Optimism: A Conversation With Henrik Christensen

I met Henrik Christensen (Director Robotics and Intelligent Machines, Georgia Institute of Technology) earlier this year at International Experts Days at the Schunk factory in Hausen, Germany. His presentations and comments were business-like and focused on the numbers that make emerging products successful (large enough marketplace, serious need(s) satisfied by the new product, price comparable or less (with savings) with present methods and costs, etc.).

A few days ago we had a conversation that covered many of the current issues in robotics. Throughout the conversation, Henrik remained positive and upbeat, heralding the next few years as the tipping point for this emerging industry, particularly here in America. Of course, that's part of his current job: making robotics a key economic enabler in America. He is a significant player in the Roadmap for US Robotics presented to the Congressional Robotics Caucus earlier this year and continues to make presentations about robotics at various levels of government, encouraging cooperation and strategic funding to make things happen.

One area frequently in the news is robotic surgery. Intuitive Surgical is hot on the American stock parade. But almost 50% of the di Vinci surgical machines are not working at their capacity because many doctors don't have the skills to make them work for them. For example, one proctologist used to take 2-3 hours for a procedure that he now does using the di Vinci in 30-40 minutes. But many more proctologists take 3-6 hours (and after 4 or 5 hours it becomes somewhat dangerous to the patient). After giving it a few tries, they go back to their normal way. For them it's a matter of income - they can do more procedures in the old way and time. [There are new devices being reviewed by the FDA from Japan, Korea and the EU which, unless something is done, will also become underutilized.]

There's an industry term for this occurrence: stalled site - which usually occurs when the primary proponent moves on without a trained replacement.

Henrik says there's a major case for simulation training and two of the companies that do airline simulation are working on moving into that area as are major programs at the University of Michigan, SimuLab and Immersion. Right now Intuitive Surgical only gives a four-hour training course on their machine. Airline pilots have to invest hundreds of hours in training and retraining. The Captain and officers of the new cruise ship Oasis of the Seas spent 500+ hours of simulation time before ever stepping aboard the ship! Henrik sees not only a growing need for such simulation training but the economics that can make such an industry work and be profitable.

Industrial robots are engineering wonders that are extremely precise, mechanically intricate and last forever... which is part of their expense. To reduce those costs, manufacturers are making their machines more flexible, safer, human friendly and less exacting. Rodney Brooks' new start-up Heartland Robotics hopes to make machines that are 20%-35% less expensive and more assistive in, as he calls it, the "as yet un-automated manufacturing" sector. This is similar to the EU project SME Robot which focused on small and medium manufacturers and their requirements for flexible and quick shop assistance.

One "as yet un-automated" sector is warehouse fulfillment, an area where Kiva Systems has been so successful that it can't keep up with its orders. Amazon and all the other big mail-order processors are in need of products similar to the Kiva system but unique to their specific methods. It's an area ripe for innovation and one in which Henrik sees many things happening as early as early 2010.

One area where the economics aren't right yet for commercialization appears to be in therapeutic and eldercare assistive robotics. The research and equipment have yet to find their niche, yet the needs exist with autistic children and people with strokes and other disabilities and eldercare needs. The economic model to make saleable products with today's state of the art research and products just doesn't presently exist.

Finally we talked about the need for regional incubators to foster start-up companies -- to help them make the big switch from research engineers to marketing and management executives and to focus on helping customers do their jobs better with robotic equipment.

Henrik wants to tie research grants to real needs which, if he is able to get an agreement from the government to make strategic investments as is done by DARPA and now ARPA-E, will pay off and make robotics a key economic enabler in America.

Robotics stocks in Korea, Japan and the EU are outperforming US stocks. Why?

Robo-Stox™, a compilation of worldwide publicly traded stocks in the robotics industry and exclusively presented on The Robot Report, clearly show that America is losing the race in robotics except in two areas: medical/surgical and defense/security. Click chart to enlarge.

PPIP’s. Public, Private Investment Partnerships focused on robotic growth where it will do the most good are, in my opinion, the reason why Korea, Japan and the EU are surpassing America in robotics development.

• Korea is two years into an aggressive plan to invest $1 billion in order to be #1 in the worldwide robotics industry by 2018 and they’re spending $100 million each year in that pursuit.


• Japan has many PPIPs focused on enabling the elderly to remain independent as long as possible thereby reducing healthcare cost and providing a better life for its citizens with robotics.


• Europe has many PPIPs. One, which just concluded, focused on the robotic needs of small and medium-sized manufacturers.

When American educators from the major US tech universities presented their roadmap for our robotics industry before Congress last month, their suggestions for manufacturing had already been researched and reflected in the EU’s SME Robot Initiative. We are that far behind!

Worse, to date there’s been just one story about the presentation before Congress, and not a single published quote on the subject from any of the members of the Robotics Caucus. It's an interesting and illuminating read and I invite you download the PDF file and read it.

Led by Japan, Korea, and the European Union, the rest of the world has recognized the irrefutable need to advance robotics technology and have made research investment commitments totaling over $1 billion; the U.S. investment in robotics technology, outside unmanned systems for defense purposes, remains practically non-existing. [from A Roadmap for US Robotics]

Robotics, in all its interdisciplinary forms, will be everywhere very soon. In our homes, cars and appliances. At the hospital and in the workplace. Protecting us from near and afar. It's happening fast but not like in the movies. In America and Europe, it'll be in advanced embedded interactive systems like adaptive cruise control that now includes lane boundary awareness and will soon handle trucks and busses un-manned in controlled lanes; or in Kiva-style warehouses (no fixed shelving; few pick and pack people; heavy computer control, autonomous robots interacting with one another); or in smaller and smaller interactive medical and sensing devices.

In Japan and Korea, more humanoid-looking robots will be used for personal and factory assistants and we'll all be using exoskeletons of one type or another such as the ones being used for Japan's seniors to help them garden or Honda's factory workers who need to squat, climb and lift to do their jobs.

It's truly amazing and just beginning to get into stride. Worldwide defense spending is paying for the R&D and smart guys like Rodney Brooks are commercializing that R&D into household products.

Part of why America's robotics industry is lagging is that it is quite fragmented with all the R&D being at the behest of DARPA, NASA and the DoD and none in the commercial sector. Other than in medical robotics (which were originated by NASA), our robotic companies are integrators, engineers, software developers and resellers; not manufacturers. Even Ugobe's adorable Pleo dinosaur robot was contract-manufactured in Hong Kong!

Robotics technology – at it’s present level of technological progress - offers a rare opportunity to strategically invest to create new jobs, increase productivity, and increase worker safety in the short run, and to address long term fundamental issues associated with economic growth in an era of significant aging of the general population and securing services for such a population. Public/private investment partnerships take actions that, to date, at least here in America, have not yet begun to happen.

But that’s where we are today, not where we can be tomorrow unless we start making some decisions today!

Let’s take stock of what we do have. First, we have an established, albeit fragmented, robotics industry comprised of some of the most innovative people in the field, if not the most accomplished at this moment. Second, we have already invested in a Robotics culture at the secondary school level with Robotics Clubs proliferating and a lot of groundwork already having been done by both our competitors and the pop culture. Third, and most important, we have a history of leadership in the development and domination of new technologies once we get going in earnest; computers, microchips, pharmaceuticals, medical devices… the list is long.

It's unacceptable that, with all the stimulus money and new technology rhetoric floating around, we are not strategically investing in an industry that has the likelihood of becoming "the next big thing."

Conversation with Chris

I had an informative conversation with a recent LinkedIn acquaintance that I'd like to share. It began in answer to his question:

Just curious, your profile says, "Because I believe that robotics is the next big thing..." What do you envision, in terms of "next big thing"?

I responded:

Robotics, in all its interdisciplinary forms, will be everywhere very soon. In our homes, cars and appliances. At the hospital and in the workplace. Protecting us from afar. It's happening fast but not like in the movies. In America and Europe, it'll be in advanced embedded interactive systems like adaptive cruise control that now handles lane boundaries and will soon handle trucks and busses unmanned in controlled lanes; or in Kiva style warehouses (no fixed shelving; few pick & pack people; heavy computer control); or in smaller and smaller interactive medical devices.

In Japan and Korea, more humanoid-looking robots will be used for personal and factory assistants and we'll all be using exoskeletons of one type or another such as the ones being used for Japan's seniors to help them garden or Honda's factory workers who squat, climb and lift.

It's truly amazing and just beginning to get into stride. Worldwide defense spending is paying for the R&D and smart guys like Rodney Brooks are commercializing that R&D.

My interest is in finding either (or both) a basket of stocks of robotic companies that will rise in price or helping fund a select few companies in need of management, marketing and money to grow.

What do you think?

And then came this wide-ranging informative response that I found particularly illuminating:

When I was younger, I had the good fortune to witness/participate in this same dynamic in the computer industry, WANG Laboratories, Atex, Computervision (located in the same building that iRobot is in, Bedford now) and Sun Microsystems.

While I didn't realize what I was part of and witnessing at the time; it was a technological Darwinism that was unfolding with incremental technical breakthroughs that were being applied, somewhat haphazardly, achieving momentary commercial success and were quickly "leapfrogged" by a new company down the street, often with the same players. Although none of those companies and many others like them are around today, the relatively mature and stable PC we're both using has individual components (soft and hard), developed by those players and their technological derivatives; owing to materials and other advances.

Now I'm older, I realize what I was seeing then but adding a bit of experience and now seeing that in the case of robotics and many other advances; that relatively short period of success that the individual computer players enjoyed will be even shorter for this field. This leapfrog speed is and will be much faster. But, I'm reminded that to this day there are significant numbers of DEC and WANG servers still running vast arrays of applications, many for the government and others for many of the large institutions. The installed user base as it were.

So, what might this mean for robotics? If we look at the practical application of robotics, it will be interdisciplinary as you say and much of it is taking place in all the salient ways you mentioned. While all of those are viable and happening, it's the medical applications that most come to mind as immediate and timely candidates. Rodney Brooks is a great salesman but while his automated floor sweeping and gutter cleaning toys capture the public imagination, its his investment in things like MAKO Surgical that really demonstrate the potential for robotics (hardware-wise).

Take any high skilled operation in medicine, dentistry, exams, etc. study it carefully and you'll find that the operation can be mechanically fixtured and simplified via robotics which will do what they are truly best suited for, namely precision and repeatability. So envision going into a dentist for a root canal and instead of having an overpaid technician pounding in your mouth, using the same primitive tools that I use to file down a piece of aluminum; instead you sit and bite down on a universal, sterilized fixture that is ergonomically designed, and an "operator" is sitting in front of you, precisely directing the root canal "robot" via joystick/camera and or pre-canned software routines to effect all the physical force and position functions. Maybe it's mobile and can go to the patient in some remote areas, "affordable root canals for all." Perhaps this highly paid operator is making $ 60/hour so a root canal costs $600 rather than $ 2000. Further, it's repeatable every time. So the quality, repeatability, low cost, accessibility, etc. all combine as customer needs are met. Other examples exist and they will be found wherever we have a highly skilled operator operating high value equipment or carrying a highly specialized body of knowledge in his head. These are the applications that one might fund, (this paragraph long business plan, may or may not be the best example of it) but a good paradigm is to think of a skilled machinist versus a CNC milling machine. We've got very few skilled machinists today but we machine parts faster, cheaper and with much higher quality and repeatability.

So envision an installed user base of this machine across the country, in some percentage of dental clinics and pretty soon we can quantify the commercial value. That’s not to negate the commercial potential of mundane consumer applications mind you.

I think you're on the right track about the trend, as long as you focus on the substance and not the Hollywood hype, (terminator looking robots or the Kabuki Dancing dolls the Japanese trot out every year or so). The applications are happening all around us and from my perspective, one of the reasons were not moving faster is because some of the guys driving these things are coming out of University laboratories and feel it's important that they re-invent every nut and bolt, lacking practical experience in integration; rather than focusing on that one unique thing that they have developed, (perhaps a faster algorithm, a smaller/cheaper feedback device, wireless power transmission, etc. etc.).

If you visit Heartland Robotics website and go into the manufacturers’ survey link; you’ll see by the questions on that potential end user survey that the graduate student who put that question list together has never been within a mile of a factory, let alone understand what the factory floor may or may not need from a transformational concept like universal robotics. We sort of have solutions looking for problems in that regard.

To be fair to the academics and apologizing for my industrial bias here, there is some significant IP that will/is being developed as fresh eyes accidentally reinvent the “bolt”, material advances, etc. but it is taking the applications much longer to be developed. There's quite a bit of empowering technology already abundantly and cheaply available but it's not being applied, I think. That's not to say this isn't exciting stuff both technically and commercially, but much of it is still at the parlor trick stage as they agonize over things that have long ago been solved in industry.

Sorry for the long reply but this is an area I'm interested and have a bit of experience in and maybe I can help you and your group identify/evaluate some of these opportunities from a technology perspective or add value in other ways.

I'm not sure that I can help with the stock picks approach as I've long ago stopped riding up and down elevators in the Hancock Building listening to shills and I'm confident your grapevine is better than mine but if you're evaluating funding requests, perhaps I can add my two cents worth on the technology/assessment vs. what’s already available or maybe even evaluate the viability of what's proposed from a technical/architectural perspective.

What do you think?

It's Adaptive to be Vulnerable

Jack and Suzie Welch said it best when they wrote "Put Your Rage on the Back Burner" for this week's BusinessWeek Magazine.

"It's crazy to think the most profound economic and cultural upheaval of our times will end well if we let ourselves marinate in rage. Rage begets only rage: it often makes people do stupid, short-sighted things that invariably spawn unintended consequences. Rage isn't healing; it's polarizing.

We all have to fight to keep hope alive replacing our rage with renewed focus on the good that are all around us.

Right now there are thousands of geeky, brilliant engineering wonks sitting in their dorm rooms at MIT and Stanford and campuses around the world, oblivious to the weather as they pour their hearts into cool new ideas. Those kids and their ideas are the future of business if we just hang on tight and adapt.

Psychologist, author and artist Robert W. Firestone says that it's adaptive to be vulnerable - that we are more open to opportunity and willing to challenge ourselves and take risks when we're not hindered by rage and other defenses.

Certainly now is the time to stay focused and not get distracted with transitory issues. Ben Bernanke made the analogy of the current financial crisis to the story of the guy next door who smokes in bed. One day his house catches fire. While the house is on fire, it's not the time to place blame. Instead, it's the time to protect your home by pitching in to help fight the fire. When things are safe again there'll be plenty of time to assess blame and provide punishment where it's due. But right now the flames are challenging and it's time to take action.

The Welch article was uplifting to me. I hope you take the time to read it.

Innovation will lead the way out of our crisis

The current issue of Fortune Magazine has a story about Obama's difficulties in hiring a new CTO.

It's not just a Silicon Valley parlor game. The process is being watched all over the country - and the world. It's a key position: the new CTO will focus on using technology to spur innovation both within the government and the broader economy. And that innovation isn't just in the area of telecom; robotics needs to have an equal share of the focus.

Scientific advances and entrepreneurship will help lead us out of our crisis, but the process needs focus and direction from the top. Obama promised that leadership throughout the campaign by his desire to hire and his description of the functions of a Chief Technology Officer.

Having seen first-hand the success of public/private initiatives in Korea, Japan and Europe with a focus on robotics, I'm sure that similar focus here in the U.S. will yield dramatic successes, particularly in the area of robotics.

It's time for President Obama to choose our new CTO and get the process going.

President Obama. When will you choose our new CTO?

President Obama, when will you choose our new Chief Technology Officer?

You promised to stimulate the economy with investments in roads, schools - and technology. Robotics is the next transformational technology comparable to the introduction of the personal computer. Inroads in robotics are happening at an ever-accelerating rate in every area of the industry. Yet not one single reference to robotics (except within NASA) appears in any of the stimulus bills.

How can that be?

Robotic-related public/private initiatives are prevalent in Europe, Korea and Japan. These partnerships address important social issues (senior healthcare in Japan and Europe; increased productivity in many parts of Europe; etc.). And these initiatives are making progress. But not here in the U.S.

Again, how can that be? How can we be losing at a field we invented? The first manufacturer of robots was here in the U.S. It has since moved to Japan. In the service sector, robotics is on the threshold of amazing breakthroughs in healthcare, all manner of personal and home assistance, unmanned surveillance (aerial, underwater, on-land), space, defense and security, and in social therapies (physical, emotional, training, etc.). In the industrial sector, they are moving to lower costs, make the devices easier to train, enable more autonomy, and cover more aspects of manufacturing, logistics and process control.

Yet not one single reference to robotics appears in any of the stimulus bills.

We need a new CTO and we need him now.

Thank you for your time and consideration and for all that you've done thus far.

Accelerating Robotic Development Needs an Innovation Action Plan

Thomas Kuczmarski suggested in two recent BusinessWeek articles a need for a Secretary of Innovation - a cabinet-level person to sharpen the focus on changes needed to stabilize and revive the nation's economy, and an innovation action plan to mobilize and coordinate all of our technology resources. That presently unfilled position is called the U.S. Chief of Technology. Perhaps the delay in choosing this key player in the Obama administration is because of the prevailing hunker-down mentality, or because they don't see the pressing need, or confuse the position with R&D and sci-fi.

Too many companies are choosing to hunker down, postpone investments in R&D, and avoid risk-taking until the market has stabilized. The companies that continue to build an innovation culture and make modest investments to keep the innovation pipeline full will be the ones that enjoy a big competitive advantage a few years from now.

The process of innovation can have just as much to do with rebuilding a devastated economy as it does with rebuilding a product line. It needs someone responsible for leveraging the talents, skills, technologies, and capabilities that we have as a country.

I think his seven-point plan has merit:

1. Graduated tax credits for R&D investments
   
2. Innovation booster grants
   
3. Innovation awards
   
4. National business incubators
   
5. Innovation training
   
6. Intellectual property auctions
   
7. Innovation index fund

Innovation and robotics are buzzwords that are often misused. Both words suggest enormous appeal and promise, yet both are also used to imply excessive research and long-lead hi-tech costs with associated developmental problems.

The business side of robotics is not invention; rather it is the result of research to identify needs, wants and problems and then the interdisciplinary turning of those issues into practical, useful, necessary products and services. But the process desperately needs someone responsible for leveraging the talents, skills, technologies and capabilities that we have as a country.

The new Chief of Technology will help ensure that the full power of the innovation process will be used in the vital work of stabilizing the economy and for advancing technological change and innovation into the future. He or she needs to be chosen and put to work right away.

An Open Letter to the Obama Committee Selecting the new U.S. Chief of Technology

The new stimulus bills will only help the American economy long-term if they help create domestic job-creating industries. Unfortunately, thus far, there is not one dollar in these bills to support what could be a high-growth, high-income, high-job creation industry vital to America's future: robotics. And the 20 members of the Congressional Robotics Caucus have not produced a single news item for anything robotic in the past 120 days.

Society is experiencing significant aging which impacts industry, healthcare and our daily lives. Robotics facilitates a higher degree of personal autonomy, new methods for manufacturing closer to the customer, an entirely new industry in terms of services, and new technologies for security and defense. Robots and robotics are loaded words implying replacing workers in the workforce. In fact, the opposite is true. If the U.S. were to seize the lead in this innovative industry, it could be a source of not only national income, but hundreds of thousands of new jobs.

The auto industry and its ancillary businesses could almost immediately yield benefits from strategic investments in improved robotic technologies to aid their industries. Improving manufacturing productivity, after all, is one of the keys to saving the U.S. auto industry - and the millions of jobs that depend upon it.

The healthcare industry is at a similar crossroads. The current application of robotics technology to provide tele-operated surgical solutions represents the tip of the iceberg. Robotics technology holds enormous potential to help control costs, empower healthcare workers, and enable aging citizens to live in their homes longer by the use of patient monitoring robots, robotized motor-coordination, intelligent prosthetics, robot-assisted physical, cognitive and social therapy, and robotized surgery. Yet they remain unviable alternatives as these procedures are not covered by insurance.

Revolutionary technologies are available now to increase worker productivity and revitalize manufacturing, particularly in small businesses. Small scale (micro) manufacturing can utilize these new technologies to accelerate the transition of manufacturing back to America. It will take investment dollars to spur this on - to be the driving force. Yet not a dollar has thus far been earmarked for anything robotic. Nowhere! Not in any of these stimulus or bailout bills!

Robotic-related public/private initiatives are prevalent in Europe, Korea and Japan. These partnerships address important regional social issues (senior healthcare in Japan and Europe; increased productivity in many parts of Europe; etc.). But not here in the U.S. [with the exception of military, defense, NASA and security projects].

I was so outraged by these facts that I rechecked the research -- with the same result. Not a single reference to anything robotic in the House Bill, the Senate Bill or the final American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. And not a peep from the Caucus. Nor from any of the Chief Technology Officer candidates.

How can that be?

Robotics is the next transformational technology comparable to the introduction of the personal computer, yet since the days when it was first established in America, almost all of the robot manufacturers have moved away from the US. Most robots are built in Europe or Japan. CMU, MIT, Stanford and a few other research centers have clusters of innovative regional robotic providers mostly funded by NASA, DoD and DARPA research.

I'm frustrated! It's hard to be hopeful under these conditions. But I do hope that you – the people on the selection committee for the new CTO – will take notice and select someone who is robot friendly, supporting his interest with strategic investments and public/private initiatives initially focused on small businesses, the auto industry and healthcare.

Perhaps Rodney Brooks (MIT, iRobots, Heartland Robotics) could be persuaded to take the job.


NOTE: This piece came from my participation in a robotics conference (International Expert Days) last week in Germany. It became clear to me that America was and is at an unfair advantage in the area of robotics because of the public/private initiatives prevalent in Europe and Asia -- and the lack of any similar partnerships here in the U.S. Hence, this article.

Plastics! Wordprocessing! PC's! The Internet! Cellphones! And now . . Robotics!

I've been fascinated by the growth aspects of the field of robotics. Not the industrial sector - although those are intriguing in their functionality. But it's the service sector that is of particular interest.

In 2011, more than 18 million robots will populate the world - up from 6.5 million in 2007. Most of the growth will be in the service sectors. [ iRobots is selling their line of cleaning robots in shopping malls!]

As a method to focus my fascination - and keep it on track to make money through selective investing - I've started THE ROBOT REPORT as a new website dedicated to tracking the business of robotics. It is a resource for news and links to and about this growing industry:

• Service Robots for Governmental and Corporate Use
• Service Robots for Personal and Private Use
• Industrial Robots
• Ancillary Businesses
• Educational and Research Facilities

THE ROBOT REPORT will be updated as often as there is news - and continually for the addition and maintenance of links.

THE ROBOT REPORT, in January, will begin daily updates of it's new ROBO-STOX™ index, comparing international publicly-traded robotic stocks to the S&P500.

You can help make THE ROBOT REPORT a success by telling your friends and colleagues about the site, sending stories and links, and suggesting new ideas and improvements. Perhaps even advertise on the site.

Please visit and explore our new site. Tell your friends. Send in stories, ideas and links. Tell us what you think. Add me to your mailing list.

Thank you.

Manipulation of the Right Brain

Hillary Clinton is a sharp, analytical woman. She's shrewd, calculating, objective, dispassionate and focused... all the reasons why she's going to lose the nomination.

People don't vote analytically; they vote emotionally. That's not what they say but it's what they do says author and psychologist Drew Westen. Another psychological principle kicks in to cover the dichotomy: rationalization: the need to invent plausible reasons for why you've decided as you have.

So people say they "figured it all out" and decided on Obama instead of Hillary but that's not what's really happened. That's the rationalization. Instead, people respond to Obama's use of emotive methods of communication and his focus on altruism and hope. They know he hasn't described his plans for the future; they don't care. They're paying attention because they're emotionally involved and prefer that connection to the facts.

It's right brain versus left (from the work of psychologist/zoologist Roger Sperry).

Hillary is going to lose because her presentations are left-brain focused; Obama is going to win because his subject matter appeals to the emotions of his listeners as right-brain material.

Republicans also use emotive methods of communication but much is predicated on capitalizing on fear and then refocusing that fear into areas favoring Republican issues and candidates. Karl Rove is a master at fear provocation and manipulating the results with the careful use of catchy one-liners (sound bites). Thankfully, neither Hillary nor Obama have used fear in this way.

People are being hit from every side these days: health care costs, aging, higher prices for food and fuel, sinking home equity, shrinking (or at least tightening) credit, the "war" and fear of more wars (Iran, another massive terrorist event), more disasters (climate change, rising oceanfronts, melting ice), more economic woes (bankruptcies, foreclosures, inflation, an inability of the government to continue Social Security and Medicare benefits, etc.), and, for those of us that can travel, the extraordinarily high cost of everything because of the sinking dollar. These issues will become even more volatile as the election nears for two reasons: they're real and happening, and people pay more attention as the election (a perceived time of change) gets closer.

Howard Dean suggests that every Democratic candidate should read Westen's book. But it doesn't just work that way -- you have to have the personality to go with it. A calculating person such as Hillary has her place in the world; but a more appealing personality that speaks to everyday issues and insights emotions just below the surface will win every time.