If knowledge is power, digital technology is democratizing it by distributing that power to billions of computer or smartphone users. Rapidly growing internet connectivity is removing barriers like cost, time, geographic isolation and expertise that traditionally restricted the flow of information to a select few.
Digital tech can now connect users to ideas and movements from all over the world. And it can take on basic, time-consuming analytical tasks, facilitating the ongoing evolution of the office from digital production facility to creative space.
A look at these principles, which underpin some of San Francisco tech’s most beloved products and user experiences, reveals how even seemingly basic technology can expand the breadth and depth of information on hand for those who need it.
DIY Zen
While the idea of meditation appeals to many — and the mental health benefits of clearing the mind are evident — misconceptions about what the practice entails and difficulty accessing classes act as barriers to widespread adoption.
Entrepreneur Michael Acton Smith experienced those challenges himself when, as a stressed-out serial entrepreneur, a friend recommended meditation.
“Ten minutes of meditation?” he recalled thinking in a 2019 interview with Inc. “I could get another six emails out! I saw it as a little ‘woo-woo.’”
It wasn’t ‘woo-woo’ — it was neuroscience.”
But after trying it out and doing some research, Smith realized “it wasn’t ‘woo-woo’ — it was neuroscience.” He went on to build Calm, an app designed to make meditation accessible to the masses. Smith now serves as the company’s CEO.
Calm provides meditation audio created under Head of Mindfulness Tamara Levitt (who holds one of the more interesting job titles in Silicon Valley), turning any quiet space with an internet connection into a meditation studio. Meanwhile, Director of Science Jennifer Huberty incorporates the principles of digital intervention — using technology to guide behavioral changes — into Calm’s content.
In recent years, Calm has also expanded its content to include bedtime stories to assist with sleep, guided body movement exercises and even relaxing music. Both the meditation content and app design have won praise from behavioral scientists and UX experts alike, and earned it the Center for Humane Technology’s title as the “World’s Happiest App.”
Quit Browsing Providers and Get to Work
For a startup building B2B tools and services, a contract with a Fortune 500 company can make or break its business. But the process of finding and responding to traditional “requests for proposals” can take months to turn around. Assessing those proposals requires in-depth knowledge of the technology marketplace and relationships within it. Meanwhile, according to some experts, the RFP landscape is sprinkled with disingenuous briefs acting as covers for procurement decisions that have already been made, making it even harder for smaller businesses trying to get off the ground.
Of course, all this makes the situation ripe for disruption-minded entrepreneurs. In 2015, serial founder and Al Gore partner Joel Hyatt started Globality to level the playing field using artificial intelligence. The result is Glo, an AI assistant that guides a project through the procurement phase. Glo asks procurement professionals questions about the project they’re working on and synthesizes the answers into a project brief. The technology then matches the project against the data it has on all service providers in its network, assigning each candidate a “relevancy score.”
Every part of the procurement value proposition becomes better if it is part of something bigger.”
“The score is partly determined by evidence that is easily visible to the user,” AI Group Manager Pierce Freeman says in a company video. “But the real power of our AI lies in evidence that’s not visible, such as complex relationships and correlations from past projects across millions of data points that uncover latent connections and further inform the relevancy score.”
Globality says its technology does the legwork of sifting through service providers, which turns procurement teams into advisors with more room to focus on overall strategy.
“Without AI-enabled strategic sourcing, CPOs will continue dealing with the foundational cracks in legacy procurement technology that continues to fall short of services spend and complex intent,” wrote Keith Hausmann, the company’s chief revenue officer, in a series of blog posts last month. “Every part of the procurement value proposition becomes better if it is part of something bigger.”
Home Dermatology
In 2013, dermatologist Dr. David Lortscher saw a problem in his field. Patients were driving up to two hours to see him at his New Mexico clinic, seeking costly prescriptions for acne and anti-aging treatments rarely covered by health insurance. In a 2017 interview with Entrepreneur, Lortscher recalled treating an acne patient who thought dermatologists were only available “for rich people.”
That led Lortscher to found Curology, which brings principles of telemedicine to acne and anti-aging skin treatment. Users sign up by answering a few questions about their skin and uploading three photos of their face. Curology then formulates a prescription tailored to the individual’s needs.
The technology behind Curology is simpler than one might think. Dermatologists only need a few data points to create customized skincare products for any given person. So all Curology does is deliver data and photos to the medical professionals it works with — there’s no need for AI wizardry on the back end.
I wanted there to not feel like there’s any barriers.”
Recognizing that access to dermatological care is already complicated, Curology built its user experience on a web browser, rather than a downloadable app.
“We started doing an HTML5 web app,” Lortscher told TechCrunch back in 2016, when the company raised a $15 million Series B. “We’re really happy we did because people who did want to sign up for this thing, they don’t want to go through the process of downloading an app first, they want to click right through the browser to get started. I wanted there to not feel like there’s any barriers.”
Digital tech can create new avenues to access information, either by introducing human expertise into the lives of those who could benefit from it or leveraging data that would have otherwise remained hidden.
