phenomenon to an everyday media topic. With new users pouring onto the internet, and the commercialization of the internet starting in earnest, opportunities abounded for phishers, who use identity deception to defraud e-mail users. As a result of this, and the absence of technical countermeasures, phishing e-mails were suddenly in everybodys mailboxes. Practically speaking, the only defense was the advice offered by security experts: Watch out for poorly spelled e-mails; and do not click on links.

Over the years, the sophistication of the attacks has risen constantly, and the number of varieties of deceptive e-mails has mushroomed, with attack strategies like the impersonation of colleagues (so called business e-mail compromise or CEO fraud) dramatically on the rise. The increased sophistication resulted in improved yields, tempting more and more would-be criminals to try their luck at deception.

Corporations and other organizations continue to believe they can train their users to evade cyberattacks. Gartner estimates the market for security awareness computer-based training will grow at a 42 percent compound annual growth rate through at least 2023, from $451 million in 2018.

But at this point, the traditional emphasis on user education is an expenditure of resources and end-user burden that can no longer be justified by the results. As online deception techniques proliferate and become more sophisticated, it becomes more and more difficult for individual users to detect fraud. The return on investment on any security awareness effort has dramatically fallen, and the user burden to make security decisions has gone up.

User awareness should no longer be the primary defense against social engineering. In fact, cybercrime technology has evolved to the point that it can only be reliably defeated with opposing technology. Unaided humans are no longer able to adequately defend themselves against cybercrime, any more than fighters with bows and arrows can defeat enemies armed with attack helicopters.

Most defenses are better suited for algorithms than for end users. Instead, security and risk management professionals should educate end users only on the threats they can reasonably be expected to spot, while depending primarily on technical defenses for the overwhelming majority of attacks.

Early on, traditional phishing attacks were reported to have yields on the order of 3 percent, meaning that the vast majority of the intended victims did not fall for the attacks. On the other hand, sophisticated attacks such as spear phishing are known to see yields exceeding 70 percent.

Carefully crafted phishing e-mails (as well as other types of deceptive e-mails) are very hard for typical users to spot.

Some types of attacks are close to impossible to identify, even for highly technical users. Consider, for example, an attack in which the attacker compromises a legitimate e-mail account (e.g., by phishing the owner) and then using the compromised account to attack contacts of the phished user.

Other attacks, such as those using deceptive display names to impersonate a colleague of an intended victim are easier for a user to spot, at least in theory. By always inspecting the e-mail address of the sender, and making sure that this is a known user, one can avoid falling for such attacks. However, the increased scrutiny comes with a high price: For every extra step added to mundane tasks, our productivity naturally falls.

Moreover, these attacks are hard to detect in practice, given human error: many people, at least occasionally, accidentally sends e-mails from personal accounts instead of work accounts, and vice versa, creating an ambiguity about what is trustworthy and what is not. As a result, one in 10 users click through e-mails with deceptive display names, the security company Barracuda reports.

Given finite budgets, both in terms of financial cost and attention, companies and individuals must decide which awareness battles to pick, based on what people struggle with versus what types of automated countermeasures work well. Take, for example, the advice if it looks too good to be true, it probably isas well as the variant if it looks too bad to be true, it probably is. People have emotions and judgment to warn them when something falls in this category, but so far, computers do not. Accordingly, this is something worthy of an awareness campaign.

On the other hand, deceptive display names are relatively hard for people to spot, but quite easy for computers to detect. This is a problem where automated defenses are more suitable than awareness efforts.

For both digital health and human health, the relative influence of behavior versus technology is the same. From the time they are small children, humans are taught to avoid risks to their safety: don't eat dirt, don't cross the road without looking both ways, don't smoke. But the big gains in life expectancy achieved over the past century or so have come primarily from advances in medical technology for fighting disease.

The prescription is also the same: for human health, take care of yourself and avoid common risks, but by all means get a good doctor and take your medicine. For electronic health, teach your users basic digital hygiene, but commit your budget and time to staying a step ahead of the enemy in the technical arms race that is impossible to avoid.

Read more from the original source:
How to Protect People against Phishing and Other Scams - Scientific American

Cell Biology

Out of Touch: Depletion of Mechanosensors Drives Wound-Healing and Cancer – TMC News – Texas Medical Center News

February 11, 2020 medical

Additional dates:Next Event:February 11, 2020

Dr. Michael SheetzWelch Professor of BiochemistryMolecular MechanoMedicine ProgramBiochemistry and Molecular BiologyUniversity of Texas Medical BranchGalveston, TX

Out of Touch: Depletion of Mechanosensors Drives Wound-Healing and Cancer

Tuesday, February 11, 202012:30 1:30 PMBRC, 10th Floor, Room 1060 A/B

Abstract: Loss of matrix rigidity sensing in tumor cells enables transformed growth. In over forty tumor lines tested, they lack rigidity sensing complexes because components are altered (about 60% had low Tpm 2.1). The rigidity sensing complex (about 2 m in length) contracts matrix adhesions by ~100nm; and if the force generated is greater than ~25 pN, then cells can grow (Wolfenson et al., 2016. Nat Cell Bio. 18:33). However, if the surface is soft, then the cells apoptose by DAPK1 activation (Qin et al., 2018 BioRxiv. 320739). Although tumor cells grow on soft surfaces, restoration of rigidity sensing restores rigidity-dependent growth (Yang, B. et al., 2020 Nature Mat. 19: 239). Surprisingly, mechanical stretch of transformed cancer cells activates apoptosis through calpain-dependent apoptosis (Tijore et al., 2018 BioRxiv. 491746). Thus, stretch sensitivity is a weakness of cancer cells related to transformation and not to the tissue type or other factors.

Bio: Prof. Michael Sheetz has a long history in mechanobiological research and was most recently the Director of the Mechanobiology Institute at the National University of Singapore. Prior to that he was a Professor at Columbia University where he headed a program in nanomedicine. At Duke University Medical School, he was Chair of Cell Biology from 1990 to 2000. He has received many awards including the Lasker Prize, Wiley and Massry Prizes.

Excerpt from:
Out of Touch: Depletion of Mechanosensors Drives Wound-Healing and Cancer - TMC News - Texas Medical Center News

Cell Biology

Aro Biotherapeutics Appoints Leading Cancer Biologist Dr. Martin McMahon and Protein Structure and Design Expert Dr. Ronald Swanson to its Scientific…

February 11, 2020 medical

Aro Biotherapeutics announced the appointments of Martin McMahon, PhD, and Ronald V. Swanson, PhD, to its Scientific Advisory Board (SAB). Dr. McMahon will provide strategic counsel on the development of novel Centyrin-siRNA therapeutic candidates targeting KRAS and other oncogenic pathways. Dr. Swanson will provide scientific counsel on protein engineering and optimization of novel Centyrin targeting therapeutic candidates.

"We warmly welcome Dr. McMahon, a well-known leader in cancer biology and experimental cancer therapeutics, and Dr. Swanson, an accomplished protein engineer who has been involved in the development of multiple protein therapeutic candidates, to Aros SAB," said Sue Dillon, PhD, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Aro. "Dr. McMahons expertise will be invaluable to Aro as we progress our Centyrin therapeutic candidates from research into clinical development. In addition, Dr. Swansons biotherapeutics development insights and experience will be extremely helpful for lead optimization. They are both assets to Aro and our SAB."

Dr. McMahons translational cancer research program at the University of Utah focuses on the mechanisms underlying the initiation, progression and maintenance of metastatic melanoma, lung and pancreatic cancers. Prior to his appointments at the Huntsman Cancer Institute in 2015, Dr. McMahon held faculty positions dating back to 1998 at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) Helen Dillar Family Comprehensive Cancer Center where he served as a Distinguished Professor of Cancer Biology, Co-Leader of the Experimental Therapeutics Program and Director for Professional Education. Prior to UCSF, Dr. McMahon headed an independent research group at DNAX Research Institute in Palo Alto (now Merck Research Laboratories). He currently serves as the Cumming-Presidential Chair of Cancer Biology in the Department of Dermatology, Senior Director for Preclinical Translation and Co-Leader of the Experimental Therapeutics Program in the Huntsman Cancer Institute. Dr. McMahon graduated with a B.Sc. (Hons) in Biochemistry from Glasgow University in 1981 and a doctorate from Kings College, University of London in 1985. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship under the mentorship of J. Michael Bishop at UCSF investigating the mechanisms of action of oncoprotein kinases such as SRC, ERBB and RAF.

Dr. McMahon commented, "It is an honor to work with the Aro team to help advance transformational new therapeutics using the Centyrin technology to deliver novel cancer therapeutics directly to cancer cells. This technology has the promise to increase therapeutic anti-cancer efficacy and reduce potential toxicity to patients."

Dr. Swanson is Chief Scientific Officer at Tyra Biosciences, a company focused on targeting acquired resistance in oncology. Prior to Tyra, Dr. Swanson managed the Johnson & Johnson (J&J) Lead Discovery & Optimization group based in San Diego focused on engineering of antibodies, peptides and protein therapeutics. He was Senior Director of New Platforms and Technologies before retiring from J&J last year to return to a biotech startup environment. He began his career as Director of Genomics and Protein Expression at then biotech startup Diversa working on enzyme discovery and directed evolution. He later joined the newly founded Syrrx as Director of Molecular Biology focused on high-throughput protein structure determination and structure-based drug design. He was co-founder and CSO at ActiveSight, a pioneering structural biology contract research organization. Dr. Swanson graduated from University of California, San Diego with a BA in Biochemistry and Cell Biology in 1985 and from University of California, Berkeley in 1991 with a PhD in Molecular Biology under the guidance of Alex Glazer studying post-translational modifications of proteins. His postdoctoral fellowship was done with Mel Simon at Caltech working on protein-protein interactions in signal transduction and thermostable proteins.

Dr. Swanson commented, "It is great to be involved with the Aro team developing a novel platform for truly differentiated new therapeutics. The ability to access intracellular targets with the Centyrin technology allows for engineering highly specific and stable therapeutics that will profoundly impact disease treatment."

Story continues

Building a Pipeline of Life Changing Therapies

Centyrins are small, structurally simple, ultra-stable, highly soluble proteins. These characteristics enable the discovery of medicines with new mechanisms of action for cancer and other devastating diseases. Aros lead program is a bi-specific Centyrin-siRNA conjugate in late-stage lead optimization for KRAS mutant cancers. This first-of-its-kind combination is designed to address unmet medical needs by targeting drug payloads in high concentration to the site of disease, while lowering the toxicity to non-target organs. The company holds an exclusive worldwide license for research, development, manufacturing and commercialization of Centyrin protein therapeutics.

About Aro Biotherapeutics

Aro is a biotechnology company focused on the research and development of a new generation of protein biologics called Centyrins. Centyrins are ideal targeting moieties that enable cell specific uptake of biological payloads. The company is developing a wholly-owned pipeline of Centyrin conjugates for oncology and immunology. For more information, visit http://www.arobiotx.com.

CENTYRIN is a trademark of Johnson & Johnson.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200211005085/en/

Contacts

Media Contact Mike BeyerSam Brown Inc.mikebeyer@sambrown.com 312-961-2502

Cell Biology

Diverse Biotech selected to present at upcoming BIO Meeting and announces new Gene Expression Paper Publication – WFMZ Allentown

February 11, 2020 medical

DOYLESTOWN, Pa., Feb. 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Diverse Biotech, Inc. http://www.diversebiotech.com has announced it has been selected to present at the upcoming BIO CEO & Investor Conference in New York on February 11th. https://www.bio.org/events/bio-ceo-investor-conference/sessions/659395

In addition, Diverse Biotech has announced that a paper regarding cannabinoid-related gene expression was accepted by the Journal of Applied Cell Biology.The paper should be published in the next 3-4 weeks.

"We are truly excited to continue to discuss our ground-breaking technology.In addition, the gene expression paper is tremendous because it highlights that a variety of cell lines including glioblastoma, pancreatic cancer, melanoma, actinic keratosis, squamous cell carcinoma, and normal skin all express genes that suggest they will be responsive to exogenous cannabinoid treatment," saidStella Vnook, Diverse Biotech's Chief Executive Officer.

About Diverse Biotech

Diverse Biotech is a US-based biopharmaceutical company, focused on medical discoveries and the development of new molecules for the treatment of Cancer and other debilitating diseases.Our focus is on discovering and developing novel therapeutics utilizing cannabidiol (CBD) as a core component and combining it through highly advanced chemistry with other molecules to develop new chemical entities that are theoretically more efficacious and less toxic. Our initial focus is on hard-to-treat oncologic disorders including basal cell carcinoma and other Dermatology related cancers, Pancreatic cancer and Glioblastoma, where targeted therapies have proven largely unsuccessful thus far and there is significant unmet need.

Further information about Diverse Biotech can be found at http://www.diversebiotech.com.

Contacts:Brian LongstreetChief Business OfficerDiverse Biotech, Inc+1-908-917-5699blongstreet@diversebiotech.com

Link:
Diverse Biotech selected to present at upcoming BIO Meeting and announces new Gene Expression Paper Publication - WFMZ Allentown

Cell Biology

Synthetic biology is shaking up these 5 industries-Some of them might surprise you – SynBioBeta

February 11, 2020 medical

Ask any researcher for a definition of synthetic biology, and youll get a different answer. Synthetic biology is an incredibly diverse field with applications that span the biotechnology gamut. But what makes the field difficult to define also makes synthetic biology a wellspring of opportunities for jobseekers. In this post, we highlight a few of the growing fields where burgeoning synthetic biologists can expect to find job opportunities.

The oldest application of biotechnology is arguably biomanufacturing of insulin. Scientists discovered how to co-opt yeast and bacteria into producing human medicines decades ago. But while producing insulin only requires a single gene, there are many important medicines such as taxol (an anti-cancer drug) that require entire pathways. Thats where synthetic biology comes in.

There are a multitude of companies using synthetic biology to engineer pathways that enable microorganisms to produce medically relevant drugs. Famously, Amyris engineered yeast to produce the antimalarial drug Artemenisin. Synthetic biology can also improve in-vitro drug manufacturing. For instance, Codexis uses synthetic biology to develop more efficient enzymes for synthesis of small molecule drugs.

Beyond biomanufacturing of drugs, there are many other ways to apply synthetic biology to biopharma research. For instance, there are several companies engineering microbes not only to produce medicines, but to deliver them in vivo. These so-called engineered probiotics could potentially be tuned to produce drugs in response to a particular stimulus or only in certain parts of the body.

As science reveals more about the microorganisms living in and on us, companies are developing microbiome-based therapeutics to target a litany of diseases. Skin microbiome company Azitra shares their approach to effectively developing, testing, and bringing microbiome-based therapeutics to the clinic. Image source: Azitra

Companies are also engineering human cells for therapeutic purposes. This is the basis for CAR-T cell therapy, a promising new approach to cancer treatment. Beyond single cells, some companies are focused on developing synthetic tissues and whole synthetic organoids for research or therapeutic purposes.

Companies to watch:

A major goal of the synthetic biology industry is to develop alternative, biology-based methods for industries that typically use petroleum-based products as inputs and produce carbon emissions as outputs.

There are many companies working to produce biofuels or bioplastics. For instance, Synthetic Genomics is engineering algae as biofactories for renewable fuel, and Global Bioenergies is developing processes to ferment plant waste into petrochemical precursors.

Others are working to fix carbon more directly by attempting to optimize natural carbon-fixers (plants and cyanobacteria). Long-term carbon storage is also a challenge, and its one some synthetic biologists think bacteria can solve by converting carbon dioxide into a liquid state.

Carbon emissions dont only come from burning fuel, however. There are also biological and environmental sources of greenhouse gas. LanzaTech sees these sources as a useful starting point for making high-value chemicals. Its carbon recycling technology platform captures and converts so-called biogas from agricultural and municipal waste, then converts it to biofuels and other products.

Together, these efforts comprise what could make up a circular economy in which biology is both the source and the byproduct of many of the products that we depend on instead of petrochemicals.

Companies to watch:

Carbo Culture is pioneering a product to tackle both agricultural air pollution and soil degradation. Biochar plays an active role in a balanced carbon cycle.

We dont often think about the science behind our clothing, but if you look at the tags of anything youre wearing right now, youll probably be reminded that fashion is fed by a complex mashup of materials. Clothes are a mixture of plant-based materials (like cotton), petroleum-based materials (like nylon and spandex), and animal-based materials (like leather and silk). The fibers that make up our garments are also almost always bleached or dyed and chemically treated. With all of this complexity, fashion can have a bit of a nasty environmental footprint.

There are several companies using synthetic biology to come up with greener alternatives for fashion must-haves. For instance, Tinctorium, PILI, and Colorifix are finding a way to dye blue jeans without producing hazardous waste. In addition, Mango Materials is using bacteria to turn methane into bioplastics for clothing and other goods that will degrade naturally if they end up in our oceans as so much waste does.

Sourcing colors from a range of natural pigments, Colorifix engineers microorganisms to convert agricultural by-products into dyes. When the microorganisms burst they fix the colour to the fabric, thus reducing the need for massive amounts of water, according to BBC Earth. Photo by Marianna Limas

Even fashion icons are taking notice. High fashion designer Stella McCartney is bringing synthetic biology to the runway by partnering with Bolt Threads, a synthetic biology company endeavoring to make synthetic silk and faux leather from mushrooms. Bolt is not alone; synthetic silk companies are popping up all over the world, including AMSilk in Germany and Spiber in Japan, and theres a company in New York called Ecovative Design thats using mushrooms to create all sorts of materials for clothing, footwear, and beyond.

Companies to watch:

Your clothes may not be the only thing youre wearing that will soon be shaped by synthetic biology. There are also synthetic biology companies targeting makeup, skin creams, cologne, and perfume.

Traditional ingredients for cosmetics are often animal-based, raising purity and animal rights concerns. For example, collagen is a popular ingredient in high-end anti-wrinkle creams, because its responsible for skin elasticity. But collagen is sourced from animals, meaning its not vegan-friendly, and it can elicit purity and allergy issues. Geltor is using synthetic biology to produce animal-free collagen substitutes. Biossance, an Amyris spinoff, has also used synthetic biology to create an animal-free cosmetic additive, squalane, which was traditionally harvested from shark livers.

HumaColl21 is just one example of how a biodesigned future leads to better products for improving peoples lives. Image: Geltor

In addition to taking an environmental toll, ingredients for cosmetics and, especially fragrances, can be incredibly expensive. The essence of grapefruit is captured by a flavor compound called nootkatone. At about $200 per gram, true, pure nootkatone is limited to higher end colognes. A synthetic biology company called Evolva wants to change that by producing nootkatone and other fragrance compounds via fermentation. Conagen is also using microbial fermentation to produce high-value flavors and fragrances such as vanillin, while Motif Foodworks (a spinout of synthetic biology unicorn Ginkgo Bioworks) is also brewing up new sources for fragrances such as the essence of a rose.

Companies to watch:

This category deserves several posts all its own. Synthetic biology companies are reimagining the food space in several ways from revolutionizing agriculture to tackling food waste to coming up with more environmentally-friendly sources of food additives.

Starting with the plants in the ground, companies like Pivot Bio and Joyn Bio are engineering soil bacteria to end our dependence on synthetic fertilizers.

Other synthetic biology companies are focused on what happens to food after its harvested. For example, Conagen is engineering strains of microorganisms and novel enzymes to synthesize all sorts of food-additives from food colorings, to sweeteners, to meat tenderizers, to preservatives.

But companies arent just focused on solid ground. AquaBounty, for example, is combining advances in aquaculture with modern genetics to create the worlds most sustainable salmon, while Air Protein is using bacterial fermentation to make protein from the elements comprising the air we breathe.

Several companies, such as Memphis Meats and Meatable, are allowing us to have our animals and eat them too, using synthetic biology to create real meat without harming animals or the planet.

Companies to watch:

The limited run of Perfect Day ice cream is already sold out, but it showed big food producers how microflora can be used to produce animal-free ingredients for milk, dairy, cheese, and ice cream. Image: Perfect Day Foods.

The five synthetic biology focus areas highlighted here are far from an exhaustive list. And for every company working on a specific application, there are others like Evonetix, Twist Bioscience, Inscripta, Ginkgo Bioworks, and Benchling that are building the DNA synthesis, editing, organism engineering, and data tools that the entire synthetic biology industry depends on.

While synthetic biologists offer varying definitions of the field, most will agree that an overarching goal of the industry is to shift our reliance away from chemistry and fossil fuels and towards biology. Its a lofty goal, but with so many diverse companies working to support it, synthetic biology will have a major role in shaping the future of technology across industries.

Original post:
Synthetic biology is shaking up these 5 industries-Some of them might surprise you - SynBioBeta

Genetics

ACSM Tackles Myth on Genetics and Heart Disease as Part of American Heart Month – Newswise

February 11, 2020 medical

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Newswise (Indianapolis, IN) Nearly half of all U.S. adults have some type of cardiovascular disease. Its a heartbreaking statistic literally and figuratively. People often believe their risk for heart disease cannot be reduced if they have a genetic predisposition. In honor of American Heart Month, the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) and ACSM Fellow Beth A. Taylor, Ph.D., have teamed up to shatter this heart myth.

The truth about the heritability (or genetic component) of heart disease is a glass far more full than empty, as long as we look at it accurately, says Dr. Taylor, associate professor of kinesiology at the University of Connecticut and the director of exercise physiology research at Hartford Hospital.

Genetics do play a significant role in increasing heart disease risk. Research shows that individuals at high genetic risk have a 91% higher chance of experiencing a cardiac event, yet that risk can be cut nearly in half by adopting healthy lifestyles.

We may have genes that predispose us to cardiovascular disease, but when, how and to what extent those genes express themselves is highly influenced by lifestyle, says Dr. Taylor. Being more physically active, aiming for a healthy weight, eating a heart healthy diet and avoiding smoking can improve heart health and reduce the risk of coronary events by 46% for high genetic risk individuals.

The outlook looks even better when considering being healthy across the lifespan rather than at a single age. The Framingham Heart Study, a project of Boston University and the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI), has sought to identify common factors contributing to cardiovascular disease (CVD) by following CVD development in three generations of participants.

Dr. Taylor adds, When those three generations of the Framingham Heart Study were reviewed, investigators concluded that the heritability of ideal cardiovascular health was only 13-18%, with health behaviors and lifestyle factors being much more influential.

She says other studies have found that adhering to just four out of five of healthy lifestyle factors (e.g., avoiding smoking and excessive alcohol intake, performing 30 or more minutes a day of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity, eating a heart healthy diet) increased the likelihood of living free of cardiovascular disease, as well as cancer and Type 2 diabetes, by more than 10 years in women and seven years in men.

For Dr. Taylor, the take-home message is simple. You cant completely cure a broken heart; however, you can make it better or worse based on your lifestyle. The choice is yours!

Find more heart health resources from ACSM at https://www.acsm.org/read-research/trending-topics-resource-pages/heart-health-resources.

# # #

About the American College of Sports Medicine

The American College of Sports Medicine is the largest sports medicine and exercise science organization in the world. More than 50,000 international, national and regional members and certified professionals are dedicated to advancing and integrating scientific research to provide educational and practical applications of exercise science and sports medicine. More details at acsm.org.

Continued here:
ACSM Tackles Myth on Genetics and Heart Disease as Part of American Heart Month - Newswise

Genetics

Mexico: Feed prices allow for production growth, genetic focus – FeedNavigator.com

February 11, 2020 medical

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) released new information regarding feed use and livestock production in Mexico in a report from the Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) on Friday.

Increasing livestock production in Mexico has been supported by the movement toward vertical integration in production and improved biosecurity, the FAS reported. Stable feed prices and better zoo-sanitary conditions suggest that the expansion will continue.

Feed price consistency has allowed livestock breeders to seek better genetics, the agency said.

Feed prices did slightly fluctuate in the last two quarters of 2019, but industry expects overall grain and feed price stability to prevail through 2020, the agency said. The stability in feed prices as well as steady domestic livestock prices allow producers to focus their operations more on breeding than slaughtering.

In marketing year (MY) 2020, beef production is expected to reach 2.1m metric tons (MT) and consumption is expected to reach 1.9m MT, the FAS said. Industry growth from 2015 through 2019 averaged about 2% annually, despite changes in prices for feed and grains.

The Mexican beef industry has kept a steady pace of investments, adaption of new and improved production practices, as well as improved technology to stimulate the beef production sector, the agency said.

Swine production in MY 2020 is anticipated to be a 20.3m head based on increasing consumer demand and supported by vertical integration of producers, the agency said. Pork production is forecast to reach 1.47m MT.

According to industry studies, pork consumption has increased as a share of domestic consumption from 28% to close to 32%, with poultry retaining the biggest share at over 60%, the agency said.

During the 2018-19 export cycle, Mexicos exports of cattle to the US reached 1.313m animals an increase of 17.6% from the previous year, the FAS said. Trade has been valued at more than $760m.

Trade is expected to continue expanding, if more slowly, during MY 2020, the agency said.

A pilot program has been established to regulate trade and improve zoo-sanitary status in live cattle coming in from Guatemala, the agency said. The agreement emphasizes that cattle to be exported from Guatemala will come from ranches certified by the Ministry of Agriculture of Guatemala (MAGA) as free of bovine tuberculosis and brucellosis, which will be tagged with the Central American Electronic Earring and utilizes radio reference technology.

Personnel from MAGA and the International Regional Agency for Agricultural Health (OIRSA) will verify the fulfillment of a 21-day quarantine of cattle at the ranch of origin or in the feedlots constituted for it, FAS said. Currently, 70 ranches in Guatemala have been certified, and the program is set to run through November 2024.

Beef imports in MY 2020 are expected to increase to 212,000 MT, the agency said. The United States remain the main beef provider to Mexico with 86% market share, followed by Canada with 7.5%, and Nicaragua with 4.7%.

Exports of beef in MY 2020 are forecast to increase by 10% and reach 347,000 MT, the FAS said. Expanding the use of feedlot-based production is one factor supporting the increased exports.

Japan is consolidated as the second most important export market for Mexican beef, comprising 7% of Mexicos beef exports, followed by Hong Kong with 4%, the agency said. For many years, South Korea was the third most important Mexican beef export destination, but now holds the fourth position with 2% of market share.

On the swine side, the forecast for MY 2020 calls for live hog imports of 41,000 head and pork imports of 1m MT, the agency said. Mexico is dependent on imports to meet domestic demand, but imports have been slow based on the countrys economy.

In MY 2020, imports will rise compared to their low in 2019, as pork consumption continues its positive trend and growing exports to China compete with domestic consumption, the FAS reported.Mexico will resume imports from the United States in order to satisfy the domestic demand.

Pork exports are predicted to reach a record 250,000 MT as Mexico focuses on supplying Asian markets, the agency said.

Mexican pork exports have grown considerably through 2019, especially to Japan, the agency said.The trend will continue as the industry is expecting an important growth of exports for 2020, especially to China.

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