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4 Reasons Why You Should Be Thinking About Becoming TigerGraph Certified
4 Reasons Why You Should Be Thinking About Becoming TigerGraph Certified
In a recent report, Gartner Research, named Graph Analytics as one the Top 10 Data and Analytics Technology Trends for…
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David Ronald shared thisA humanoid robot just ran 100 meters in 8.86 seconds. The men’s 100-meter world record is 9.58 seconds, set by Usain Bolt of Jamaica at the 2009 World Championships in Berlin. It has stood since August 16, 2009 So 8.86 seconds is impressive. But the interesting part isn’t the record so much… In my opinion it’s what this says about the direction of robotics. Humanoid robots are getting better at balance, coordination, movement and real-time decision-making at an incredible pace. What once looked like science fiction is increasingly becoming an engineering problem. And the implications go well beyond running. The same capabilities that allow a robot to sprint can eventually help it navigate a warehouse, manipulate objects, work alongside humans or perform tasks in environments designed for people. We’re still early. These robots have plenty of limitations, and running 100 meters in under nine seconds doesn’t mean they’re ready to replace human workers. But milestones like this are a reminder that physical AI is moving very, very quickly. #HumanoidRobots #PhysicalAI #Robotics
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David Ronald shared thisI've been seeing a lot of posts on here about AEO, AIO, and GEO. At first glance, they sound like three distinct disciplines. But the more you look at them, the more you realize they're describing essentially the same fundamental shift in how companies need to think about digital visibility. 🔹Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) is focussed on creating content that helps answer engines understand and surface answers to people's questions. 🔹AI Optimization (AIO) refers to optimizing your digital presence so AI systems can better understand your company, products and expertise. 🔹Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is about making your company and content more likely to appear in AI-generated responses. Yes, they have different names, and slightly different emphasis but, fundamentally, they're all trying to solve the same problem: 🔸How do we make our company more visible, understandable and credible to AI-powered discovery systems? And that's why I'm not convinced we need to treat AEO, AIO, and GEO as three completely separate marketing disciplines. Why? Well its because, in practice, the tactics overlap significantly. You still need authoritative content, clear messaging, strong third-party validation, answers to customer questions, and a website that clearly communicates what you do. And you still need to establish expertise and credibility around the topics that matter to your customers. Whatever you call it the objective is essentially the same… Help AI understand who you are, what you do, why you're credible, and when you should be included in the answer. So, rather than getting caught up in terminology, I'd focus on the underlying strategy. This is my opinion anyway. #AEO #AIO #GEO #MarketingTipsForCEOs
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David Ronald shared thisI've been thinking about what will ultimately determine whether enterprises successfully adopt AI. Because I don't think it's going to be who has the smartest model. In my opinion it’s going to be who can make AI trustworthy. Heres what I think about what businesses actually need from AI: 🔸Answers grounded in their own data 🔸Fewer hallucinations and made-up information 🔸Strong security around sensitive data 🔸Clear governance and guardrails 🔸Results that can be evaluated and audited 🔸The ability to scale across teams, applications, and AI agents That's a very different challenge from building a great LLM. The real opportunity is to turn an organization's proprietary knowledge into something employees and customers can actually use to find answers, make decisions, solve problems, and take action. And that's when AI becomes much more than a productivity tool - it becomes part of the organization's infrastructure. Am I wrong though? Let me know your thoughts. #AITransformation #EnterpriseAI #GenerativeAI
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David Ronald shared thisWe all love watching a good movie. But how about making one? Imagine being able to develop a script, create visual effects, dub a movie into 30 languages, produce trailers and test different storylines, all dramatically faster and cheaper than today. AI changes the equation for everyone involved in filmmaking. That could put a huge premium on things AI can’t easily manufacture: great stories, interesting characters, original ideas and emotional connections. So, in other words, the technology may make production easier while making creativity even more important. It could also be incredibly exciting for independent filmmakers. A small team might eventually be able to create something that previously required a Hollywood studio, a massive production crew and millions of dollars. And this could open the door to an entirely new category of filmmakers. Of course, there are some huge questions along the way, such as what happens to actors' likenesses or how should writers be compensated when AI is trained on their work? Nonetheless, Hollywood has gone through massive technological changes before: sound, color, CGI and streaming all transformed the industry. But AI feels different because we’re not only changing how movies are made.... We may be changing who gets to make them. #FutureOfFilm #Hollywood
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David Ronald shared thisGreat leadership What is it? Well, answering that question is likely to be a lengthy discussion for many. But I can tell you what great leadership isn’t, and you’ll probably agree with me… Great leadership isn’t about putting more pressure on your best people. They’re usually already putting plenty of pressure on themselves. They care deeply about their work, their teams, and the results they’re responsible for. What they need from a leader is clarity, trust, and support. They need to understand what matters most, have the autonomy to do their jobs, and know their leader has their back when things get difficult. And great leaders pay attention. They notice when someone who normally handles everything starts working longer hours, becomes unusually quiet, or is carrying more than their share. In my experience they'll even ask, “What can I take off your plate?”... And that’s the difference between managing performance and leading people. Do you agree with me? Let me know what you think. #EmployeeEngagement #Leadership
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David Ronald shared thisGoogle is paying $10 million for Spirit Airlines’ internal business data following the airline’s bankruptcy. Just think what that represents... It's years of questions asked, decisions made, lesson learned, and so on. In other words, it's organizational wisdom. (Or not, depending on your view of Spirit's competency ;-.) And AI is making that knowledge increasingly valuable. For us marketers, this is a good reminder that some of your most valuable data may be buried in sales emails, customer-support conversations, win/loss notes, product feedback and internal discussions. Which then tees up this question... What does any company know that its competitors don't? And, could that knowledge be one of your most valuable competitive advantages? And could AI be the ideal way to retrieve it? Let me know what you think? #AI #DataStrategy #MarketingStrategy
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David Ronald shared thisLet’s be honest. Leadership is hard. Companies spend enormous amounts of time thinking about how to attract great employees. But once those employees are hired, it’s surprisingly easy to start taking them for granted. You assume they’ll always be there, so you overlook their contributions, give them more responsibility without recognizing the additional value they’re creating, or fail to acknowledge the effort they’re putting in. And sometimes, it goes beyond being taken for granted. Employees are dismissed, their ideas are ignored, they’re talked down to, or they’re excluded from important conversations. We’ve all been there, on both sides of the conversation. Respect matters, perhaps more than we realize. The best employees don’t stay simply because they need a paycheck. They stay because they believe in the company, the mission, and the people around them. Most importantly, they stay because they feel that their work and contributions actually matter. And when that stops being true, no salary increase can fully repair the damage. So if you have great people on your team, don’t take them for granted. Listen to them, recognize them, trust them, and give them the respect they’ve earned. #CompanyCulture #EmployeeExperience #Leadership
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David Ronald shared thisMany people love to eat out. But how many of us are noticing that the restaurant business Is changing beyond all recognition? Think about how you ordered dinner 10 years ago... You probably looked at a menu, ordered from a server, ate in the restaurant, paid your bill and went home. Pretty straightforward. These days, you might ask an AI assistant where to eat, browse social media, order through an app and have dinner delivered without ever setting foot inside the restaurant. And that's changing much more than how we order food. AI and automation are moving into everything from demand forecasting and inventory management to ordering, scheduling and marketing. At the same time, delivery platforms and digital channels are changing how restaurants attract and retain customers. But here's what I find most interesting: Restaurants aren't just competing with other restaurants anymore. Oh goodness no, that would be too easy. Nowadays they're competing for attention. The first interaction a customer has with a restaurant may happen on Google, Instagram, TikTok, a delivery platform, or through an AI recommendation. That means restaurants need to think differently about their brands - great food and service still matter, but so do discoverability, digital experience, personalization and customer data. I'm willing to wager that the winners will be the ones that use technology to make their businesses smarter and more efficient without losing the human experience that makes people want to go out to eat. What do you think will have the biggest impact on restaurants over the next five years? #AI #FutureofBusiness #RestaurantTechnology
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David Ronald shared thisIs the SaaS “apocalypse” really about AI? Or is it about what customers now expect from software? I've been noodling over this quite a bit, in response to tech headlines in recent days. Yes, there’s a lot being written about generative AI steamrolling the SaaS industry. And while “apocalypse” might be a little dramatic, there’s no question that AI is forcing software companies to rethink some assumptions that have been around for decades. For the past 20 years, software companies have largely sold us tools. After all, the more problems a company could solve, the more software it could sell. AI is starting to change that equation. Instead of asking, “Which software should I buy to help my team do this?” customers can increasingly ask, “Why can't AI just do it for me?” That’s a pretty fundamental shift in the relationship between people, software and work. And that’s why I’m not sure simply adding an AI feature to an existing SaaS product is going to be enough. Some companies may need to rethink their products, pricing, positioning and go-to-market strategies from the ground up. For we marketers, this creates some particularly interesting questions: 🔹What job are we actually helping the customer get done? 🔹Could AI now do some, or all, of that job? 🔹If it can, where does our product continue to create unique value? Perhaps the biggest question is whether we’re still selling software at all, or if we’re really selling outcomes... If customers care less about the application they use and more about the work that gets done, that has enormous implications for everything from product strategy to pricing to positioning. In my opinion the companies that navigate this successfully will be the ones that understand how AI is changing what customers expect from software. Am I wrong? Let me know what you think of these comments. #SaaS #SaaSApocalypse
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What’s the “uncanny valley” Eva Robboy?
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These robots look uncomfortablly human Eva Robboy. The robot on its back, thrashing its legs, reminds me of an unhappy, spoiled child I once witnessed at a mall. 😮
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David Ronald liked thisDavid Ronald liked thisI'm pleased to announce that Aerospike has recently brought Don Dama onto the team as our new CEO. When I first started this company, I had no idea what to expect. But over the years, watching it grow into something running mission critical, consumer scale systems for some of the biggest names in fintech, ad tech, and telecom has been the ride of my career. 2025 alone was the year I finally felt like we earned a seat in the major leagues. Don has spent his career walking into companies at exactly this moment, the one where the product finally works and they need someone who has scaled things before to take them to the next level. From Oracle, Endeca, Mirantis, and SingleStore. He has done it again and again. Agentic AI is about to hit enterprise systems with a kind of pressure most of them have never faced, real consumer scale traffic, and we built Aerospike for exactly that. Welcome to the team, Don. We're happy to have you onboard!
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David Ronald liked thisDavid Ronald liked thisI woke up Monday morning with no job, which was rude mostly because the coffee tasted exactly the same. I had expected at least some atmospheric difference. I was laid off from Avid when the company reorganized marketing. Not the ending I expected, but I leave genuinely grateful for my time there. I got to work with people I like very much, build things I'm proud of, and spend two years thinking hard about brand, demand, product, and how AI changes the way the work itself gets done. I'm rooting for the team. Very much. And now, somewhat unexpectedly, I'm available. The useful thing about a title disappearing is that it makes you think about the work underneath it. I've been a founder, a CMO, a brand guy, a product guy, and increasingly a guy who writes code when nobody has built the thing I need yet. At Avid, that meant building the brand, the demand engine, and the AI systems underneath both. The common thread is that I like the messy part. Figuring out what's actually true about a company, what it is, why anyone should care, how to say it simply, then building the brand, the demand, and the machinery around it. I like making things. So I'm looking. What I want is a place that's outgrown its own story, or hasn't found one yet — and where the person running marketing is expected to make things, not just approve them. I'm not precious about the title. If that brings someone to mind, I'd love an introduction. The coffee, meanwhile, continues to show very little emotional range.
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David Ronald liked thisDavid Ronald liked thisAI vendor pitches sounds the same right now. Yet, most do not answer the question your CFO actually asks: what's the business case for this? That's the real problem. Teams are chasing tools instead of building a case that holds up past the demo. I'm moderating "Stop Chasing Tools: Building an AI Business Case in a Chaotic Market" at the Graphwise AI Summit, with three people who've each had to solve that problem from a different seat: ➡️ Toni Ressaire, Director of Innovation at Altuent, has written about the exact failure mode we're tackling — AI projects launched without clear objectives, metrics, or ROI. Her framing for the fix: getting organizations from chaos to clarity, not from tool to tool. ➡️ Leslie Farinella, President of Content Rules, Inc., has been direct about this for a while: no AI strategy survives on top of a weak content foundation. The tools don't fix a content problem. They expose it. ➡️ Ben White, Product Manager at Graphwise, owns the roadmap for turning fragmented enterprise content into something connected and AI-ready — which means he's spent his career watching the gap between "we bought the tool" and "it actually works." Three different vantage points. One shared conclusion: the case comes before the tool, not after. Register here: https://lnkd.in/eVeeu_ki #AI #GraphwiseAISummit #EnterpriseAI #KnowledgeGraph #AIStrategy
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David Ronald liked thisExcited and looking forward to Srini V. Srinivasan sharing his book and insights at Global Fintech Fest at Mumbai (Sept 8 - 11) #GFFDavid Ronald liked this𝐌𝐞𝐞𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫 𝐛𝐞𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐝 𝐀𝐞𝐫𝐨𝐬𝐩𝐢𝐤𝐞: 𝐔𝐩 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐑𝐮𝐧𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐭 Global Fintech Fest And take home a signed copy. Join us at Booth A20 to meet Srini V. Srinivasan, CTO & Founder of Aerospike, and get your copy personally signed by him. If you’re exploring what it takes to build and scale real-time applications for modern financial services, this is an opportunity to hear directly from one of the people behind the technology. Pick up your copy Meet Srini V. Srinivasan and get it personally signed Connect with the Aerospike team and exchange ideas on real-time data Srini V. Srinivasan Khushal Bhansali Debarun Dasgupta Deepak Suryanarayanan Arpan Ganguly SIDDHARTH SINGH Ram Bangarappa Niket Doshi Harshit Bhatia Gunjan Sablok Prachi Agarwal Sharon Koay Vinay Bendi Come meet the author. Take home a signed copy. Stay for the conversation. #Aerospike #booksigning #GFF2026 #GlobalFintechFest #Fintech #RealTimeData #Database #Technology
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David Ronald liked thisDavid Ronald liked this🤖Using AI to translate all your thoughts into visuals? AI can be incredibly fast, but it can also make your visuals feel: Generic. Inconsistent. Like it was AI-generated. If you create visual frequently it might be a good idea t begin learning how to speak visually. Curious? Free issue drops tomorrow Subscribe today: https://lnkd.in/g9_CWjFb
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David Ronald liked thisSo excited about this partnership with Sophia Agustina and Gain Relationship for the Spotlight Series! Check out below for more info and be sure to ping me if you have questions or want additional information.David Ronald liked thisMost brands have a customer-centricity problem they don’t know they have. 🛑 It’s not hiding in your CRM or your NPS scores—it’s happening in public, in real time, on social media. When customers face billing disputes, service outages, or product failures, social media is often their last resort. Treating these moments as mere interruptions to a content calendar is leaving trust, retention, and revenue on the table. In our latest Customer-Centricity Spotlight with GainRelationship, Brooke Sellas, CEO of B-Squared Media shares how enterprise brands are turning social care into a major competitive advantage: ✔️ Starting with a diagnostic Social Care Audit ✔️ Building scalable, sustainable escalation workflows ✔️ Maintaining strict compliance in regulated industries like financial services ✔️ Leveraging AI to assist human judgment, not replace it Customer-centricity isn’t a tagline—it’s how you show up when something goes wrong. Dig into the POV here: https://lnkd.in/gUa-sQ6p Sophia Agustina Gain Relationship B Squared Media CMO Council Brooke B. Sellas
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David Ronald reacted on thisDavid Ronald reacted on thisI'm incredibly honored to receive the CMO of the Year ORBIE Award from DallasCMO in the Enterprise category. And I'm especially grateful to be recognized alongside such an impressive group of marketing leaders. This recognition is a reflection of the amazing team I have at Blue Yonder. I'm so grateful for their creativity, commitment, and partnership. A heartfelt thank you to Lourdes Gipson, Daly Foster and Madison Daugherty, and the entire Inspire Leadership Network for bringing this community together and celebrating marketing leadership. Truly grateful for the recognition, and even more grateful for the people who make the work so rewarding.
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David Ronald liked thisWhat does technical trust look like when one product needs to resonate with both sustainability-focused executives and specification-driven engineers? For this independent design challenge, Hatch explored how Van der Ende Group could position Kathari, an ultrafiltration system for safe water reuse, as both a strong business case and a credible engineering solution. The challenge was moving the brand from “Local Dutch Engineering” toward “Global Sustainability Leader” without losing the technical clarity behind the product. We built a connected communication system across a dark-and-light visual direction, a five-step filtration icon system, a six-slide sales deck, and a redesigned four-page brochure. Deep navy, electric blue, signal green, technical photography, clean line icons, Söhne typography, and modular layouts create a visual language designed around precision and clarity. Rather than simplifying the engineering into marketing language, the system creates a clear hierarchy. Executives can quickly understand the sustainability and business value, while engineers can access the technical detail they need to evaluate the system. Swipe through to see the Kathari Trust System. #b2bdesign #industrialdesign #creativesystems
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David Ronald liked thisDavid Ronald liked thisI’m done. I’m finished. No more job searches. No more hours spent tailoring bios for specific companies and roles. I’m done spending hours preparing – and overpreparing – for job interviews. No more “Thank you for your time…,” “After careful consideration…,” “While we enjoyed getting to know you….” I’m done. Why? I’ve found something infinitely better than the next “job.” I’ve found a calling. I’ve found a purpose. As many of you know, I was involved in what I refer to as a “prolonged and soul-crushing” job search that began in early 2025. Many of you know this because you went above and beyond to help me in this search. To everyone who helped me, a sincere “Thank you!” Special thanks to Eric Sleigh and Chris Morton. For those of you in similar situations, two pieces of unsolicited advice: 1) Don’t give up. Don’t stop believing in yourself. 2) Leverage your network (that includes me). You’ll be surprised how many people want to help. You just need to ask. So, what’s my calling? What’s my purpose? Early this year, I decided I needed to stay busy, so I started substitute teaching. My mom, my hero, Judy, was an educator, and I’d always had the itch to teach. It was the most fulfilling experience of my professional life. By far. Not even close. From my first day as a teaching assistant in a kindergarten class (“Good morning, Mr. Scott.”) to working with the amazing special education teams at Lake Oswego High School, I knew I’d found my purpose. Several teachers encouraged me to apply for a full-time role. “You’re really good at this.” Ego and pride told me I was a sales leader. My heart told me I was an educator…like my late mom. So, this fall, I’m honored to join Lake Oswego High School as a Special Education Instructor. It took me a while to figure this out. I’m a slow learner. How am I certain this is the right move? Because there are times when I’m working 1:1 with a student, and I can feel my mom looking over my shoulder…smiling with pride. I’ve never closed a deal, crushed a quota, or made a President’s Club that comes close to the feeling I get when I connect with a student with Down syndrome or get a smile and a fist bump from a nonspeaking student with cerebral palsy. I am filled with gratitude that my journey has brought me to this place. I’m honored to join the ranks of the many educators I’m fortunate to call friends. Finally, to further my appreciation for math, I’ve repositioned my sales coaching business into a math coaching business – Accelerate Math. My goal is to apply the same principles of executive coaching to math: executive functioning, accountability, execution, problem-solving, structure and adaptability. My motto: Math is the subject. Coaching is the methodology. Independence is the outcome. Thanks to everyone who supported me over the last few years
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