Taking a Timeout

Dean: Welcome to Cloudlandia, Mr. Sullivan.

Dan: Mr. Jackson.

Dan: It's good to talk to you.

Dean: Nice to talk to you. Welcome.

Dan: Hi. I see you the other day, but there really wasn't a time for personal discussion when there were 496 other people.

Dean: That's right. That was good.

Dan: Yeah, it was good. It was a good end of the year thing for Joe and kickoff.

Dean: So he's gone.

Dan: Yep.

Dean: So we should say so for listeners. Our good friends and collaborator, Joe Polish is off on a one year sabbatical and so far, so good. I haven't heard yet. He's. I know he's starting off in Florida and doing a, I think five straight days of meditation. He's doing a meditation workshop. So that's great. You know, what a great way to start the, you know, the reset.

Dan: Yeah. Have you ever done anything like that?

Dean: No, I have not. I have some friends who've done silent retreats, like done, you know, seven day silent retreat. I don't know. Have you done anything like that?

Dan: Well, here's the question. I think both of us share a particular capability that we're good on our own.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: In other words, I can be days by myself.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: And I don't feel disconnected as a result of being by myself, so.

Dean: Right.

Dan: I just wonder. Yeah. And you know, and there are certain people that I really enjoy being with. Babs, in my case. And yeah, you have your special, special people. But, you know, I can always find things to keep my mind busy and interested and. And I've tried. You know, I've done one day meditation retreats and I found them kind of boring. Just, you know, the thing was that I was supposed to be by myself and I was. But I was just doing the normal things that do when I'm by myself while other people were meditating. So. Yeah. And I find as I get older, I'm becoming more and more selected just what I will allow myself to be connected to. Mm.

Dean: Yeah. You know, I've discovered like, I have had a few days here over the holidays where it was just me and the. I have found a channel on YouTube that is 10 hours of a crackling fireplace and Dan, that has become so meditative in a way that I can't explain. You know, it goes. Hi, I. One of my favorite ever along the loop and hours.

Dan: Yeah, it's a ten hour loop.

Dean: Ten hour loop of crackling fire.

Dan: That's really good because.

Dean: Oh yeah. No,

Dan: they used to have it on cable, you know, when I used to watch television and it was on cable, but it Was like a five minute loop. You could tell after about five minutes.

Dean: Oh, this is. I don't know that. Oh, that's funny.

Dan: I've seen that, I've seen that sequence

Dean: before, you know, the crackling, you know, the sounds of it. But it reminded me so much of circa, let's say 1990, 89. 91. In that era there, the first, early 90s. The Delta Hotel in Meadowvale. Yes, I know 401. Okay.

Dan: Yeah, I know where it is. I know where it is. Yeah.

Dean: Very close to, to Georgetown. Had a fireplace, wood burning fireplace in the lobby.

Dan: Yep, yep.

Dean: And one of my favorite things to do was to go get some magazines or a book and my journal and go to the lobby of the Delta Hotel on a Sunday afternoon and. And I would sit there for hours by the fire just thinking and reading magazines and, and you know, drinking hot chocolate and I. It was just like such a blissful time, you know, in that period. And it, it was so just, you know, I find it meditative. This as kind of reminded me of that, you know, this last discovering this channel now.

Dan: So were you a military kid? I mean, your dad was in the

Dean: Air Force, so only for, just for the first two years. And then my dad got a job with Air Canada. We settled in. We settled in, in Ontario then.

Dan: Yeah, yeah. Because I was in South Korea for two years, you know, working in the army and we had a full family base. So they have an organization in the army which is called mag, and MAG stands for Military Assistance Group. And these individuals work with their counterparts in the. With whatever army they're in. So if it's in Korea, they're working with a South Korean army. So they're not actually interacting with American troops, they're interacting with officers, NCOs, and, you know, the military of the group. And they train the group in American organizational techniques and strategies and everything else. But one of the perks if you're in the MAG is that you get to bring your family with you and you know, when America goes overseas, they bring America with them. So our base, if you didn't look above the top of the wall, where you could clearly see that the mountains there were not American mountains. The rest, if you kept your eyes, you know, didn't look above the wall and you looked around you, it could have been Sioux City, Iowa. You know, it could have been. Could have been anywhere. Could have been a shopping center, bowling alley, you name it, they had a go first everything. And then there were ranch houses, you know, there probably, yeah, 50 rent 50 ranch houses. And this is where the families lived. And so one of the things, I ran the entertainment group there and we had a center which was a theater and I was able to put on plays. And it was probably one of the great entertainment spots, you know, that you could ask for. Because when you put on plays, you would have women, you know, you could put on women and children and so you could have a full cast, you know, like that where. Yeah, ordinary, ordinary army base women, you could get, you could get Red, Red Cross. They didn't have many women in the army at that time, so it would have been sort of. They had Red Cross nearby, so you could get that, but you wouldn't get children. And that was great. But I got to talk to them. And on average these kids who are 14 years old, this has been their seventh, this had been their seventh assignment.

Dan: And two things about that, that was in mainland days. And what I noticed were they were a bit more mature than you would find at home. 14 year old seem more like a 17 or 18 year old. The reason was they had to sever their relationships every two years, move to a new place, get a whole new set of relationships. And if, you know, they might write or drop notes or anything else. And I think that I'm sure that that situation still exists in the modern army. But kids have social media now, so they probably, yeah, they stay totally in touch with everyone they've ever known. So it's probably a real upgrade in the experience of being in a situation where physically you had in the mainland you had to move every two years, but in Cloudlandia you could stay constant with your relationships going back. Yeah, So a very interesting difference. But one of the things I noticed is that they had an ability not to get too deeply involved wherever they were. And they were, you know, they had good manners. Most of them could, you know, talk, you know, really well in conversation and everything. But you had a sense that they had learned how to keep it sort of on the surface, not gonna really too deep. But I expect that's changed now with social media.

Dean: Yeah, I mean, you look at the. I mean, you look at how easy it is to stay in touch. I mean, you look at how far flung our relationships are now, that's pretty amazing. When I think about like really contrasting what was going on in 1989, or

Dan: I'm talking about 1960s, you know, 65 to 67. Yeah.

Dean: So this is a great swath because you're talking about, you know, 20 years even before that. I'm talking in, in then, now we're talking about today, like the difference between 2021 and 1971 or 1967 is, you know, completely the difference. When you think about the, the difference between 1960s and the early 1990s, there's not that much difference. Right. When you really look at that compared to the difference between music and 60s, well, the music was better, but the distribution methods for it were the same,

Dan: you know, I guess because it sort of broke down. You know, I was noticing about five years ago that the best tours of the previous year, the 10 top tours, all the, all the groups or individuals that were on the best tours, the 10 top grossing tours in this United

Dean: States

Dan: had been really popular in the late 60s, early 70s. Yeah, like the, you know, the Stones. Yeah, The Rolling Stones.

Dean: YouTube. Yeah.

Dan: And everything. And the reason is because their, their audience had been a national audience and no singer today can have a national audience. You could, you can have a really big niche audience, but you can't have a national audience.

Dean: Yeah, that's something, isn't it? I mean, that's what I wonder about right now. Like I look at that as. That's a big difference. Right. Because there were, everybody was, there was only one, you know, who was the big talk show. There was only one Edge. Oh, there was, there was only one Ed Sullivan and there was only one American Bandstand and there was only one, you know, Casey Kasem's Countdown. All those things that everybody had a centralized curation that the output was there. Were you only to keep your eye on, you know, half a dozen spouts that all music was coming out of.

Dan: You know, it's really interesting. The leading news commentators in those days, late 60s, early 70s had all made their reputation as war correspondents during the Second World War. Edward Armour, Mike Wallace, Walter Cronkite. Yeah, these had been 25 and 30 year old war correspondents in Europe, in the South Pacific and they had established their, they had established their reputations on radio and then when television came around, they had big audiences that they could plug into right away who had been radio listeners now became TV launchers.

Dean: Well, that's really how they, they approached the news and, and even entertainment then, wasn't it? When they were just kind of taking radio and doing it on television. That's.

Dan: Yeah.

Dean: So that made all the sense in the world.

Dan: Yeah, yeah. I mean it's, it's really, really interesting. And you've talked about, we've had this discussion before about, you know, things that we're talking about little rascals you know.

Dean: Yes.

Dan: That had been one of the first really serialized products in the movies in the 30s, in the 1930s. And they were really. They were really short. I doubt if they were. Any of them were beyond a half hour. You know, they were. Right, maybe 15 minutes, a half hour.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: Whatever they did. But every Saturday in all the movie theaters, it would be part of the feature, whatever, regardless what the featured movie was, you would have the Little Rascals as a. As a. You know, as. As part of your entertainment.

Dean: Right.

Dan: And you were talking about Seinfeld, you know, the selling of all the Seinfeld as a package and how much that was worth. But the Little Rascal still runs. You know, I mean, it's a package. It's a property that still runs. And they're enjoyable. I mean, if you watch them, they're extreme. And they were totally integrated in the 19, 19, 30s, you know. I mean.

Dean: Yes. You know, Darla and Alfalfa.

Dan: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dean: Spanky. The whole gang.

Dan: Yeah, we had the whole gang. And. But it was very, very interesting. And they.

Dean: They.

Dan: They would be into. The Platts are interesting today. I mean, they're.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: I think that they were so popular because they were well written and.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: Actors. The kids were really good. I mean, they really.

Dean: Well, they were kind of like a mini, like in the. In the same vein as the Three Stooges kind of thing. Humor. Yeah, like the mini Stooges in a way, right?

Dan: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And. Yeah. So it's really interesting. But the thing about us today in 2021, because this is the third day into a new year here.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: And I want to ask you about this year because I've noticed something different about the year that I had, and I think that your year was more like my year, that your year was like other people's year. So that's a. We come back to that. But.

Dean: Bookmark.

Dan: Yeah. The. The reason I. I think it's very, very unusual is the vast recorded memory that we have in 2021 of things that had 50 happened 25 years ago, 50 years ago, 100 years ago. Because we have the recordings. We have the. We have the sound recordings, we have the video recordings. And my sense is that that gives you a totally different perspective on the world. The fact that we. We now have these long memories which used to be only passed on by stories. You know, people would tell stories or anything, but with the Internet now, you can go anywhere.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: And. And, you know, I'm completely add. When it comes to The Internet. I go where, where my brain tells me to go. Every two minutes or every minute.

Dean: Yes. Like. Oh, like, like our good friend Dr. Hallowell says, like a toddler at a picnic. That's how we approach the Internet.

Dan: Yeah. And I came across the one yesterday which was really interesting because I'm a World War I was born during World War II, so I've got an attraction to things that are World War II topics and. But the most dangerous weapon that the Germans feared most. Well, that's a great headline. You'd really, really want to know what the Germans feared because everybody feared the German. Everybody feared the Germans. What were they scared of? And it was a thing called Bailey, Bailey Bridges. This is what they were really scared of. And this civil servant with no particular background for it created a bridge that could be carried in people, soldiers, backpacks. And it was like a Lego, it was like Lego that they could come to a stream that was out where the Germans had knocked out a bridge and if it wasn't too deep, in other words, that they could actually clip these parts of the bridge together and within about two or three hours they could put a complete bridge over, let's say a 20 or 30 foot span and then the jeep could go over and then the trucks could go over and they were called Bailey bridges and they could take them back down afterbirds, you know, it was just a one off and it was really, really scary to the Germans because they thought knocking out the bridges would stop the advance of the Americans and the British. This was British. But the Bailey bridges were just, they're like the container box that changed the world trade. You know, it's a very simple thing and all you needed was pliers, you know, you just needed basically pliers to put the thing together. And very, very interesting. But that's the sort of thing I'll come across and I'll say, boy, that's really fascinating. That's really fascinating. I'd never heard about that. Here I am, you know, I'm going on 77. And I said all my World War II explorations I never came. But this was crucial. This was really crucial. This. You could put a bridge anywhere pretty well, you know, and the soldiers could carry it in their backpacks or it could be carried in the back of the truck or something like that. They didn't need engine, they didn't need engineers, they didn't need any specialists.

Dan: They knew how to put up a bridge. Daily bridge. Yeah, there you go.

Dean: Well, that's, I love things like that. Like in Isolation. When you start to think about the impact that one simple innovation can have, you know?

Dan: Mm.

Dean: And now we now kind of take it for granted.

Dan: I have to give myself credit because I remembered what I wanted to remember. Okay.

Dean: Okay. So, perfect.

Dan: I got a really great. I got a great email from Trend on New Year's Eve, you know, just really grateful. And it's been a year of extraordinary change for everybody. And I was sitting there pondering afterwards, and I said, my. My year from. If I look at the last nine months, it's only different from any other year before in terms of my medium of communication. And I've heard the only thing that changed over the last year is that instead of doing in person workshops, I did zoom workshops.

Dean: Yes.

Dan: Which I had already been doing for other, you know, for other purposes. I'd already. So it wasn't something new that I had to learn. I just had. It was the only thing left to actually use, and I did that. But when I look at how I organize my days, my weeks, my quarters, what my projects were, is exactly 20. 20 was exactly the same as the year before. It's just that probably 30% more productive because I didn't travel.

Dean: Well, that is what I found, too. That's exactly right. Like that, you know, we're close. 10 months now since. I mean, literally the last place I was was. Was in Phoenix, Chicago.

Dan: Oh, in Phoenix, right.

Dean: It was in Scottsdale. Yeah.

Dan: And Scottsdale at the Boulders.

Dean: That's right. And. Yeah. So that. But, you know, you look at how adaptable everybody became, and I just. I look at it now, and it's like having a jet. We've talked about it. That that's really what these zoom capabilities are. It's like having a jet that you can be wherever you want to be and invite people. Invite people in. So I just. Look at that, man. Just so amazing to be in this early days of Cloudlandia, you know, being where we're at, the fully mature. It's open. It's open for business now, you know, and we are really at the. At the early stages here. I'm just so happy about it.

Dan: Yeah. But I just want to put two pieces of information together because, you know, we were on the. I love marketing the other day, and there were various talks about tremendous, you know, stress that people were going through and that people were, you know, and, you know, there were suicides happening and people were, you know, going deep into their addictions and everything like that. And I sat and I listened to it, you know, for about five minutes, and I said, I didn't do anything different. I mean, virtually what I would do by my side. So I'd like to put the Cloudlandia ability, which both of us have enjoyed enormously, but we were prepared for it before with the fact that we're okay on our own.

Dean: Yeah, well, I think that's true, but it's. It's interesting because it's not like we had ever done anything like. Like it wasn't just like some percentage of the things we were doing were. Were being done in zoom or. You know, up until March of this year, I've not done any type of zoom groups, you know, so that being able to adapt or being able to just seamlessly bring things over to that. I think there's. Yeah, that. That was just completely fit right in our wheelhouse, you know. Mm.

Dan: Mm.

Dean: Which is.

Dan: I think, well, part of us, both of us. Our product is a conceptual product. It's not a physical product, so it's a conceptual. And that lends itself extremely well to virtual. Virtual communication. And the other thing is that our concepts are sort of modular concepts. They build on each other.

Dean: Yes.

Dan: So, yeah.

Dean: And they intertwine. I mean, there. There are concepts amplify, you know, each other's concepts, too. That's really. When people are. Are using them in combination. That's a really. That's a really powerful thing.

Dan: Yeah. And so I'm just wondering because, you know, it's not that I'm unsympathetic to people, but I am sort of unsympathetic to the pain of people I don't know, because I tend to be sympathetic to the people I know. But a thought occurred to me is that neither of us sells pain.

Dean: Right.

Dan: We sell gain.

Dean: Yes, that's true. Yes. Shortcuts.

Dan: Yeah. And I kind of, you know, there, like the topic, you know, the speaker and the topic. I love marketing. That may have been interesting to me, you know, maybe 45 years ago. It's not a topic that's really interesting to me right now. It's like taking your pain and turning it into a product. You know, it's like taking your. Turning into a product. And I guess there's a period of your life when you, you know, you're interested in that, and there's things to be gained from it. But I'm at a point now where I'm just looking for the next shortcut, as you say. The shortcut.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: And, you know, I want things to be more economical. I want things to be simpler. I want things to have a greater multiplier effect to them. And I'm. I'm really not trying to solve any problem and I'm really not trying to eliminate any particular pain at this point in my life.

Dean: Mm. Yeah. And I think that that's really, you know, this is where we really have the opportunity to create, to literally just embrace the things that we that fit with that. And everybody has that same possibility now. You know, this is why I'm just, man, I just. It, it blows my mind when I start to think about. I've been thinking because as I shared with you, I've been kind of taking a multilayered approach to the last, you know, modern civilization through the. Both the American history and the evolutionary history, all of these things. To see the different ways people tell this story of how we got to here, basically. And it's been a fun kind of mental process to think about what's this going to be told 100 years from now? What is this going to. When we look back at 2020, looking at this, the beginning of the migration, you know, where everybody has the, Everybody has a radio station, everybody has the tv, everybody has every, you know, the ability to meet with everybody. I've been, I don't know what. Since you're not really online as much, have you seen the, all the talk about clubhouse now?

Dan: No.

Dean: Okay, so clubhouse is the new social media that is just like, it's got everybody's attention right now. And essentially it's a just a gathering place audio wise. It's like a room that you go into and it's just this discussion. There are people on stage kind of thing having a discussion about something. People can listen in or can ask questions or can participate in the conversation. And it's not recorded. There's no trail of it. It's all happening live right now, real time. And there's, you know, thousands of rooms going on and you are connected with people that you like to follow. I start, I wonder, you know, I think back to what it must have been like, like, you know, in 30 B.C. when the philosophers were, you know, gathering and discussing life. That's maybe the beginning of thinking about your thinking. Right.

Dan: Well, at least recorded that we have the recordings of what they did. Yeah, no, I mean, I mean, my sense is that it's been going on forever, but you didn't have it actually written down. And people would have discussions over things that had happened in other places and before that. So I think what happened there was sort of a, probably a 500 year breakthrough when things were written down and you could transport them from one place to another. And they were ideas. And so, you know, people said, well, that's a really interesting idea. Let's have a discussion group. Let's have a clubhouse meeting. Let's have a clubhouse meeting on this idea. But it's not for prosperity.

Dean: The clubhouses would change. The clubhouses would be wherever the physical gathering was.

Dan: Yeah, yeah. You know, can I tell you what it strikes me. I mean, I. I only have your description of it to. Yeah, introduce me to it. But I think that one thing we want. We want to create new Bodlandia places that Mark Zuckerberg can't know about.

Dean: Right? That's exactly.

Dan: The guys at Google, the guy at Twitter, they can't know about this, so they can't record it. They don't know who's doing it. And there's no predictability about when they're going to happen. And my sense is that it's a human response to being infringed upon.

Dean: And I think. But it's also. Now it's an interesting evolution. Like, now it'll be really interesting to figure out how the. How it'll be used. You know, like, I think when people. What I'm noticing is that there are people who are spending hours and hours and hours just in clubhouse rooms. Right. Keeping a perpetual conversation going so people can jump in and. And do this. And so I was, you know, one of the people who's been doing this a lot is Perry Belcher and Fernando Cruz. Fernando runs one of the big agora divisions. So I recently just joined clubhouse, and I got a notice that Perry had a room going on in a. At a clubhouse. Going on. I popped on. And then they see everybody who comes in and there's, you know, at this point, hundreds of people in this room, and they're talking and, you know, sharing ideas. And then he sees that I came in and, you know, moved me up on. On stage. And then we just had a.

Dan: The stage isn't a real stage. It's a virtual.

Dean: No, it's just. It's a virtual stage. You can see on the. On your app just the headshot of. Of who's there and who's speaking. And so. So he moved me up. Not. Not a video.

Dan: It's just a picture.

Dean: Just a picture, just a representation of this is who's in the room. And then when you're speaking, there's little sort of gray circle, you know, sound waves coming out of your. Emanating from your thing. So you can See who's talking and who's. Who's on stage, and then all the people that are in the room. And, you know, I look at the things. So they, you know, brought me in both, you know, just said nice, you know, glowing things about me. And then all of a sudden, I've got, you know, 280 followers now. My first, you know, 280 people are like, all go to. To follow me. So now if I were to go and start over another clubhouse, those 280 people would say, would be notified that, hey, Dean Jackson and Dan Sullivan started a room. You know, it's an. It's a. And so what. What's very interesting to me is that it's trying to see how this really could go. But I was talking with Perry that we were kind of likening it to live radio is almost really what it is. And so you could imagine that there'd be the kind of thing where you and I could do this in clubhouse and have hundreds of people just listening in if they wanted to, or to ask questions or to participate however it was. But you could. I think that's who's gonna be the winners is scheduling the rooms like you can schedule the program and say, this is what we're doing.

Dan: Yeah, yeah. What I like about it, from what you've told me so far, is that my feeling is that humanity is always much bigger than anything that humanity creates. Okay.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: So there's. And this is not a belief that shared in Silicon Valley, you know, for. As an example, or in Hollywood or mainstream news and everything, that basically. There's an intelligence factor in technology, that the intelligence will exceed that of humanity. And I said, well, not really. I said, you know, given everything that humanity thinks about and everything. Everything that humanity. Let's just treat humanity as a, you know, as a reality in the world, in the universe.

Dean: It's.

Dan: We don't know if it's beyond the world. You know, we don't know if it's beyond this planet. There's no evidence yet that there's any other intelligence out there besides human intelligence. But when you think of all the things that human intelligence deals with, everything that Silicon Valley. Silicon Valley is doing represents like a period at the end of the chapter that human experience is just vastly beyond anything that can be, you know, actually visualized in Silicon Valley, you know, as far as what people talk about. But technology can sort of impose itself.

Dean: Like.

Dan: So if you think about newspapers impose themselves. And then if you wanted the news, you had to get the newspaper. And then radio came along. Then radio came along and all of a sudden newspapers had to move over a little bit. Somebody else wanted to sit on the bench, and it was radio. And then television came along and then 24 hour cable television came along. Then the Internet came along. And so now newspapers are gasping for air because they're getting thinner and thinner because the advertiser saying, you know, it's not such a great place to put your money if you want to get people's attention, you know, and, and, and so my sense is that you had social media, which got up to about 2.5, I think Facebook got up and they're losing customers now because young people aren't going for Facebook. You know, they're not.

Dean: Well, they're all on TikTok and. Yeah, yeah.

Dan: And, you know, if I know young people, they don't like being supervised or watched.

Dean: Right.

Dan: You know, and so my sense is that that's a human quality. We don't like being supervised and watched. We want spaces.

Dean: I'll use spaces.

Dan: In the virtual sense that we're using here is that I want. Unless Mark Zuckerberg wants to come on as himself and have a chat on Clubhouse, I don't want him to have any ability to utilize what's happening in this experience beyond what he personally could get out of it. You know, I wouldn't. Yeah. So. But my, my feeling is that there has been this sense and the Chinese are very much into this, the communist Chinese are very much into this, that you can basically know what people are up to. And my sense is that human beings don't like other people knowing what they're up to.

Dean: Well, I think that's an interesting. I think you're right. I mean, that whole, you know, before, right before Clubhouse really took over the spotlight here, there was a little period of time right around the election when there was a. An alternate Facebook or Twitter medium called Parlor that was starting to get attention where you could, you know, speak without censorship kind of thing. That's really the.

Dan: That'll get bigger. I mean, that. Well, my sense is that there will be. Within 10 years there will be another Google that is an alternative Google. There will be an. Every one of them exists today. There will be an alternative. And part of this will just come out of court cases because there's some major court cases that'll where verdicts will come in in 2021. The big one is Oracle versus Google, or Oracle has the proof that the essential 11,000 lines of coding that really got Google started as a search engine actually Belong to Oracle and.

Dean: Oh really?

Dan: They want to get paid for everything that Google's made on it for the last 20 years because they put in their lawsuit about 15 years ago on this and Google actually approached them to license it and then they got licensing agreement and just took the lines. It's a huge, I mean it's a massive, massive court case. It changes the world. And it's the Supreme Court. It's in front of the Supreme Court right now. Oh, is it really?

Dean: Wow.

Dan: And under the laws of the Constitution, I can't see how Google wins this.

Dean: Wow, that's something I didn't realize that was going on.

Dan: Facebook's got this. Facebook's got the same problem and Twitter's got the same problem. They stole code and if it goes through for Google then it breaks the whole. Yeah. Property. Yeah.

Dean: You just imagine, you know, our, both our desire for, I mean as society we want freedom and we want these things, but we also want them to be free. And you know, it's kind of, it's an interesting, you know, if you take away the profit motive for why, why Google is so great and why Facebook is so great is because it's in their best interest to engage our attention because that's the product. Right. That's how they monetize. So it's in their best interest to make things as, as great as possible. But if it were a non advertising model, if they like what's happening now with Apple changing their privacy policies to cut out tracking, that's going to like have, you know, a huge problem for Facebook advertising. If you can't, if you can't know that, you know who you're tracking is the right to show your ads to somebody based on data that you've been tracking them with. That becomes a big problem for Facebook because now their product is there. So it's kind of, it's a really interesting.

Dan: Well, here's the thing. So I'm looking at big antitrust. This part of this falls under antitrust legislation. And that's where you become so big that competition is no longer possible. That any competition that pops up, you've got a way of, you know, stopping the competition from ever getting a foothold. Okay. You reach a line where, yeah, you don't know, own 100% of the market, but you can prevent competition. And that comes under. And the Constitution is really designed to create competition. If you look at the fundamental purpose of the U.S. constitution, it's more of an economic. It's to have as little politics as possible getting in the way of economic expansion. That's if I could, you know, if I could sum up the US Constitution and sentence. That's what it is. So, so when I look at the big breakups, Standard Oil is the first one that happened in you know, 19. Yeah. You know, the first century. And you had the. And then you had AT&T because basically Ma Bell owned everything and did it. Each of those industries, the oil business and the telephone business used two of them. Each went 10 times. After the breakup. The industries themselves went 10 times because so many new competitors were introduced into the marketplace. Basically things got better and they got cheaper. Things got better and they got cheaper. So I think maybe Google has to convince people that and Facebook and Twitter, they have to convince people that the way they're doing it is always going to be better for the consumer. And the consumers are saying, yeah, but if we had 10 Googles, I bet it would be even better.

Dean: I wonder. Yeah.

Dan: Clubhouse Clubhouses. I mean Clubhouse is in its present form now, but we don't know what it's going to be like, you know, a year from now.

Dean: Yeah, it's already, it's interesting. Everybody's already talking about how are they going to monetize how are they going to monetize this ads, of course. And you know, private.

Dan: Now you do it, you do it through the power of your conversation.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: I mean if, let's say you just follow your natural course over the next year, Dean, when you're on this clubhouse and then you get invited to this clubhouse and get invited to this clubhouse. Well, you know, somebody's got to say this Dean Jackson's really, this Dean Jackson is really an interesting guy. I, I'm just going to go to his, you know, to his website and see what he's about. You just monetize your presence on Clubhouse.

Dean: Yeah. Well, I think that's really what is, that is what's happening. Like you look at it right now. Yeah, I just look there that I'm,

Dan: you know, I mean the last two weeks we've had, last two weeks we've had 10 sign ups from who not how.

Dean: That's awesome.

Dan: Where it's mentioned, I mean we asked what is the, you know, what's the most important factor that got you to sign up? And 10 people, 10 people said it was who, not how. Okay. I'm not making any money on who not out. I mean who not out 10 million copies and I don't make any money on it.

Dean: That's right.

Dan: So I think it's the same principle as we're talking here.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: Well, here's the thing. I immediately looked up after last. Our last Cloudlandia podcast, Beast Burger. I said, is there a Beast Burger in Toronto? And sure enough, it's about five miles from where I am right now, and I can order it and I could get Beast Burger. And it's an existing hamburger place. Yeah, it's been there for 10 years. This is a hamburger place. But they don't make any mention. They just say, you know, they just talk about their beef, you know, and then I went to one in Chicago, and the menu is exactly the same for the one in Chicago is the one in Toronto.

Dean: Yes, of course.

Dan: And. And my feeling is he's created a free zone. He's created a complete free zone economy.

Dean: That's exactly what. You know, that. That's why I knew you would love that I brought it up to you because it's exactly pure.

Dan: It's a. Yeah.

Dean: The distinction between. The distinction that he didn't start independent. He didn't start ghost kitchens where it was just, you know, he opened up 300 individual kitchens. He is 100% using excess capacity of existing. He's in collaboration with existing capabilities. That. That burger place in the beaches that has been there for 10 years. That he is a blessing to that business right now. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Dan: Well, the big thing is, is on. They suddenly gain enormous online. Online marketing that they've never had before.

Dean: Right.

Dan: And that's, you know, if they screw up, that's what they. That's what they lose. They lose. They lose the Cloudlandia connection. They don't.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: And it costs them nothing to redesign their menu because the menu is virtual.

Dean: Well, that's true. And.

Dan: But.

Dean: And the great news is, is that these. That burger restaurant, they're still doing their own thing, too. That's what's great, is that. No, it's pure freezer shipping out the back door. It's just redeploying your. Their capability with a different. With a different collaborator. And that's really. I just. Man, this. The free zone frontier is, I think, so synonymous with what we have going forward here in Cloudlandia. I mean.

Dan: Well, here's the thing. I think your clubhouse is a free zone, too. I think it's as it exists the way you've described it right now. I would say that it has the real possibilities of being a free zone in the sense that all you have to do is show up and gradually be someone that other people want to be in a conversation with you.

Dean: Yes. Yeah, that's exactly right. Yeah. That's. I mean you start to think about the possibilities there. And any of these, you know, being able to just gather. Be able to gather a crowd instantly, that's. It all comes down to still the. The cream is definitely going to rise to the top.

Dan: Yep, yep, yep.

Dean: I saw an interview with that with Reed Ducksher, Reid Ducksher, the head of Night media that manages Mr. Beast. And I think six of the top 10 YouTubers are under their management. Yeah. Which is so great. You know that that's really the taking the taking the assets and really looking to match their capabilities with or their reach with amazing capabilities. We're starting to see.

Dan: Well, the interesting thing is that podcast in the entire podcasting universe, which is over.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: It's certainly over a billion series now, according to Gord Dickman, my podcast manager, he says over. It's over a million. A number of series. And they have criteria what constitutes the series. And I think it's based on ongoing frequency of, you know, of a podcast or aces constitutes and anyway. But the. None of that's covered by the fcc, by the Federal Communications Right Committee. And the thing that I'm seeing is more and more we're going towards things that can't be regulated in text. Mm.

Dean: Yes.

Dan: And the way the, the way you censor a podcast is you don't listen to it anymore.

Dean: That's true. Ah, that's true. It's a free. So again, the dream. Definitely it's a free zone.

Dan: You take your chances in the free zone. You better be interesting.

Dean: Yes. You better be good. That's exactly right.

Dan: You better. You better be good. You better be good. You better be useful. You better be interested. Nobody's gonna live. Yeah. And I think that. So my. My sense is that 10 years from now. So we're just finished 2020. That 20 in 2030. All the Titans that they call the titans of the universe, the masters of the universe. Facebook, Twitter, Google and that they'll still exist, but they'll be a very, very. A much smaller proportion of the total action that's going on in their space.

Dean: Yeah, I want the. Yeah, you. The. That's the. That's the interesting thing is that are available.

Dan: I mean abc, cbs, abc, CBS and NBC still exist, but I haven't watched any of them for, I don't know, three or four years, you know.

Dean: Right. And that's the thing. But the prize jewel is this attention that we're all. That they were all competing for and that is there. That is linear in real time. And there's only so much of it.

Dan: Yeah.

Dean: Quality, quality, Quality.

Dan: Yeah. Who knew?

Dean: I can't believe it's been an hour, Dan. And look at Smart, Good, and you.

Dan: Smart, Good. Smart, good and useful.

Dean: Yes, Smart, Good and useful.

Dan: Those are useful. I mean, that's nice criteria.

Dean: Mm. Yes. The SGU rating, that's what. The SGU index.

Dan: Yeah. Well, include that. Include that in your VCR presentation. It's going to be a really good. I'll give you a time slot within about a week, I'll tell you. You know, we're putting together the. So there's just. There's going to be three speakers. It'll be you, Nick Sonnenberg. Nick, who's been doing great work with us. So. But he's just going to give five tips. Five tips using, you know, software as a service. And then Peter Zion.

Dean: Oh, nice. I can't wait for that.

Dan: That's great. Yeah.

Dean: Very cool.

Dan: Yeah, it's good. Good.

Dean: Well, I guess I will.

Dan: You're my first repeater, though. You're my first repeater.

Dean: Oh, wow. Well, that is. That's great. We'll make it. We'll institutionalize it.

Dan: Backed by popular. Backed by popular demand.

Dean: Oh, my goodness. Yeah, you gotta earn. Gotta earn that spot every year. That's right.

Dan: Now you just create this spot every year.

Dean: Sgu. Got to keep your SGU index high.

Dan: Yeah. Anyway, this would be great. I'm looking forward to it.

Dean: Me, too. Me, too. Okay.

Dan: Dan, are you good a week from now? I am.

Dean: I am. Yes, of course.

Dan: Okay, I'll talk to you soon. That was a fast hour.

Dean: It really went fast. You're absolutely right.

Dan: Good. Have a great day.