A New AI Machine That’s Mastering the Human Art of Debate

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A new IBM machine that runs on artificial intelligence is making a convincing case that it’s mastering the human art of persuasion.

“Project Debater” can analyze 300 million articles on a given topic and construct a persuasive speech about it. It would take a human—reading twenty-four hours a day—about 2,000 years to get through the same material. Project Debater does it in 10 minutes.

After speaking to IBM researchers and AI specialists, I can confidently tell you that the machine will not replace humans anytime soon. Yes, it has profound implications for how we make decisions to solve the complex challenges we might face. But while Project Debater can synthesize human arguments into a reasonably coherent speech; it does not have feelings one way or the other. It doesn’t have human emotion.

Neuroscientists like Antonio Damasio have discovered that, without emotions, humans would be incapable of making even the smallest decision. Without emotion, “we wouldn’t have music, art, religion, science, technology, economics, politics, justice, or moral philosophy,” says Damasio.

After Garry Kasparov lost a chess match to an IBM machine in 1997, he felt “unsettled.” But today he says that humans and machines can work together to advance the world and to make better decisions. In a TED Talk, Kasparov said, “Machines have calculations. We have understanding. Machines have instructions. We have purpose. Machines have objectivity. We have passion…There’s one thing only a human can do. That’s dream. So let us dream big.”

Kasparov’s observation echoes the comments of a prominent AI specialist who was recently featured on 60 Minutes. His name is Kai-Fu Lee and he’s the author of AI Super Powers. I spoke to Lee directly after the book was published last year.

“AI can handle a growing number of non-personal, non-creative, routine tasks,” Lee told me. But Lee says the skills that make us uniquely human are ones that no machine can replicate. The jobs of the future, says Lee, will require creative, compassionate, and empathetic leaders who know how to create trust, build teams, inspire service, and communicate effectively.

“People don’t want to interact with robots for communication-oriented jobs. They don’t want to listen to robots making speeches, leading the company, giving pep talks, or earning our trust.”

Lee gave me a piece of advice that I’d like to share with all of you. “Let machines be machines and let humans be humans.” Choose to do what humans do best—inspire, collaborate, communicate, and ignite the imagination.

Why the Best Ideas Fit on the Back of a Napkin, According to Richard Branson

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After twenty years of studying persuasion, I’m convinced the best pitch should fit on the back of a napkin. Here’s why.

Americans lost a true maverick and innovator when Southwest Airlines founder, Herb Kelleher, passed away at the age of 87. While the business news was, understandably, focused on the brand’s financial success, I’ve always been intrigued by one extraordinary event at a St. Antonio bar in 1967—the day the idea for Southwest was first planted.

I devote an entire chapter to Kelleher in my book, The Storyteller’s Secret. The story goes like this. At the St. Anthony Club in San Antonio in 1966, two friends meet for drinks at the bar. Rollin King is a Texas businessman. Herb Kelleher is a gregarious, whiskey-swigging lawyer. They’ve been kicking around a business plan to get into the airline business. What happens next is brand-making history.

Rollins reaches for a cocktail napkin. At the top of the triangle, he writes “Dallas.” On the bottom left, he writes “San Antonio.” On the bottom right, he writes “Houston.” Their vision was simple—to create a small, local airline connecting three Texas cities. People would fly instead of drive between them.

“You’re crazy,” Kelleher responded. “Let’s do it.”

And with that, Southwest Airlines was born. It democratized air travel for millions of Americans who, previously, couldn’t afford to fly.

This week the hotel commemorated the meeting with a special edition cocktail napkin. They sent me a photo of the design which you can see below. If you’re near the hotel, stop in for a drink and feel the energy!

If a cocktail napkin isn’t handy, a beer coaster will do. Just ask Richard Branson—which I did. In this video interview with the billionaire entrepreneur and founder of Virgin, I ask Branson why he prefers pitches that can fit on a napkin, envelope or—in a real case—on a beer coaster.

Baseball Legend Reads Carmine’s Books to Raise His Public-Speaking Game

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Alex Rodriguez chooses Carmine’s “Talk Like TED” as a must-read book.

Alex Rodriguez (A-Rod) had one of the most storied careers in baseball history. Today he’s learning about storytelling to become more persuasive and successful as an entrepreneur and investor.

I was thrilled to see that A-Rod included one of my books in his 2019 reading list. The book is “Talk Like TED” which is one of the most popular public-speaking books in the U.S. and in many parts of the world.

As the CEO of A-Rod Corp, Rodriguez has expanded beyond the baseball field to invest in real estate, sports, wellness and media. He’s also a guest shark on ABC’s Shark Tank. A-Rod’s portfolio of assets is worth close to half a billion dollars. With that kind of wealth, the price of a book is minimal, but I hope the lessons he learns will be invaluable.

Thanks, A-Rod!

-Carmine

Dream Bigger With the New Book Bill Gates Calls His ‘Favorite of All Time’

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StevenPinker_Cover

After reading Steven Pinker’s new book, Enlightenment Now, you might never complain again about a delayed flight or a long line at Costco. And if you do, you’ll feel bad about it.

Pinker, a Harvard psychologist and Pulitzer-prize winning finalist, has written a book that Bill Gates calls his “favorite book of all time.” In the 500-page book, Pinker tells “the greatest story seldom told.”  What is the story? In a sentence,

 

The world has made spectacular progress in every single measure of human well-being and almost no  one knows about it.

Pinker reminds us of the daily gifts we take for granted. For example:

“Newborns who will live more than eight decades, markets overflowing with food, clean water that appears with a flick of a finger, and waste that disappears with another, pills that erase a painful infection… critics of the powerful who are not jailed or shot, the world’s knowledge and culture available in a shirt pocket.”

The graph below shows the stunning progress that America and the developed world has made since the recorded calendar began in the first century. As Pinker notes, the history of civilization has been marked by extreme poverty among everyone except a few nobles. Massive wars that collectively killed millions were common, as was famine, starvation, and early deaths (most children never made it past their 5th birthday), and no access to the life-saving medicines, vaccines, and procedures that have only arrived in the last half century.  Around 1820, something changed. The ideals of the enlightenment—freedom of ideas—began to flourish. And then suddenly—BOOM—the world made “spectacular progress in every single measure of human well-being.”

Pinker_Graph (1)

The Mental Bias That Will Hold You Back
So why don’t people know this story? Blame a mental bug we’re all born with—the availability bias. In 1971, Nobel prize-winning economist Daniel Kahneman and his academic partner Amos Lewis Tversky discovered the bias. They defined it like this.

People estimate the probability of an event or the frequency of a kind of thing by the ease with which instances come to mind.

In other words, if you’re glued to the news and you stick to the echo-chamber on Facebook or among your friends and peers, your view of the world will be distorted by the problems and bad news you’ll hear over and over.  Our brains are wired in such a way that we look at the available information and extrapolate the future based on what we see today.

According to Pinker, “Every day the news is filled with stories about war, terrorism, crime, pollution, inequality, drug abuse, and oppression…news is about things that happen, not things that don’t happen. We never see a journalist saying, ‘I’m reporting live from a country where a war has not broken out.’”

What does all this have to do with leadership? Bill Gates says you cannot move the world forward if you’re not motivated by the progress that is happening every day. It’s only by learning about what works that we can spread the progress. If you consume negative news, studies show you’ll become more glum, have a higher and distorted picture of risk, higher anxiety, lower mood levels, more hostility, and—very dangerous—fall into learned helplessness, which means you give up on bettering yourself. And remember, A great leader sees around the corner. You’ll be more successful if you recognize and manage the bias.

Great Leaders Have Perspective

Pinker advised us to maintain perspective. “Not every problem is a Crisis, Plague, Epidemic, or Existential Threat, and not every change is The of This, the Death of That, or the Dawn of a Post-Something Era…problems are inevitable; but problems are solvable,” Pinker writes.

The story of progress is truly “heroic, glorious, and uplifting.” If you need a lift, pick up Pinker’s book. It might change your life–it did for me and Bill Gates.

Carmine Gallo is a popular keynote speaker and bestselling author. Carmine’s new book, Five Stars: The Communication Secrets to Get from Good to Great, is available for pre-order (June, 2018 St. Martin’s Press)

New Research Finds That Your Customers Remember ‘Moments,’ Not Events

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Looking back at a photo I posted to Facebook reminds me of a new area of research in the area of customer service. Your customers don’t recall every aspect of an experience–they remember moments instead.

On a trip to The Ritz-Carlton Amelia Island, I bumped into the hotel’s general manager. I casually mentioned that I was there to speak at an event and how impressed I was with the hotel’s service staff. He thanked me, asked my name, and ducked into a meeting.

Two hours later, I went back to my room. On the desk I found a bag and a handwritten note. Inside the bag, the GM had given me a gift of a package of rare salts sold in the hotel restaurant. The photo below is the picture I posted to Facebook and Instagram.

RitzCarlton2

According to Dan and Chip Heath in their book, The Power of Moments, “Research has found that in recalling an experience, we ignore most of what happened and focus instead on a few particular moments.” What are you doing to create wow moments for you guests or customers?

A popular local restaurant in my community sits in the middle of a winery and a stunning golf course. The Wente Vineyards winery has long reputation in the Livermore Valley, having started in 1883. Wente introduced chardonnay to the region and is associated with the California style of chardonnay that’s popular around the world.

The restaurant at Wente Vineyards is elegant and Chef Mike Ward excels at courses that make the most of Wente’s local garden, wines, and even its own cattle ranch. But the staff   (called ‘Ambassadors’) also excel at creating moments.

Recently, when Chef Mike heard that it was my wife’s birthday, he walked out of the kitchen with a large, exotic black truffle that he sources from Italy. He made a show of shaving the truffle onto her risotto entree. The dinner included fabulous wines and great food, but what do you think Vanessa chose to Facebook? The moment.

Wente_Truffles

Earlier in the week, a group of parents from a local school visited the same Wente restaurant. I know some of the parents and follow them on Facebook. I wasn’t at the dinner, so I don’t know what they ordered or anything else about their experience–but I saw a moment that stuck with them. The restaurant staff had a prepared a menu with a customized greeting. Again, a small gesture, but a great moment one of the parents chose to post on Facebook.

Wente Menu (1)

Yes, they say make each moment count. But when it comes to customer service, some moments are remembered more than others.

Carmine Gallo is a keynote speaker and bestselling author. His new book, Five Stars, shows readers how to master the ancient of communication to thrive in the age of ideas (On Sale June, 2018, St. Martin’s Press)

 

Marc Benioff ‘s Master Class in Public Speaking

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Marc Benioff_Dreamforce2017

Salesforce CEO and billionaire Marc Benioff opened his keynote at DreamForce 2017 by doing something very few presenters have the courage to do. He delivered the presentation as he walked among the audience. It’s a technique that Benioff has mastered over years of hosting the blockbuster conference/party in San Francisco.

More than 170,000 people are registered for DreamForce this year. It’s a massive conference that Benioff kicks off with a two-hour presentation where he introduces new ideas, features customers who are in the audience, and introduces other speakers.

The ability to walk around a massive conference hall while delivering a presentation requires 1). courage and 2). practice. It takes courage to walk out from behind a lectern, and to make eye contact with people who are standing right next to you. It takes practice to know your slides and message so thoroughly that you’re not tied to notes.

Marc Benioff is a storyteller and an engaging/energetic presenter. It’s worth watching one of his astonishing keynotes as a master class in public-speaking.

Carmine Gallo is a keynote speaker and author of the bestselling books “Talk Like TED” and “The Storyteller’s Secret.”

Richard Branson’s Most Valuable Pitch Tips (video interview)

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Carmine_Branson_BeetMatRecently, I had the rare opportunity to sit down with Sir Richard Branson to talk about his new autobiography, Finding My Virginity. Branson and I talked about a wide range of topics we’re both passionate about:  storytelling, public-speaking, communication and the advice he gives to entrepreneurs after watching 25,000 pitches.
Here are 3 valuable communication tips I took away from our conversation which you can watch here.
1.) Great leaders are great storytellers. Branson says it’s nearly impossible to be successful today unless you can communicate an idea persuasively.
2). The best ideas can fit on a beer coaster. In a fun part of of the interview, I present Branson with an beer mat, a cocktail napkin and an envelope. He takes the items, looks into the camera and explains why he’s only interested in ideas that can fit on those items. The segment begins at 2 minutes and 45 seconds into our video.
3). Branson openly acknowledges his challenges with dyslexia, which was part of the reason he dropped out of school at the age of 16 (the condition was misunderstood when he was in high school). But Branson—ever the optimist—turned a potential hurdle into a benefit. He now calls it “a massive advantage” because it forced Virgin to communicate simply, endearing itself to consumers for 50 years.
At the end of our interview, I told Richard Branson that he is one of the most inspiring leaders of our time. He’s authentic. He praises employees. He’s devoted to improving the customer experience. He motivates people and he encourages us to dream bigger.
I hope you enjoy our conversation!
Carmine Gallo

 

3 Communication Tips From This Summer’s Nonfiction Bestsellers

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CarmineGallo_Storytellers_Desk
On any given week I read about 40% of the nonfiction books that make up the top 10 of the New York Times or Wall Street Journal bestseller lists. From time to time, I like to share some of the insights that relate directly to your success in communication. Here are some tips from recent bestsellers:
Captivate: The Science of Succeeding With People
by Vanessa Van Edwards
“Whether we like to admit it or not, we decide if we like someone, if we trust someone, and if we want a relationship with someone within the first few seconds of meeting them.” Van Edwards recommends the following skills to improve the way you come across and to make a more favorable impression: 1). Use your hands when you talk, 2)Stand like a winner (Take up physical space on stage and 3). Engage with eye contact.
If I Understood You, Would I Have This Look On My Face? My Adventures in the Art and Science of Relating and Communicating
By Alan Alda
“Not being truly engaged with the people we’re trying to communicate with is the grit in the gears of daily life. It jams our relationships with others when people don’t ‘get it.’”
The actor Alan Alda is a student of communication. He helped to establish the Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook University in New York. Among the key takeaways—the power of story. “Storytelling is amazing; it has the power to make people really aligned.” Alda interviewed some of the same researchers that I talked to for The Storyteller’s Secrets. Both books will help you understand and implement storytelling in your business.
The Fuzzy and the Techie: Why Liberal Arts Will Rule the Digital World
By Scott Hartley
“Finding solutions to our greatest problems requires an understanding of human context as well as code; it requires both ethics and data, both deep thinking people and Deep Learning AI, both human and machine,” writes venture capitalist Scott Hartley. His book is a good reminder of what Steve Jobs taught us — the best products, solutions and communicators combine technology with liberal arts.
If you have any books that I should read and share with my readers, send us your thoughts. We love to hear from you!
Carmine Gallo is a popular keynote speaker and author of the international bestseller, The Storyteller’s Secret. 

A Rare Example of Too Much Data (That Works)

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Screen Shot 2017-06-06 at 4.54.40 PM

June 6, 1944… D-Day. How big was the invasion? This graphic, courtesy of the BBC, shows the sheer magnitude of the allied forces that stormed the beaches of Normandy that day.

Normally, in presentations and graphic design, less is more. I prefer one statistic on a slide or one story. This is a rare example, however, of a slide where more is better.

An impressive slide that serves its purpose.

 

The Seed Investors Behind Airbnb Say Passion Means Everything

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Carmine_GeoffRalston

Without passion, emotion and an unwavering belief in their ideas, the Airbnb founders would never have pioneered the sharing economy.

Recently, I had a wide-ranging conversation with Yahoo Mail creator and Y Combinator partner, Geoff Ralston.  The prestigious Silicon Valley startup accelerator has provided seed funding and training for over 1,460 startups including Airbnb, Dropbox, Reddit, and Stripe.

In this video you’ll learn why Ralston says passion plays a major role in their investment decisions.

According to Ralston:
“The reason I talk about emotion, passion, and obsessions, the reason it matters in the startup world, is simple. Startups are really hard. You will get punched in the nose. You will have investors say no or tell you that your idea is bad. You will have key employees walk away. You will fail to get a deal. You will make mistakes. You will make the wrong product or feature. To sustain and continue through the inevitable roller-coaster that is the startup adventure, you need emotion and passion. It is a pre-requisite that you care enough to get back up, dust yourself off, and keep on going.”
Carmine Gallo is a keynote speaker and bestselling author of eight books including The Storyteller’s Secret: From TED Speakers To Business Legends, Why Some Ideas Catch On And Others Don’t.