Martin Karl Vanags
Join business owners and leaders, entrepreneurs, community and economic development professionals in learning about the latest trends impacting your future today. Today, more than ever, technology, the green economy, leadership and human performance intersect. Gaining knowledge and wisdom in these ares make for a well-informed leader. Every Thursday I curate these topics as well as articles about the quirky and fun things in life (think music, food and drink).
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The Main Thing: The Benevolent Universe: How Positive Expectation Creates Resilience and Flow When faced with a sudden 20% budget cut, I didn’t spiral into panic—instead, I wondered: “What if this constraint leads to something better?” This shift to the “benevolent universe” perspective transformed a potential crisis into a catalyst for innovation. My latest blog post explores how this psychological orientation—believing that positive outcomes are possible within challenges—creates the foundation for resilience and flow states. You will find five evidence-based practices to cultivate this perspective in your life and organization, backed by fascinating neuroscience research on how positive expectation literally rewires our brains for optimal performance. This isn’t about naive optimism—it’s about maintaining trust that effort leads to outcomes, even when the path forward isn’t clear. Focus on AI -- Resilience can be Attractive Cities across the United States are turning to artificial intelligence to address increasingly complex emergency management challenges caused by climate change. In the article, 'Hard, unglamorous work' now can mean AI success later, city leaders say (by Chris Teale-RouteFifty), we see that a city like Port St. Lucie, Florida, is exploring AI to track weather patterns after experiencing unprecedented back-to-back hurricanes. Boise, Idaho, is developing AI systems to predict, prevent, and respond to wildfires by optimizing resource deployment. These initiatives build upon existing AI applications in government operations, with Alexandria, Virginia's chief performance officer, noting cities are just at the "tip of the iceberg" of AI's potential. Why this Matters: Integrating AI into municipal disaster planning not only represents a significant opportunity for resilience but also for economic growth. Economic development professionals can position their communities to take advantage of this growth. Cities with sophisticated emergency management systems incorporating AI will increasingly have competitive advantages in business attraction and retention, particularly in regions facing escalating climate-related hazards. Take Action: The need for workforce training in the field of AI for emergency management is urgent and undeniable. As an economic development professional, you can facilitate partnerships between local government, emergency management departments, and regional technology companies to develop customized AI solutions for your community's disaster vulnerabilities. "Claude's Thinking Revealed" Anthropic has developed breakthrough methods called "circuit tracing" and "attribution graphs" that allow researchers to see inside large language models like Claude for the first time, revealing how these AI systems make decisions. In the article, Anthropic scientists expose how AI actually ‘thinks’ — and discover it secretly plans ahead and sometimes lies, (Michael Nuñez - Venture Beat) neuroscience-inspired techniques show that LLMs are more sophisticated than previously understood – Claude plans when writing poetry by identifying rhyming words before starting a line, uses a universal concept network that functions across different languages, and sometimes works backward from suggested answers instead of just reasoning forward. Why This Matters: This advancement in AI transparency represents a transformative opportunity for economic developers. By building communities that develop expertise in AI interpretability, we can attract companies specializing in AI safety, auditing, and governance. These emerging fields not only ensure the responsible deployment of AI but also present significant economic opportunities, as they will grow alongside AI adoption, creating new jobs and fostering innovation. Take Action: It's crucial to establish partnerships between local universities and AI companies to create research programs specifically focused on AI interpretability and safety. Equally important is the development of specialized workforce training initiatives that prepare technical professionals for AI transparency and auditing careers. How data centers and the energy sector can sate AI's hunger for power (McKinsey Insights) tells us how the surge in data centers driven by AI adoption creates unprecedented electricity demands. US data center power needs are expected to triple by 2030, consuming 11-12% of total US power compared to today's 3-4%. This growth requires over $500 billion in data center infrastructure investment, constraining the power ecosystem. In markets like Northern Virginia, power access for new data centers can take over three years, creating a fundamental tension between hyperscalers' rapid expansion timelines and the much slower pace of power infrastructure development. Why this Matters: This growing power constraint presents challenges and opportunities for economic developers as communities compete to attract data center investments. Regions with robust power infrastructure, available electricity capacity, and streamlined permitting processes will gain significant competitive advantages in the AI economy. Take Action: Conduct a comprehensive assessment of your region's power infrastructure capacity, transmission constraints, and projected generation mix to identify competitive advantages or limitations for data center development. Create a task force that brings together economic developers, utility providers, and workforce training institutions to develop coordinated strategies for accelerating power infrastructure improvements. Consider innovative public-private partnerships to build renewable energy projects that align with hyperscalers' sustainability commitments and provide competitive advantages in attracting these investments. Other Articles of Interest this week: Economic Development-- Princeton analysis: Killing IRA’s EV tax credits would decimate US EV, battery manufacturing by Jordyn Grzelewski | Tech Brew -- Repealing the EV tax credits in the Inflation Reduction Act could decimate the nascent EV and battery manufacturing industries in the US, according to a recent analysis by Princeton University’s Zero Lab. Something You Should Read: Small Town, Big Ideas: How Rural Innovation Defies Urban Assumptions Innovation and entrepreneurship flourish in unexpected places, with small towns and rural counties often outperforming larger cities on a per-capita patent basis. While large urban centers produce more total patents due to sheer population size, communities like Princeton, NJ and Morristown, NJ generate far more patents per resident. Analysis of patents published between 1976-2010 revealed that in the top 100 most prolific towns, only two had populations over 150,000, with the top ten averaging just 45,000 residents. Success factors include proximity to universities, high resident educational attainment, regional connectivity to larger metros, and intentional ecosystem building by local leaders who foster dense networks and community connections despite geographic spread. Economic developers in smaller communities should recognize that innovation doesn't require urban density – it requires strategic ecosystem building focused on connections, talent, and institutional anchors. Rural and small-town economic development strategies that embrace innovation potential rather than defaulting to traditional industrial recruitment can yield outsized returns on investment. When successful, these innovation ecosystems create lasting economic resilience through high-value jobs and business formation. Even with fewer resources than major metros, smaller communities can create significant competitive advantages through specialized knowledge clusters and stronger social capital networks that foster collaboration and trust. In this article, you will learn how to identify and strengthen connections to anchor institutions in your region—universities, research hospitals, or innovative companies—that can drive knowledge spillover and talent attraction. According to the author of this article, if you can create regular convening opportunities that build the "collision density" needed for innovation networks even without physical density, your community can prosper. Most importantly, combat the "small town mindset" by celebrating local innovation champions and connecting them to national networks that can accelerate their impact. To learn more about small communities' impact on innovative ecosystems, read the article or listen to the podcast here. Overheard : “Resilience is accepting your new reality, even if it’s less good than the one you had before. You can fight it, you can do nothing but scream about what you’ve lost, or you can accept that and try to put together something that’s good.”
― Elizabeth Edwards Be Still and Think About This (or Not) We hear a lot about mindfulness and meditation these days. There genuinely are benefits to meditation. I have been practicing meditation on and off for many years now. I am not as consistent as I would like, but there is never a bad time to start a practice, even if you haven’t done it for a while. It’s not difficult, but many people do it once or twice, announcing that they have too much difficulty sitting still for a long period of time and abandoning the idea. However, meditation experts and teachers will tell you that you can meditate for very short periods and still get benefits. I started meditating using an app. The first one I used was Headspace, which is one of the most popular ones available. Today, I am using an app called The Way with Henry Shukman. Find the one you like and try to stick with it. To help you, I found this article highlighting the best mediation apps. Pick one and practice your mediation here. They call me Passive (but not Aggressive) I am unsure you have noticed, but much of my writing is in the ‘passive voice.’ I’ve been told that it results from my governmental and public administration training. Bureaucrats tend to write in the passive voice. When I use the Grammarly tool, I am constantly called out for my passive voice. The opposite of the passive voice in writing is the ‘Active’ voice. It is more direct. The passive voice makes for longer clunkier sentences. It is the difference between “I want a hazy Indian Pale Ale” versus, “An Indian Pale Ale is wanted by me.” I try to fix this as often as I can, but for some reason, it is difficult for me to see the difference in some of my writing. This article may help me and you if you have the same writing habit.
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Digital Clutter Is a problem for many people. According to the article linked below, 77% of people say that unread emails and texts impact their personal lives. The authors' survey results provide interesting details about email management.
Are you a "Zero Inbox" person, or do you not care if there are lingering unanswered emails from months or even years ago in your inbox?
I worked with someone who rarely, if ever, deleted an email. Every email she received was either read or not, but it never moved from her inbox. I get chills just thinking about it! I get hundreds of emails daily, but I rarely have more than a couple dozen or fewer emails at the end of the day.
If you want to learn more, read the article, which includes a few tips on managing your digital clutter.
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Martin Karl Vanags
Join business owners and leaders, entrepreneurs, community and economic development professionals in learning about the latest trends impacting your future today. Today, more than ever, technology, the green economy, leadership and human performance intersect. Gaining knowledge and wisdom in these ares make for a well-informed leader. Every Thursday I curate these topics as well as articles about the quirky and fun things in life (think music, food and drink).