Mardi Jackson

After taking a short break, I came across this fascinating story that I had to share. For many of us in the tech industry, it's been obvious for a while now that AI has the potential to be more capable, fair, and pragmatic when it comes to decision-making, even in areas as complex as politics and government. This article about a Wyoming mayoral candidate who wants to govern by AI bot really drives that point home. The candidate, Victor Miller, has created an AI chatbot called VIC (Virtual Integrated Citizen) that he says will make the actual decisions if he's elected, while he serves as the "meat puppet" attending meetings and signing documents. While there are certainly legal and ethical questions to be ironed out, I find this to be a thought-provoking glimpse into the future of governance. VIC, built on ChatGPT 4.0, could analyze hundreds of supporting documents for each council meeting in mere seconds - a feat that's practically impossible for a human. The bot also claims it will focus on "data and evidence-based policies that benefit all citizens" in a nonpartisan way. Of course, there's still a lot of uncertainty around AI, and the "move fast and break things" mantra may not be the right approach for something as consequential as government. But I believe this story is a sign of the transformative potential of AI to make our institutions smarter, fairer, and more efficient. I'm excited to see how this story unfolds and to continue exploring the ways AI can be responsibly leveraged to drive progress. I'd love to hear what others think - do you believe AI has a role to play in governance? How can we balance the benefits with the risks and challenges? #AI #FutureOfGovernance #InnovationInPolitics #EthicalAI https://lnkd.in/eFaCKwXH

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Catching our breath after getting featured beyond our wildest dreams. Awesome article by XPU about PPU. #FlowComputing #PPU #CPUTechnology #CPUtech #ParallelProcessing #SuperCPU  #Computing #Seriousperformance #Deeptech

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🔥 I love how the new category of "Network Management" software has been emerging this year, helping people make and receive better introductions through the strength of their networks. Last year we launched a new product called GetroConnect - Getro's niche-focused network management solution for VC/PE - and now have ~80 customers using the product. Here are a few of my favorite recent examples of how customers are saving time and driving more network-value with GetroConnect: 🕵‍♂️ Talent Searches A VC Portfolio Manager at an early stage fund used GetroConnect to filter their network for senior software engineers with early-stage experience and located in Vietnam, identifying 8 top candidates with Seed to Series A experience for the portco to interview. 🛫 Cultivating Fund Relationships A GP at an early stage SaaS focused fund used GetroConnect to filter the contacts of the entire fund to identify high potential targets for an upcoming business trip to Miami. 🔍 Activating Networks for Portco Self-Service An early-stage fund created a pre-vetted network of 20,000+ contacts using GetroConnect to share with all of their portcos, enabling them to ask for targeted talent, sales, and advisor intros on-demand. 📈 Tracking Outcomes A Head of Talent at an early stage fund focused on DEI uses the GetroConnect Hires report to showcase the value they’ve driven to their portcos via the introductions they’ve facilitated - including 20 hires last year! We'll be continuing to innovate in this space and have a few huge features planned and coming soon. Stay tuned...

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Excited to share that my interview with USA TODAY is out! We talk all things Rootly On-Call, our craft, relentless focus on simplicity, and how we are transforming the incident response landscape. "By prioritizing simplicity and accessibility, Rootly ensures teams can navigate the platform seamlessly, even during the most stressful circumstances. The platform's user-centric design minimizes cognitive load and maximizes efficiency. In other words, teams focus on problem-solving rather than wrestling with cumbersome interfaces or complex workflows." Full article in comments 👇

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Excited to witness Tembo's ongoing momentum! The array of database options available is truly dizzying. Sometimes, a purpose built DB can be transformative if you're pushing boundaries and your problem matches its domain. Most of the time, consolidating onto a single platform streamlines operations and improves developer productivity. Explore Tembo's offering to seamlessly use Postgres across the board! #Tembo #Postgres

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Want to learn more about the role of the business user in low-code. Watch this fun episode of Low down on Low-code!

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"Some Credit Unions are a generation away from being obsolete." Woah, ... that was a surprising statement. Thanks to our good friend Mark Chandler, we got to spend a wonderful night on the water in San Diego as part of the Origence's LendingTech conference. Tom Orman was sharing his thoughts on Credit Union and FinTech partnerships. Tom explained that over 25+ years in the Credit Union space, things have accelerated to change rapidly, especially post-Covid. For an outsider to the Credit Union industry like me, it's easy to assume that all Credit Unions are the same. That's far from true as I've learned over the last 4+ years: There is a wide spectrum of Credit Unions: super innovative ones and then others who prefer doing things "the way they've always done it." A lot of what Tom said was in line with our observations summarized in the attached thought leadership piece. Key Points from Tom and my conversation that align with what we've learned about the industry: 🚀 Innovation Spectrum: Credit Unions range from highly innovative to those sticking to traditional methods. 📉 Digital Transformation Needs: Credit Unions must embrace digital transformation to stay relevant and competitive. 🔄 Change Management: Successful change requires top-down support and a willingness to break away from the "we've always done it this way" mentality. 📱 Member Experience: Enhancing digital onboarding and creating a seamless omnichannel experience is crucial. 🏦 Financial Health: Effective digital strategies can significantly reduce loan origination and member acquisition costs. 📈 Growth Goals: Ambitious Credit Unions with strong growth goals are more likely to embrace and benefit from technology. 🌟 Cross-Selling Opportunities: Credit Unions should leverage technology to cross-sell products and deepen member relationships. 🌍 Industry Challenges: Credit Unions face unique challenges, such as maintaining member loyalty in a digital age dominated by direct-to-consumer FinTech innovations. If I missed something, please leave a comment or ping me. Ending the week with a lot of gratitude for everything the Credit Union has given us and enthusiastic, excited and motivated to give back tenfold! None of what Clutch is doing would be possible without generous folks like Tom Orman, who share their insights and guide us through how to prioritize our technology efforts. Thank you, Tom, and everyone else who contributes to this ongoing journey of transforming the Credit Union industry. If you want to read on, take a look at the following Whitepaper: https://lnkd.in/d7NSjr2t

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Here's a quick video that talks about using dSIPRouter to provide a TLS to SIP proxy. Enjoy!

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I recently heard someone talk through why being passionate about your craft shows up so strongly in the outcomes. This put me in a reflective mood about my industry and why I've been so highly engaged for the past 24 years. The mission matters  Effectively being the bank and accountant for growing businesses, I traditionally have focused on the business customers and the incredible opportunity that a well run ticketing platform can provide to a Promoter / Organizer / Creator (whatever you end up calling yourself). Earning my chops at a sales led company makes you customer focused in a way that is hard to describe - manic / unstoppable. More recently, a combination of working for Eventbrite and the pandemic has pulled the fan and artist into the forefront for me. The mission is the outcome of the live event experience. It's that feeling you have while on stage or in the audience. That spark of positivity that hangs with you after the event. Truly, bringing people together for live experiences. Technology at scale There have been a few times in my career when the impact and scale of what I do really popped for me. One of the first times I remember this happening was sitting in the quiet of the last row of the Colosseum in LA during EDC. Looking down at the main stage, the amusement rides, and the sea of people. Realizing that I processed most of these people's credit cards on the systems I had built.  Live events bring to the table such an interesting set of challenges to solve. Dealing with the traffic spike of an on sale. The war against the bots and fraudsters. The distribution, marketing integrations, relevancy, and audience matching of connecting the dots between interested fans and the event. The complexity of day of show and all the hardware integrations and transitions a "ticket" has taken over the years. The complexity of reporting and data export at scale and post event process of refunds, chargebacks, payouts. A blend of opportunity, curiosity, and passion has led me to most of the impactful innovations that I've driven. I know that every industry has some opportunities like that, but there is something special about the live events space that has kept me so engaged over all these years. For those folks who have been in the trenches with me in the past and especially for my team today that is pushing on some of the most interesting problems I've ever worked on... Thank you for letting me co-innovate with you in such an interesting and impactful industry.

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Brena Nath, Sarah Wheeler, Clayton Collins and I have been overwhelmed by speaker pitches for the HousingWire AI Summit. Here's an example from Rick Roque of Sierra Pacific Mortgage Company, Inc.. ---- What will be the great divide in mortgage origination? Many of the larger IMBs are focused on doubling our production across the next two years with minimal back office costs increases - and the only meaningful opportunity that will enable this margin gain is AI. This is not a catchphrase like “business intelligence” or “ process improvement”. These terms aren’t helpful when it comes to adding another 100, 500 or 1000 closings per month. At some point, expensive resources like underwriters, closers, compliance, and legal will be required, thus increasing costs and lowering margins. AI is the one real opportunity that realizes real savings - and helps us avoid the run-up in overhead as we saw in 2011, 2014 and 2020/2021. In the coming years, there will be a great divide - between those IMBs that separate themselves with the use of AI versus those who do not. At Sierra we have implemented custom built AI solutions and are scoping out additional innovations to increase loan audit and underwriting quality without compromising loan quality or servicing performance. ---- How is Rick implementing AI at Sierra Pacific? Join us in July to find out! And if you want a guaranteed place on stage, DM me about presenting sponsorship opportunities. We have three left.

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Back at the end of 2020 while the pandemic was still at its peak, I gave a talk at Mile High Video lamenting the pains of still being stuck using RTMP as a contribution protocol. I'd spent time playing with SRT, RIST, and a few other proprietary contribution protocols, trying to make them fit into Mux's multi-tenant architecture, but it just wasn't quite the right time. SRT's stream_id had only just been introduced as a way to achieve multiplexing, and wasn't widely supported. There was also still no clear leader in what protocols both software and hardware encoder vendors were supporting. Flash forward to the end of last year, and the ecosystem had moved on pretty quickly, and we had a prototype up and running proxying SRT to RTMP for customers to test their encoders and kick the tyres on, and it worked pretty well, I even showed it off at SF Video Tech (though my lightning talk will never be as good as Alex Converse's original masterpiece "SRT: How the hot new UDP video protocol actually works under the hood"). Customers were asking "when can we use it in production?". At this point, SRT had gained critical mass, and the time had come for us to actually go and integrate it natively into the product. Robert Peck, Corey Sery, Michael Smith, and the rest of the engineering team did a great job of building SRT support into our edge clusters, improving a whole host of other product features as they went, and ultimately giving customers access to a public beta a little over a month ago. We even slipped in support for HEVC. And that brings us to today, and a GA announcement of our SRT feature, including an awesome marketing video from Staci DeGagne, featuring some handsome young dude 👀. Sometimes things don't change as quickly as you want, and you just have to wait a little while for the ecosystem to stabilize around you. As always a huge thank you to Haivision for developing and open sourcing SRT for us to all use ❤️.

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If you're connected with me, you know I scream about how necessary integrations are. Check out this piece where I explain more for insideBIGDATA!

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🚨 Big news coming from the FCC on #AI regulation. As expected, government agencies are going to look to existing oversight authorization to introduce AI regulation - in this case the FCC is looking to ensure proper disclosure of AI-generated political ads. This proposal by FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel would cover cable, satellite TV, and radio—though, interestingly, not YouTube and other streaming channels. Why does this matter? In an age where AI can make almost anything look real, transparency is key. Expect more disclosure regulation in what's becoming a heated AI content environment with other agencies following the FCC's lead here. #ResponsibleAI #Transparency #FCC

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If anyone is in North County San Diego, on Thursday May 2nd, we will be hosting a tech entrepreneur and investor meet up at 5:30pm. We’ll have a couple speakers, one of which is a fin-tech start-up raising a round, followed up by a presentation on the state of the stock & crypto market. We host these events quarterly and usually get a lot of founders and investors to attend. If anyone is interested, please message me and I can send you the details. LaunchPad San Diego #startups #startupincubator #entrepreneur #investing #crypto #meetup

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Super proud of the team over here at Altvia. Big launch for investment teams in our space becomes available today! Behind every deal there are hundreds of emails, phone calls, and meetings. Save yourself valuable time and seal the deal (pun intended!) with fewer clicks: ☑️ Streamlined workflows for logging new data. ☑️ Automated email and event entry. ☑️ Confidently analyze, visualize, and report on deals. Introducing AIMPro for deal teams. The alternative to manual, clunky, and click-intensive CRMs. Learn more: https://hubs.la/Q02x0kct0 🚀Find Deals. Close More. Click Less. 

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We are announcing the availability of Anthropic’s Claude 3 Opus on Amazon Bedrock, the most intelligent Claude 3 model, with best-in-market performance on highly complex tasks. It can navigate open-ended prompts and sight-unseen scenarios with remarkable fluency and human-like understanding, leading the frontier of general intelligence.

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For the past several months I have been part of a community and browser-root-program effort to get Entrust to bring its Certificate Authority operations up to the agreed and necessary standards. Sadly—and as a 90s Ottawa Infosec kid this lands kinda hard—Entrust did not manage to convince root programs (or me, certainly) that they had a credible path to sufficient improvement. As a result, Chrome is the first major browser to announce that they will not trust certificates issued by Entrust after October 31 (spooky). I expect Mozilla and Apple to follow soon, but I’ve given up trying to guess WTF Microsoft is doing in this space. We’ll see. Functionally, this means that existing Entrust certificates will live out their natural lives, but subscribers will need to find a different CA to use instead of renewing with Entrust. It may also be the end of Entrust’s CA business forever, but I hope that somehow they’re able to take all the expertise and experience they have and rebuild into something that improves the web PKI instead of putting it at risk. So anyway, Tim Callan oversaw Sectigo’s successful recovery from a somewhat-similar operational dysfunction, and in my opinion Sectigo is now setting the bar for being a responsible, proactive web PKI CA. His take on this will be one of the very few with such directly relevant experience, so this episode should be a banger. And my journalist contacts should hound him until he changes his phone number. (I have a lot of thoughts about what happened with Entrust, and why, and what to do now that it has happened. I really need to set up a blog somewhere.)

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Maybe I am too much of a VPN and tunneling absolutist, on top of being a practical midwesterner, but I find the topics of "VPNs are dead, its all ZTNA now" or "No tunnels except Zero Trust Tunnels" a bit rankling. If I have to pick between no vpns/no tunnels and EVERYTHING is a vpn or tunnel. I am in the vpns and tunnels are everywhere camp. Not only are they everywhere there will only be more of them as encapsulations of different identity, encryption, and security contexts. But, of course they do need to be used in the right way in the right situations. ZTNA as the name for a somewhat amorphous design approach is fine, and vendors do stress "ZTNA is not a product", but then it seems like they are trying to sell it as a product. Ryan Koop (https://lnkd.in/eu5QYXRZ) at Cohesive goes into it a bit more in his latest post: https://lnkd.in/etvteMz6

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🔨Featured in the latest issue of REI INK, the Verisk Remodel Index reports a 4.1% increase in home repair and remodeling costs from Q1 2023. Learn how these trends could impact your region. Reading the full article in REI INK: vrsk.co/4c6VrfN #HomeRepair #PropertyEstimating #Verisk

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