The heart in Artificial Intelligence

Blog post originally published on State of Digital as part of a monthly column

My son Arthur has just been awarded a prize for story-telling at his primary school. So when I watched that short movie whose script was generated by artificial intelligence, based on thousands of sci-fi books and films, I could certainly see a lot of similarity between both outputs. For me this epitomizes the current state of AI… It is raw, forming, full of potential but still with a long way to go towards maturity.

Today we will be covering the heart in artificial intelligence. After all, if artificial intelligence is, by definition, artificial, how can it have a heart, how can it have emotions? On the other hand, if AI is the brain child of thinking, feeling people, how can it not have a heart? This is a critical question for us, marketers who want to trigger emotional reactions from consumers but who also rely always more on algorithms and automation. To answer it, we will first need to define artificial intelligence. We’ll explore the 7 outcomes we can expect from AI, and consider how we materialize these expectations today to enable everyone of us to fulfil our potential.

The building blocks of AI

To understand if a heart is beating inside artificial intelligence, we need to understand where AI comes from. Although AI has been all over the press lately, it is not news… It is rather a 30-year old corpus of work, aimed at creating intelligent machines, by combining three building blocks: machine learning, human learning and data science. And in many ways there is a strong analogy between AI and raising a child.

Just like children get their foundational learnings from their parents, teachers and by the school books they read, machine learning is based on known properties, and the machine learns from the data. Think if/then scenarios. If your son behaves well, then he will be treated by Santa. If your daughter sees a puddle, then she should not to stomp in it to keep her feet dry. This is also how machine learning works: if you liked that book, then you’ll probably like these ones too. If you bought a laptop, then you should consider this bag. These are just small, basic examples of a very complex field.

Kids learn fast that if they cry and shout they get your attention… Now, you will certainly want them to assimilate that such a behaviour is not a normal mode of expression. Human learning is how we make course corrections to the machine learning that is happening. Cortana, Microsoft’s digital personal assistant, has a team behind the scenes working on human learning so she can get smarter. This human learning gives the digital personal assistant more personality, and her responses to queries are more human because of this.

Data science is the third brick of artificial intelligence. Data science is the discovery of unknown properties, or connections, in data. In this case, the machine is presented with a massive amount of data and asked to find connections in it. This is how we might discover that watching a certain program in your youth increases your chance to marry a foreigner. We didn’t know there was a connection between these pieces of data until we went looking for that connection.

Human intervention

We have seen these three fields accelerating their capabilities recently due to the exponential development rate of our computing power. We are able to process, analyse and render an ever-growing amount of information, at an increasing pace. But where does that data that feeds machine learning, human learning and data science come from?
It comes from us! Artificial intelligence comes from us. In many ways, it is us.

Artificial intelligence is only as intelligent as the data it takes in. It is only as fair as the data it takes in. It is only as human as the data it takes in. It is only as socially acceptable as the data it takes in. I would like to share with you two examples of AI, which to a large extent illustrate how humans can influence how intelligent a bot can be.
Remember Tay, Microsoft first experiment as a Twitter bot? Tay learned from her inputs, which were hijacked by some people who wanted to influence her negatively. In this case, Tay incited high emotion from people who engaged with her or read about what happened with her, even if Tay, herself, did not express emotion and was merely a reflection of the hatred that fed her.

On the other end, Microsoft also created Xiaoice a couple years ago and it is a perfect example of where technology is going and why we think of conversations as a new platform for brands and commerce. Xiaoice is a chat-bot based on Bing search technology and big data. It draws on AI, social media, and machine learning so she can hold a proper conversation – the average exchange between Xiaoice and a user has 26 turns. She’s sensitive to emotions and remembers your previous chats. If you tell her about a breakup, she’ll check in with you. If you introduce her to a puppy through a photo, she’ll recognize the breed, ask you for its development. And to say this bot has been popular is an understatement. Three days after she was available, Xiaoice had been added to 1.5 million conversations on WeChat. Once added to Weibo, the Chinese micro-blogging service, it became one of the most popular celebrity accounts. And today, Xiaoice is used by over 40 million people.

Tay and Xiaoice are like two twins, split at birth and raised in two different environments, with different influences… Two very different individuals in the end.

Assessing our expectations

So, what can we reasonably expect from artificial intelligence?

As mentioned before the computing advancements have enabled a fast acceleration of three technologies which underpin the maturation of artificial intelligence: object recognition, natural language processing and speech. If the AI can see, speak and listen, it is not far from being able to exchange with human being transparently.

Actually, mid-October 2016, Microsoft researchers announced they had reached human parity with the word error rate (WER) for conversational speech recognition, meaning that their AI was as capable as a professional transcriber to write up an oral conversation. Language understanding and acquisition is not easy, and it is critical to the success of AI. If you travelled a bit, you will be familiar on the complexity implied by accents, dialects, pronunciation but also the fact that a same word may have several meanings based on the context. This progress was critical because without this piece of artificial intelligence, so many developments wouldn’t move forward. Think about how patient you would be with a digital personal assistant or a sales advisor that misunderstood most of what you said?

Natural language learning is a complex skill, as we know from watching our children learn to speak. But with our increased computing capabilities, not only are we able to recognize accurately the words but we are able to do this instantaneously. This unlocks new scenarios like Voice-to-text which allows deaf children to read the transcript of a discussion in real time or Skype Translator which not only has the natural language skills necessary for a conversation but can also translate into other languages.

Well, this outcome is one of many. Capitalizing on the progress of machine learning around object recognition, natural language processing and speech, we have seen our expectations towards AI graduate from the most basic to much more advanced outcomes.

The 7 outcomes of AI

According to Silicon-Valley analyst, Ray Wang, there are seven intertwined outcomes for artificial intelligence, based on what we are now able to program via machine learning.

1. Perception is an example of early machine learning, now totally engrained in our daily life. Drawing on existing data, the machine delivers information about what is happening now. The weather, traffic, sales volumes, stock prices – things that are measureable and reportable. This AI outcome brings us back to the core promise of search engines when based on a typed or voiced query, the machine learning understands the intent and provides the answer or links to the information. For humans, learning to express their perception, it’s pretty simple as well. A child can describe what is happening now with ease. We learn this almost immediately: it is dark; I am hot; or, based on these circumstances, I am joyful. To illustrate a more advanced Perception outcome, we can look at facial recognition and play with http://how-old.net which assesses your age based on your traits (and which we hate to be accurate).
2. Next, Notification. If I did not have my calendar delivering notifications, I would be a horrible colleague – late to meetings or just not showing up because I cannot hold my schedule in my mind. Here the intent is less explicitly verbalized, but it is still initiated by the user and the information remains factual without any analysis of the data. We learn notification early as well, perhaps starting with letting Mom know we’re hungry. Fact: I am hungry; Notification: I cry. It never stops – in school, we notify the teacher that we have the answer.
3. Suggestion is another area we have grown to be familiar with, and is now engrained in our daily life. You searched for these words, but “Did you mean?”… The machine learns from past behaviours and suggests alternative actions. We all love this machine learning with our Spotify account for instance. If I listen to a song and I like it, the AI suggests more songs for me to enjoy. And you can always retain that Human Learning capability to ensure that the AI never drifts from Justin Timberlake to Justin Bieber… Early suggestions were basic, but imagine what can influence them today: demographics, location, day, time, weather, behaviours, etc. The data sets are humongous but we are now capable to combine and process them in no time and identify new, maybe more obscure connections
4. Our children learn a nice drawing will trigger a smile from their parents, or that it’s time to wash their hands before a meal. Over time, we don’t even have to remind them; they just know it’s what’s next and it becomes Automation. A suggestion or a recommended action can grow into automation based on learning your preferences. If you follow avidly the progress of your favorite team, the AI will start to automatically inform you of their performance. If you always make a reservation for 7pm on Saturdays, your AI will start to spontaneuously fill in the date and time on your reservations. If you trigger the same report every Monday morning, the machine will start to pull the information for you and make it available in your Business Intelligence dashboard.
5. Predictions can be the hardest machine learning to train, because so many variables can affect this outcome. Think of a child who sees Daddy packing a suitcase; based on past behaviour, this toddler knows that this means Daddy is leaving for a few days, which is sad. But sometimes it also means that the child gets to travel with Daddy. What factors will alert the toddler about what outcome to expect? Microsoft has developed a program called Bing Predicts which combines and models all the data signals we can find, and comes up with incredibly accurate predictions. It initially explored popularity-based contests like American Idol, for which the web and social signals are very strong and highly correlate with popularity voting patterns. You search for information about that performer, his history, his latest video clip. At the same time, you comment the performance on Facebook or Twitter. By combining anonymized search patterns to social signals Bing Predicts could accurately project who would be eliminated each week during American Idol and who the eventual winner would be. More complex, we then turned to sporting events and even world political challenges. During the World Cup in Brazil, our team predicted accurately with 100% accuracy the winners of the final elimination round. During the last year Rugby World cup, we had 87% accuracy across the tournament. Surprised? In order to successfully predict a sporting event outcome, the number and type of signals we incorporated quadrupled from what we used to predict a basic popularity event like American Idol. This is because we recognize that popularity alone does not predict whether a team will win – Sorry for the fans. A fan base has however special insight into the abilities of their teams, and those fans are having constant discussions about their team. This is called the “Insider Knowledge.” We weighted their knowledge against player and team stats, tournament trends, game history, location and even weather conditions. This is how we were successful in our predictions.
6. If we manage to predict accurately the future, the next logical step after prediction is Prevention. Again Bing Predicts shines in this category: by analysing large samples of search queries, Microsoft scientists have been able to identify internet users who are suffering from pancreatic cancer even before they were diagnosed. The researchers focused on searches conducted on Bing that indicated someone had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. From there, they worked backward, looking for earlier queries that could have shown that the Bing user was experiencing symptoms before the diagnosis. Those early searches, they believe, can be warning flags.
7. Finally, Situational Awareness for AI comes close to mimicking human behaviour in decision making. We see situational awareness as a combination of many aspects of AI, from object recognition to conversational speech. Here’s an example:

These 7 outcomes are complex and require a lot of training and time to accomplish. They are also interconnected and not mutually exclusive. They actually build upon each other to offer the benefits of AI to us, users.

In conclusion, everything we’re seeing with AI is exciting and rich. We see the heart in AI every day, when we ask it to help uncover cancer, help two people connect when they don’t speak the same language. But where is the moral and ethical compass for artificial intelligence?

As alluded to through this article, AI is still at its infancy and it is our collective responsibility to set it on the right trajectory. At Microsoft we are committed to this, and partnered with the University of Cambridge and the Partnership on AI, two international authorities to help shape the future of that promising discipline. For some, AI is a modern Oedipus that will have to “kill the father”, take away our jobs, make ourselves redundant. But for someone like Satya Nadella, AI will actually enable people to fulfil their full potential as we have seen across the 7 outcomes of AI. So yes, for Microsoft, AI has a heart. It is the mankind’s heart.

A mountain dweller in the Asian valleys

What a summer! A few months back I mentioned that I was taking some new responsibilities at work, and that despite that extended mission, I intended to write more often on that blog about my encounters, my surprises, etc. But fact is that in the last two months, I have been on the road, living these cultural differences without having the opportunity to jot down a few thoughts. 8 countries in two months… From public speaking at the National Library in Vienna to listening to a private concert of Lady Gaga in the Centennial Olympic Park of Atlanta during a business conference, from hugging koalas in Australia to surviving taxi rides in Taipei… I have experienced a few things worth capturing, especially in the Asia Pacific region most recently.

Asia Pacific is a conglomerate of diverse countries, cultures, people, nations, etc. And there are many ways to go around. Long ago I lived in Singapore where I was working in a regional capacity which allowed me to grasps some of the complexity and nuances required to deal with the inhabitants of the region. I also toured a few countries from the South East Asian peninsula and around (Burma, Thailand, Malaysia, Honk Kong or Macao and later Japan), which was a favourable ground to get ready for the cultural disparities to be encountered this time around. For this trip, I had decided to move North, which also meant moving from West to East from a cultural perspective. At least that was the assumption when embarking.

East meets far West?

Many tourists try to find commonalities between what they discover and what they experienced in the past. Between the known and the unknown. At a time when Scotland is discussing its independence from the United Kingdom, it was interesting to look at Australia with the eyes of a London-based person. As such, I could not refrain from wondering if this big English-speaking country would nowadays be more similar to the UK, or to let's say to the US. The history would lead us to think towards the earlier, but the economic neo-colonialism would most likely tilt the scale the other way. Originally, I was convinced that the famous Aussie bum would be sat between two chairs, as the French say, but I was to be proven wrong. Australia is not where East meets Far West.

Looking at a GPS, you could feel like driving across British counties... Most of the Australian cities are trademark infringements, tributes from the colons to their origins. As such you drive around many glorious (well rarely so) cities of good old England. Fulham, Ipswich, Chiswick... And you also drive through these towns on the left side of the road, which is right side for Brits and other folks who did not fall under Napoleon's influence back then. On the other hand, the scale of things are more American-like. Bigger than life some would say. For instance, as far as I recall, I had never seen a road sign pointing me in a direction with a 4-digit distance. And that was a "close-by" destination by the local standards! Cars too are disproportionately big, making any European SUV feels like a Fiat 500 on the local highways and that is understandable when you consider the size of the road kills they have to face: Wallabies or Wombats are "slightly" more sizable obstacle than the average field mouse.

Everything is bigger or greater here, but not in the same self-proclaiming way that their American cousins do. They may have a Great Barrier Reef, but no sign of superlatives here and let's face it this reef is totally Great. So it deserves its attribute. But otherwise no Biggest, Largest, Greatest, Awesomest... This country has inherited from its former dominion a sense of restraint. Australia may have Dollars, cowboys, ranches, great outdoors, surfers, skyscrapers, etc. but it retained a tuned down attitude. To its advantage. It also has tea, cricket and rugby but it retained its laidback attitude. To its advantage again. In essence Australia is a mix of many influences, stirred and blended in a melting pot that pays tribute to its relatively new modern history of immigrations. And frankly, when I saw the following sign in a supermarket, I could not avoid but thinking that it could be a good idea:

Obedience and influences

But I had to move North, going deeper in the Asian culture. Singapore, Taipei and then Shanghai were on the agenda.

To conclude on foreign influences, let me kill another myth. My knowledge about China is patchy - at best. To my excuse, this may be the Empire of the Middle, but it truly is peripheral to our western educational curriculum... Just look at a European or American world map: it is hard to say that China is front and centre. So when I arrived in Taipei, I assumed that the relatively recent Taiwanese secession under Chang Kai-Shek would imply a strong, reminiscent influence of Mainland China from a linguistic, cultural and economical stand points. But as I walked the streets of the capital, it felt strangely familiar. I had never been to Taiwan, let alone China, and I could not put my finger on it until I exchanged with my local colleagues. Taiwan is not looking to the East for inspiration. Its influences lays further west: Japan. Probably inherited from the former Japanese occupation, but also by the desire to cut bridges with their immediate cousins, Taipei shows many signs of Japanese influence. Anime, Manga, Sushi bars, shiatsu massage and other Mos Burgers... are just a few hints at my shared interest for Japan with this nation. Japan happens to also be the #1 travel destination for locals.

Alien appeal

I guess we all find in the unknown an exotic appeal and get drawn to it. Actually even the local vermin may look pretty exciting to the new comers. For example, I could not refrain myself from taking pictures of the Cockatoo who landed on my balcony, before realising there were dozens of them rampaging the resort we were staying at. In Australian cities, kiwis can be seen as the local pigeons and consequently do not catch the eye of anyone else but the tourists. I guess they are like the London squirrels, the Venice pigeons, the Parisian mimes or the Dutch on the French Riviera... An attractions that the visitors are happy to benefit from briefly, but that they also keen to rapidly forget.

But let's face it, every country has its specialities, good or bad. As a foodie I explored there culinary portfolios and was lucky to be truly treated by my friends with great local food experiences. From the Taiwanese bubble tea to the bush-style dampers, from the Singaporean Ice Kacang to the Chinese dumplings, from the more sophisticated Kumqwat crème brulee to the somewhat puzzling sweet dried meats, jelly fishes or Black Pepper Crabs... I have been indulging every bit of the way the delicacies of this region. A time I felt more like a Gulp Trotter:

Marche a l'Ombre

There are then these little adjustments that you need to make.

As a sun-deprived person from London, this tour between the equator and the tropics was a blessing. The opportunity to recharge my Vitamin D batteries which have been running low for... let's face it 8 good years. But I suppose that when you are living there, the sun is more a foe than a friend. The sun is there merciless. It is scorching hot, and for people who enjoy pale skins, you may need serious protection if you do not want to look like an Italian vanilla/strawberry gelato. As a matter of fact, French singer, Renaud, had a hit in the 80s with a slang-loaded song entitled Marche A L'Ombre whose lyrics seem after reflection pretty topical:

In French	...and in English (personal translation)
Et j' lui ai dit " Toi tu m' fous les glandes Pis t'as rien à foutre dans mon monde Arrache toi d' là t'es pas d' ma bande Casse toi tu pues Et marche à l'ombre	And I told him You, you piss me off You have nothing to do in my world Bugger off you don't belong Go away And walk in the shade

Well, as a Kwai Lo (white devil), as the Honk-Konguese call the Westerners, you need to adjust your walking patterns. You shouldn't stop at the very last inch of the pavement, ready to cross when the signal turns green... You need to stop at the very last inch of the last shadow, ready to cross when the signal turns green! That nuance allows you to look less awkward when you are left by yourself, with your co-workers sympathetically smiling at you, sweating in the heat, waiting for that a man icon as red as you to dress up in a fresh, green outfit.

And more...

And finally there are other local "experiences"...  Some of which you may want to forget, or you may need to talk to someone to get over it. For instance taking a Taiwanese cab and grasping the full meaning of the "danger of multitasking". My taxi driver was indeed, in his obvious order of preference, but simultaneously: chewing a betle nut and rightfully spitting its brownish saliva in an over-used, stained paper cup; entertaining several conversations on WeChat, the local emoticon-based instant messaging phone application; watching a Chinese Opera on his embarked DVD player; and, oh yes, driving me to my hotel during the rush hour with hundreds of scooters zigging when we were zagging on the sound of the opera tunes... I have not been so frightened in a cab since a New Yorker of Italian lineage boasted his vague origins and considered the safety lane between Manhattan and Newark as the reproduction of private Monza circuit.

But what I will continue to value the most are these conversations, these insightful encounters with locals who give you the keys to a slightly better understanding their culture:

• an Australia-based war veteran from Scotland returning home after 40 years to vote in the referendum;
• two retired ladies sharing their Proust's Madeleine when pouring golden syrup on their grilled damper bread in the middle of a bush tour;
• the Singaporean taxi driver who sung a country song before starting a yodelling demo;
• these university friends we left in Singapore 15 years ago and find unchanged as if we left them the day before (except maybe the additional kids running around);
• these colleagues and their upmost generosity who made me feel not only welcome but blessed... To all of you thank you.

I have taken many pictures of these trips, and you will be able to see some on my Flickr or Instagram streams. But these encounters are truly the highlight of my summer... Maybe because my capillary state did not allow me to fully appreciate this, sadly:

To read further:

• A mountain dweller in the Washington Valleys
• A mountain dweller on the Copacabana Beach
• A mountain dweller in the Great Lake valley
• A mountain dweller in the Washington Lake valley
• A mountain dweller in the Þingvellir valley
• A mountain dweller in the valley of Kerry

In the marsh-mellow

Spot the difference

Ever since I moved from Paris to London, my friends back there kept on asking me the trivial question: "what is the real difference between the two capitals?". I say trivial, because two different cities are by definition... well, "different". But fair enough, both cities have a certain appeal, an history, a reputation... They are attractive destinations for tourists. If both nations may have entertained centuries ago some bellicose relationships, since then the Entente Cordiale has warmed up. Exchanges between the two countries have been as frequent as a French teenager exchanging saliva with a British girl during a linguistic trip.

More recently many French people have started crossing the Channel, and no longer to discover a new mother tongue. If British retirees keep on investing in houses in France, it is more active a population that transit in the other direction. Some say it is for tax evasion, to embrace liberalism, to be offered more exciting job opportunities, to live in a multicultural environment... Many reasons are brought forward, some positive, some more dubious. But in light of that context it is understandable that people want to understand that exotic proximity. In fact, my personal appeal for that French-British relationship got me on TV a few years back, when Sky News invited me to comment on the French news that was that week abundant in the press outlet. An interesting experience...

But back to my initial question, what are the differences between both cities? After 8 years in the UK, I have now lived longer as a Londoner than a Parisian, and the disparities are becoming less and less obvious to me. I guess that is what one calls assimilation. When the difference becomes the new norm... That said, I remain French at core, and there is still every now and then a little event in my daily life that will make me smile. This happened last weekend for instance.

Wetland...

When you are the father of a couple kids, you are always on the look for new activities that will help you keep your sanity. Outdoor activities are great for that, because as Sigourney Weather pointed out in one of her films, "no one can hear you scream in space". Sympathetic friends directed us to the London Wetland centre, a marshland within walking distance to Central London which has been adapted for educational purposes for kids and other bird watching fans. You can walk around discover migrating species in a protect habitat, when 10 minutes before you were still in the middle of the traffic jam.

I realised then that this greenery was one of the key differences between London and Paris. In the latter you can walk in parks and squares, but they are nowhere near the size of Hyde Park or Richmond Park. Paris does also have a marshland... but the colourful birds there are of very different species...

Le Marais (The Marsh in French) is one of the oldest part of the city. It is tucked on right bank of the city, just off Ile de la Cite and the Hotel de Ville. It is the medieval part of town and was built upon what was then a wetland. Nowadays it is the gay-tho after having been the real pletzl. There are still some reminiscences of the Jewish past around Rue des Rosiers, where kosher restaurants and museum are available. The only surrounding humidity in that part of the city comes from sweating clubbers who are enjoying the Parisian night life to its full. Throughout the day (although not so much in the late morning) it is a vibrant part of town, with bars, restaurants, galleries, small boutique shops, hotels... And even if you are not a proud member of the gay community, the walk through these ancients cobbled streets with not-so-straight (pun not intended) buildings is a delight.

You will agree that although sharing the same terminology, both are very, very different experiences... The extra focus on the nature in London could also be the source of some misunderstandings for keen party animals. When a Parisian plans a Stag-Do he is probably not thinking of something as literal as his Richmond counterpart...

A new chapter

Back to the <blank> page

I have been quiet on this blog lately. I confess. But I also have some valid excuses such as the arrival of my second son in February, the acceptance of the older one to his preferred school, some family holidays here and there... And more recently a change of job. I certainly feel like I am currently turning a page, and moving to a next chapter.

Strangely, in the past, I took that expression quite literally, and started to write. This blog when I arrived in London. A short story when I became a dad. So now that I am about to enter a new stage in my adult life, I was wondering where this idiom would take me. For now, I am not quite sure of the answer, but at least the reflection brought me back to this blog, and I hope that in spite of the professional activities and other side effects, I will find the time to regularly come back to this vessel and to fill it with some goodness: cultural differences, random and puzzling experiences, insights from London or other valleys, photos of this, of that...

On my bedside table

Whilst I may not have found the inspiration to write yet, I have certainly resurrected the taste to read. Here is a sample of the books that are currently laid on my bedside table, and I thought they were a great summary of where I was today:

Inspiration.

I have always been a fan of Jules Verne and have always been amazed by how this story teller was in fact a fortune teller. Some of the anticipation books he wrote were not only great narratives, but also a sneak peek at what would soon be a reality. "Around the World in Eighty Days" has had a special place in my childhood, and it is not totally alien to my thirst for discovering new cultures. I had never actually read the book, but been immersed in its universe through a Japanese anime dated 1972 which I am discovering today was pretty accurate an adaptation despite its anthropomorphisms of various animals. The reason I was seduced by this book when I saw it on its shelf was of course heavily connected to this childhood memory, but also by the judicious reference to my new job. I have been indeed promoted to Head of International Marketing and have therefore a new expanded geographical remit to LATAM and APAC. With a team now spanning from Sao Paulo to Taipei, from Sydney to Munich or London, I will certainly have to endorse both Phileas Fogg and Passepartout's roles. The phlegmatic and time-controlling freak on the one hand, the curious and adventurous on the other hand. My personal ambition being to work with my head, my hands and more importantly my heart, to constantly learn new ways to fulfil my and others’ full potential, I am truly excited by this new opportunity.

Expiration.

This leads me to my next book Chris Anderson's The Longer Tail. Today again, like very often, I am asked what my job is. At times, I feel I am like Barney Stinson in How I Met Your Mother, or more likely Chandler Bing in Friends... The one whom nobody knows what he does for a living. So lets clarify that for good: my role consists in explaining to small and large businesses the benefits of promoting their offering in the search results provided by Microsoft search engine, Bing.

I personally find the whole world of search engines fascinating. They are at the forefront of the technology with Artificial Intelligence, connected devices, Virtual learning machines, big data... But more importantly, search engines are a data base of intents, as John Battelle once coined it, and this is the reason why the Curator of the TED conference's book is on next to my pillow. It indeed democratised the concept of the long tail and its application to commerce, whereby there is an uneven distribution of intents with a high volume of asks for a small number of topics, and then a high number of topics where the asks are small to marginal. So when some businesses fight for the most demanded and therefore disputed products from the head of the diplodocus, some like Amazon built their success by focusing on the dispersed yet unmet needs of the tail. The same dynamics apply to search... and it is fascinating to consider what the majority thinks (or search for), but also to explore the depth of thoughts that human beings are capable of. This is a passion that I try to share and expose in my public speaking or classes.

Expiation.

I have indeed been giving some lectures in different universities in the past few years, teaching aspiring marketers on the opportunities, challenges and best practices of online advertising. It is always an honour to be able to share some of your learnings and maybe to inspire a few. The next book, the Manifesto of the Communist Party, is a direct consequence of my return to the school benches. Inspired by all this academic brain juice I once opened one of these numerous boxes in which you store your manuals and other class notes in a vain hope that one day you will need them. Under the heavy layer of dust was a few books that the Teenager Cedric planned to read to be better informed, cooler, smarter, hairier...

Marx and Engels' foundational essay was amongst them, and I decided to save their beards from the moths. I have since dived into this classic only to realise how modern it was. Bar a few obsolete or outdated terms, the concepts and associated utopia remain so current that it is inspiring. I am personally disheartened with politics as the content of programmes have lost their elevations. There is no more philosophical stance in the choices you make, you now elect the less worst within a single school of thought which has imposed itself as the norm: liberalism and individualism. Nowadays, politicians do not debate, they denigrate. Parties are just variances of the same flavour. I find this pauperisation of the public thinking damageable. After all, politics and search engines have that in common, it is not good for anyone to have a single view as it is necessarily partial, in all the sense of the terms.

Recognition.

The last book is a gift from a dear friend of mine... And I am not sure what to find in this dairy book. But as a French who is about to be even more immersed in different cultures, figuring out where to put my hand on some cheese, literally or rhetorically, is certainly an asset. I look forward to devouring these pages...

And I want to seize this opportunity to thank my friends and my cherished ones for their past, current and future support. I love them. I love you. And I do not say it enough, so let me write it down. That may be the introduction of my above-mentioned new chapter...

"You are a man of heart!"
"Sometimes", replied Phileas Fogg quietly, "when I have the time."
Jules Verne (1828-1905)

Big mountains through a viewfinder

I have already mentioned Sebastien Montaz and his picturesque work on this blog. This mountain guy has just invested time in a massive photo shoot to create a giant 3.15 Gigapixel picture by stitching 297 high resolution photos together. This picture includes every peak from the Argentière glacier near Chamonix... You can start navigating that picture below, but clicking through this link will allow you to be pin-pointed to a few "details" a la Where is Wally? A pair of skiers here, a climber there... Explore!

But why?

Credit photo: Caro Willis via Flickr

Precision questioning: the joy of parenthood.

As you may know, I am the lucky dad of a 3-year old boy. At that age, after the so-called Terrible 2's, it is supposed to be a delight to raise a child: as he is old enough to interact and understand, but still sufficiently young to avoid demonstrating rebellious attitudes. On paper, the ideal. but what this paper's small prints hide from you is that there is still some maintenance to that presumably well-oiled machine. And the keyword is "why?".

Kids want to make sense of their surroundings, of the words, of the people, of philosophical topics and astronomical phenomenons, of the weather, of the behaviour and social conventions... Each of these items is like an endless Russian doll: you start by answering a first seemingly easy question, and it triggers another one, that will raise another one, and another one... After the twentieth interrogations your rational adult brain is no longer able to get the thread of thoughts that led you to answer "why clouds are white?" whilst the conversation started on "what was a can opener?"!

Along the process, you try your best to provide answers that make sense, and keep you on the glorious altar your child puts you on. You are the source of truth. You are a well of wisdom. You are the equal to Aesop, Plato, Homer, Nietzsche, Kant... At least in their eyes, and you certainly don't want to contradict them (it feels so good). But frankly, sometimes their questioning skills are such that you reach the end of your knowledge, and most likely the end of your patience. And suddenly the answer gets less elaborate: "why is the..." he says, "because it's like that!" you interrupt.

Educational non-sense.

If children ask a ton of questions, my personal burden tallies to two tons... That is the curse of raising a bi-cultural kid. Two cultures, two languages, twice the fun. You not only need to handle the Why's but also the Pourquoi's. He clearly dissociates both cultures, so he naturally wants to make sense of twice more things but, to paraphrase Dr. Zeus' Oh, The Places You'll Go!, "sometimes they won't, because they don't".

Let's take the example of this famous nursery rhyme:

Hey diddle diddle,
The Cat and the fiddle,
The Cow jumped over the moon,
The little Dog laughed to see such fun,
And the Dish ran away with the Spoon

You have to reckon that such a infantine text, beyond the rhetorical rhymes is a gold mine for questioning children. How can a cow jump over the moon? Why is the dish running? Why our do plates do not run? Why a fiddle? Why? Why? WHYYYYY?

As a French, I have been educated with La Fontaine's fables and have learned that there is often a moral to what seems to be a light hearted text. So I looked hard at the text trying to find some sense myself from these lines. And since I could not, I started to check between the lines.

A long time ago, Bruno Bettelheim's The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales opened my eyes to the hidden Freudian messages interwoven in Grimm's stories. So as my son was half asleep in his bed, I sat behind his bed, put a pipe in my mouth, and started to say "hmm, hmm...". Diddle? An alteration to Dildo, a phallic symbol? Maybe. The cat? Ok, that is the female symbol, that is straight forward. The cow over the moon? A sexist reference to the providing mother, and the happiness of breast-feeding? Well... I was clearly on the wrong path, and was glad that this thought process had only occurred in my brain and not verbalised to the now fast-asleep child. That would have pushed me down the altar for good.

To regain my pride, I looked at other cultural references and even cryptology. To no avail. Were these lines an acrostic, like The Beatles' Lucy in the Sky with Diamond song? No luck. In the end, I resolved myself to conclude that it may just be one of the famous British non-sense. That was not totally fulfilling an outcome, but quite handy. I could indeed blame my host culture for teaching non-sense to generations of future Eton graduates. Because of course on the other side of the Channel, obviously, we are way better. Aren't we?

Absurdity united

My mind is filled with French songs gathered during my own childhood, but frankly my Why-years are so far behind that I have not questioned or even listed to their lyrics for a very long time. But doing so, it revealed that absurdity was a shared value in nursery times:

Maman, les petits bateaux
French lyrics	English translation
Maman, les petits bateaux	Mum, do small boats
Ont-ils des jambes?	Have legs?
Mais oui mon gros beta	Of course, you silly,
S'ils n'en avaient pas,	If they hadn't,
Ils ne marcheraient pas!	They couldn't walk!

Not only is the child almost bullied by his mother, but seriously what does that song mean? Why would a mother assert that boats are legged? Why? Why? I was suddenly regressing to my 3rd year on Earth. And my convictions collapsed.

If our childhood is nothing but nonsense, how are we supposed to build our psyche? Maybe our children are right in questioning us... After all, the French idiom says that the "truth comes out of children's mouth". So from now on, I give my little one an even greater attention when he turns back to me with his interrogations. I am more patient with the real Plato of the household.

Finding the line, your line.

These days I feel somehow melancholic, missing the mountains and their exhilarating outdoor life that goes with (and probably a tiny tad of the childhood years during which I experienced it last). I am seeing myself slowly drifting in a complacent urban life.

"Metro. Boulot. Dodo." as the French triptych summarises it: Tube, Work, Sleep... Nothing to get too excited about you have to admit. But I am convinced that there is, deep beneath the greyed out city routine, some lines that take you right back to who you truly are, to where your roots are...

I loved the poem and how fellow Mountain Dweller, Sebastien Montaz-Rosset, visualised it. Enjoy the weight of the words and the lightness of the images.

Revelation, a Visual Poem. from sebastien montaz-rosset on Vimeo.

Assimilation?

It is now blatantly obvious that the regularity of my posts have reduced. There are many reasons to that situation, amongst which the delightful arrival of a little one, three years ago, who has since been playing a growing part in my daily workload. But that is not all.

Walking in the valley.

In fact, I started that blog with the conviction that as a foreigner in an alien country I would find tons of topics to talk about. That I would be able to endlessly dissert on the cultural disparities between my referential scheme and the civilisation I was now living in. And it has indeed been for years a great source of inspiration.

But I reckon that nowadays I am less and less surprised by the Brits. It is maybe what people call assimilation: I have blended in, with my British-born son playing the mixologist role by naturally seeding insights on an on-going basis. It feels that I am no longer looking at this society from the outside, or from up there as I say in the above description... I am now in the valley, amongst the passer-by's down here. For god sake, I had to roast some beef on Sunday last week, that sums it all!

But don't get me wrong though, I am still not citizen of her royal majesty and have no intention to become one at this point of time. There are still many of these French/British paradoxes that remain true to who I am. I am still puzzled by some idioms and in turn my French sometimes catch my friends off-guard.

And yet something has changed.

Euro pudding.

In fact, I watched this week one of my favourite movies, Cedric Klapisch's L'auberge Espagnole (i.e. Pot Luck or Euro Pudding). For anyone who has lived an Erasmus-like experience, the one-year adventures of a French economy graduate student in a Barcelonan multicultural flat-share will resonate.

But Cedric Klappish and I share more than a first name. Many of his lines in his filmography find a positive echo in my own life. I quoted him in my wedding ceremony for instance. And there was a sentence in L'Auberge Espagnole which really encapsulate how I probably feel today. Loosely translated that would sound like:

When you arrive in a city, you see streets in perspective. Lines of meaningless buildings. Everything is unknown, virgin territory. Here we are. And later we will have walked these streets. We will have reached the vanishing point. We will have gotten to know the buildings. We will have lived stories with people. When we will have lived in that city, walked this street ten, twenty, a thousand times... At that point of time the city will be yours, because we will have lived it.

L’auberge espagnole, Xavier.

A mountain dweller in the Washington valleys

A couple years back I had the opportunity to discover Seattle on business, and have since returned quite few times in that city. But I knew there was more to the North-Western region than the SeaTac airport and taxis commuting between my hotel and the company's offices. So this summer, I decided to dwell a little longer than usual in the Washington state, and to discover the Ocean surrounding the liberal harbour of Seattle. If I had been amused by some traits of the Space Needle's home (the passion for salmon, the doubtful kindness, the SUV contradictions, etc.), the Evergreen State brought its lot of interesting cultural encounters...

Size definitely matters.

Yes, let's start with the blatantly obvious. It is so overused a cliche to describe the US as the country of superlatives. Everything is the "world best...", "world #1...", etc. That is at times laughable but one thing you cannot deny is of course that everything is big. Feet, portions, roads, people, drinks, cars... The caravans are so huge that it is not uncommon to see one of these trailers actually pulling a 4x4. You read me right, Dutch reader of these lines, on the other side of the pond, mobile homes are towing the car, and not the smallest! That is probably the so-call American Dream for you, our European summer migrators who every summer cross the French territory, looking for a sunburn...

As said, everything is oversized. Even roadkills are! No flatten hedgehog or mouse on the tarmac of Washington roads. The smallest animal I have seen on the side of the road was a deer... A deer! I mean how can you even run over such a beast? Probably not with a Renault Twingo. But that is probably more understandable when you put yourself in the shoes, or behind the wheels I shall say, of one of the locals... Were you driving one of these giant pick-ups that dwarfs the most ostentatious SUV in Chelsea, it would be hard for you too to see what happens below 2 meters from the ground. They cannot do things small, I tell you... So beware when you cross the road!

Into the "wild".

During our trip, we spend some time touring the stunning Olympic Peninsula. After the great British summer we had in London, we had to extend the pleasure... However the name of this region is not connected to athletic performances, but to the presence of an eponymous Mount Olympus in the middle of its national park. That Park is the host of a rainforest, several Indian reserves, magnificent lakes and equally surprisingly deserted beaches. No wonder this region is inspiring authors of all styles.

Hurricane Ridge for instance is coming straight out of a Disney movie. After a good hour drive uphill amongst enormous trees on a beautiful road, you finally arrive at a pass from which start walks and other alpine wanderings... But rapidly you are welcome by the local "wildlife", with elks crossing your way, giant black grouse singing whilst chipmunks drum the beat... You think I overdo it? Not at all. It was so surreal that we were expecting any minute to see a props man jumping out of a bush and shouting "You've been pranked!".

On the other hand, when you walk along the wild beaches of the western side of the peninsula, you feel you have landed in another type of literature. An eery one. Snow White has bitten the apple and the evil witch is enjoying her supremacy by the sea. The rugged landscapes, bathed in creepy fog and cluttered by rotting log trees were not without reminding me Tolkien's Mordor. I was once pretty sure I saw the shaddow of a troll in the woods, unless that was a pupil walking back from school... That is also possible since, as I eluded to it earlier, the locals are not the smallest beings either. Anyway the eery views of that area inspired  Stephenie Meyer for her bloody trilogy.

Stretching to greatness?

This leads me to my third literature reference... The town where vampires and werewolves supposedly fall in love with girls a lot younger than them (a few centuries younger... Is that legal or should we report this idyll?), Forks proved that the principles outlined by Philip Kotler in his marketing bible have been well assimilated. "Brand stretching" is about using an established brand name in order to introduce unrelated products. Well, the following pictures speak for themselves (click for full screen view):

Arguably that is a bit too much, but had you lived in that same tiny little village before the books' release and seen an influx of +600% in tourists, you too would have probably jumped on the bandwagon and taken these novels as a blessing. Because frankly outside the blockbuster reference, Forks really epitomises the concept of "uninterestingness". The problem, however, is that once you embrace that gorry kitsch, you cannot avoid but seeing vampires everywhere, let alone in medical notifications or native artefact's (is that me or that totem has got pretty sharp teeth???):

Depressive back country?

I seem to be a bit harsh with Forks, but do not let that anomaly derail my overall take on that beautiful region well-managed by the Quileult tribe. We loved hanging around at La Push and watch the sun set on the sacred rocks. That was even a poetic conclusion to that part of our trip, because we then headed South to Oregon and had to drove through less enthusiastic neighbourhoods. If the wild beaches were eluding to a literary devastation, further down it is a lot more literal. Aberdeen in front of all. Besides a river and the "Highland Golf Club" at its outskirt, that town has little to compare with its charming Scottish cousin. The rest is indeed pretty much despair, ruins, closed-down shops... This was home for Kurt Cobain, and frankly you may assume that it was in itself a source of inspiration for the grunge movement!

The logging industry which pulled the regional economy for decades is slowing down nowadays. Smaller towns are drained out in favour of Seattle or Portland, the two urban poles in that part of the country. Although often compared as eternal enemies, the two cities have got a lot in common. As I was saying in introduction, they are liberal harbours in the middle of what is often depicted as the western redneck America. If Canadian proudly sew their flag on their backpack, Seattleites and Portlanders state their beliefs directly on their skin. I am impressed by the amount of ink people carry on their skin around there. Could that be to ensure that people do not see the original colour of their neck?


Anyway... I really enjoyed discovering that region which surprised me in many ways. I was promised rainfall and greeneries. If we indeed saw as much emeralds as last year, not a single drop of rain came to refresh the scenery, which clearly contrasts with our drenched Irish holidays. I liked the possibility to sneak away from the urban jungle and to dive into the rainforest. In light of my origins, I also loved hikking in Mount Rainier, its reflective lakes and its blossoming meadows. I am pretty sure at this stage that with such a description of these alpine surroundings you are expecting blonde Maria coming out of the evergreen woods and complement my list of highlights with a "...Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens; Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens; Brown paper packages tied up with strings; These are a few of my favorite things...", but I don't care. No matter how unlikely Seattle may sound as a summer holiday destination, it is now in my list of recommendations... As long as you can walk around on 2-meter stilt, of course!


To read further:

• A mountain dweller on the Copacabana Beach
• A mountain dweller in the Great Lake valley
• A mountain dweller in the Washington Lake valley
• A mountain dweller in the Þingvellir valley
• A mountain dweller in the valley of Kerry

And some more pictures of that trip: