The advent of AI pushes us humans to acquire new skills and hone our existing abilities so we can work alongside these evolving technologies in a collaborative fashion. Image via Getty Images

Over the past 10 years of my career, I have been afforded unique opportunities to work in many roles across the healthcare industry. This includes stints in HR, sales, marketing, and operational roles at a myriad of organizations including small start-up companies, hospital networks, and even my own single-member LLC.

The uncertainty of the job market is ever evolving with close to 200,000 tech workers being laid off last year alone. The rise of AI is changing the employment structure across all industries which is why I feel fortunate to have a plethora of experiences and skills to pull from.

There is mounting concern about AI taking away our jobs, but in reality, we have been living harmoniously with AI tools for quite some time (think – spell check or autocorrect on your text messages). In many instances, we appreciate the benefits that AI brings including automation of repetitive tasks, data entry, and increased efficiencies. Don’t get me wrong, AI is certainly being exploited in some use cases like deepfakes so it is essential to stay vigilant. Overall, I am optimistic about AI improving healthcare, an area where we are experiencing significant financial strains, an overburdened workforce, and clinician shortages.

The advent of AI pushes us humans to acquire new skills and hone our existing abilities so we can work alongside these evolving technologies in a collaborative fashion. AI augments human capabilities rather than replacing us. I believe it will help our society embrace lifelong learning, creating new industries and jobs that have never existed before. These are some reasons why I am not worried about AI eliminating my job in the near future:

AI does not have human skills

AI may be able to beat humans at intelligent tasks like chess, yet prowess such as communication, teamwork, leadership, and emotional intelligence are increasingly important and difficult to automate. According to LinkedIn, the most in-demand skills for professionals are all uniquely human abilities, working in tandem with AI to drive organizational success. In addition, many jobs require some level of creative thinking, making them less susceptible to automation.

AI is not a physical being

Even after living through a global pandemic where many jobs existed only virtually, there is no replacement to the physical being or human touch. Technology can fill a lot of gaps but sitting face to face with another human being is not one of them. In fact, Forbes reported that 90 percent of companies will return to the office in 2024. There will always be power in bringing people together, whether one-on-one meetings, team gatherings, or company wide events.

AI alone cannot implement change

Technology is only as powerful as the people who use it. Sometimes, the hardest part of innovation is not adopting new technology or implementing different protocols but simply getting people to change. Nonetheless, adaptability has proven time and time again to be one of the strongest human traits. Change takes time and trust, both of which AI cannot solve on its own.

While working on this article, I wanted to see what the AI expert thinks and asked “Should I be worried about AI taking away my job?” Here is what Chat GPT responded:

While there is potential for AI to automate certain jobs, it also creates opportunities for new roles and enhances productivity. The key to mitigating the risk is to stay informed, continuously learn, and adapt to new technologies. Emphasizing uniquely human skills and exploring how AI can be a tool rather than a replacement can help secure your place in the evolving job market.

I appreciate Chat GPT’s confidence that humans and AI can co-exist. The future is already here.

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Arielle Rogg is the principal and founder of Rogg Enterprises, a Houston-based company providing digital marketing for health care innovators. 

While crafting a personal or company brand, it is important to connect your business idea to your purpose and passion. Photo via Getty Images

Houston expert shares tips for enhancing personal, company branding

GUEST COLUMN

Every business, whether a single member consultancy, a small startup, or a large corporation, owns a brand. One can think of a brand in a number of different ways — a recognizable logo, a catchy name, an inspirational tagline, or even a feeling one gets when using a certain product or service.

At its core, branding begins with values. Whether you are building a personal brand or a company brand, it is essential to ascertain your purpose and passion and then connect it with your business idea.

In this article, I am going to walk you through tips on building a personal and company brand.

Personal Brand

Gary Vaynerchuk, successful entrepreneur and internet personality who built his personal brand on digital marketing, said “You have to understand your own personal DNA.” Here are some key points to consider when developing your personal brand:

Play to your individual strengths

You do not need to do everything! If you love writing, do a blog. If you prefer talking, focus on videos. If you can commit to posting online every day, take on social media channels like Instagram & Twitter.

Leverage your network

Networks are a powerful tool and most importantly, do not require you to spend loads of marketing dollars. It is a huge misconnection that branding is a cost center for all businesses. There are many ways to promote your brand without significant cost. Here are some simple ideas to get you started:

  1. Create an online presence (website, social media channels, blogs, etc.)
  2. Develop a content calendar and post/update regularly, at least once a week
  3. Read a lot and reach out to journalists who write in your industry
  4. Seek out speaking opportunities at conferences or apply for awards that recognize leaders like you – don’t shy away from nominating yourself!

Be well-rounded

Running your own brand can sometimes make work/life balance feel enmeshed, making you feel like you are losing your own identity. Don’t forget to diversify yourself. Volunteer at a charity or nonprofit of choice, share photos of your friends and family spending time together, get involved with a professional organization, and promote yourself.

Company brand

When building a company brand, it is essential to identify and understand your target audience by creating clear customer profiles. Commercial brands only succeed when they can connect their business and values to a customer. When I work on branding exercises with companies, I always start with a value proposition canvas. Once you clearly define the values and target market, these are some beneficial next steps:

Craft a cohesive vision and mission statement

A vision statement is aspirational or pie in the sky, alluding to what your organization will achieve in the future. A mission statement is definitional, describing your business objectives and how you will get there. Together, these succinct messages should help your customer fully understand what you are selling or offering.

Create a unique and consistent visual identity

A visual identity is what helps a brand stand on its own without needing someone to explain it. This can include a color scheme, fonts, logo – anything that will contribute to your company’s brand guidelines. Especially for companies in highly competitive markets like food & beverage, a recognizable visual identity can make or break a brand’s ultimate success.

Take your time

I recently listened to the How I Built This podcast episode featuring Bombas. I was amazed to hear that they tested over 100 fabric combinations for their first sock before finalizing it. Today, they are probably one of the most popular and recognizable brands in the sock business. Some companies need to launch right away but as long as you can learn, grow, and pivot when needed, time can be on your side. A quality product is better than a rushed product.

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Arielle Rogg is the principal and founder of Rogg Enterprises, a Houston-based company providing digital marketing for health care innovators.
A Houston expert weighs in on the importance of breaking down barriers for innovation. Photo via Getty Images

Why Houston needs to break down its industry barriers to advance innovation

guest column

Innovation has always been the driving force behind progress and development in every industry. It is the engine that propels growth, fosters competition, and improves people’s lives. The importance of innovation in every sector has grown exponentially in recent years with new ideas and technologies emerging faster than ever before. This explosion has led to innovation silos, where each industry is developing its own innovations and making progress in isolation from the others.

Houston has embraced the rise of innovation with gusto and is a prime city to break down industry specific silos. We proudly host the largest medical center and the energy capital of the world as well as the headquarters for the space race. The mayor’s office has shown a strong commitment to support rapid innovation growth, providing incentives and infrastructure for technology companies and talent to reside in Houston. Our city’s emerging innovation district has already shown huge promise with the Ion building and Greentown Labs providing a strong foundation to expand. Organizations uniting innovators across all industries like Pumps & Pipes could only exist in a city as diverse and accessible as Houston. Nonetheless, our community needs to band together to ensure innovation growth is inclusive of all industries to create an equitable approach to technology that will continue to benefit generations to come.

While innovation silos may have some benefits, such as competition and differentiation, they also have some significant drawbacks, including inefficiencies, redundancies, and missed opportunities. Industries can become so focused on their own innovations that they fail to see the potential for cross-industry collaboration. Many examples exist today where certain technologies or practices were once reserved for specific use cases and now have become mainstream. For instance, the use of the common GPS network for location and navigation services was originally pioneered by NASA, and hospital safety and quality checklists were derived from the airline industry. By soliciting more opportunities for innovation sharing, we can achieve faster growth, implement stronger and safer processes, and reduce repetitive and costly pilot testing in every industry from energy, health care, finance, social impact, and more.

I am putting out a call to action to the Houston community to open your doors to cross-industry partnerships.

Engage in more open dialogue and information sharing outside your industry.

Attend events that bring together professionals from all industries for knowledge sharing and idea exchange. Many conferences, workshops, and meet-ups already exist to unite and recognize cross-industry communities within specific interest groups. In addition, startup accelerators, incubator programs, and collaborative workspaces provide unique environments that encourage spontaneous conversations and positive idea exchange.

Incentivize businesses, start-ups, and individuals who are willing to collaborate and share their ideas with others.

Knowledge sharing should be rewarded through recognition programs, awards, special partnership opportunities, and more. Professional organizations and leadership networks are a great place to turn to for connecting with like-minded individuals and identifying recognition opportunities that can promote the great work of experience sharing.

Commit investments in cross-industry research and development.

We need to create more incentives for researchers to work across different industries and apply their expertise to various fields. Examples like the Ion Prototyping Lab, a one-of-a-kind makerspace for all, and events at the upcoming Ion Activation Festival, including “Back to the Future of Innovation”, unite researchers with industry to encourage collaborative collisions.

In the end, breaking down innovation barriers is essential if we want to continue on this upward, fast-growth trend to improve our community and to make an impact in people’s lives across the world. We need to take action now to promote a more seamless cross-industry approach to knowledge sharing, collaboration, and research and development to create a better future for all.

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Arielle Rogg is the principal and founder of Rogg Enterprises LLC, a Houston-based company providing digital marketing for health care innovators.

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Houston innovator makes leap into VC to boost representation in the boardroom

Houston innovators Podcast episode 260

When Aileen Allen was contemplating a big career move — swapping sides of the table from tech company to venture investor — she was motivated by driving gender and experience diversity amongst decision makers.

"I've worked for VC-backed companies for most of my career and had the opportunity as an executive to be in the boardroom during that time," she says on the Houston Innovators Podcast. "One of my takeaways was that very few of my board members looked like me. I had one or two women on any of my boards at a time in totality, and very few of my board members had been operators."

"I'd really like to change that, and I'd like there to be better representation and diversification in the boardroom," she adds.

But Allen didn't just jump feet first into the career change. She did her homework first, spending months talking to mentors, meeting investors for over 30 informational interviews, and compiling everything she learned. She says she learned how different the world of VC is compared to her time as an operator — from the unstructured workflow at a VC firm to hustle mentality you have as an operator.

This summer, she made the jump and joined Mercury as venture partner. She just recently closed her first deal for the Houston VC firm that focuses on B2B SaaS startups. She also is on the board of the Houston Angel Network and is working with leadership to grow and expand membership.

A native Houstonian, Allen spent a large chunk of her career in the Bay Area, which her most significant role at Atlassian where she oversaw product marketing as the company scaled. When she relocated back to Houston — by way of a few years in Austin's tech scene — she says she struggled at first to find Houston's entrepreneurial ecosystem.

"I think my first impression (of Houston's tech ecosystem) was, 'where is it?'" she says, adding for context that that she did relocate in 2020 when the pandemic greatly affected events and activity. "It feels like there's something that's happening in Houston, but it's smaller or maybe a bit more fragmented, and I think there's an opportunity for a lot of us on the investing side and founders who have had successful exits or are running companies at scale to do more and give back in more meaningful ways to create the presence that Austin and the Bay Area is really known for."

Houston biotech startup secures $10M seed round to propel cancer-fighting therapy from bench to bedside

fresh funding

A Houston biotech company based off research out of UTHealth Houston has raised seed funding to continue developing its cancer-fighting therapeutic.

CrossBridge Bio, formed during the TMC Innovation’s Accelerator for Cancer Therapeutics program, closed a $10 million seed round led by TMC Venture Fund and Crescent Enterprises' VC arm, CE-Ventures. The round also included participation from Portal Innovations, Alexandria Venture Investments, Linden Lake Labs, and several pre-seed investors.

“We are thrilled to have the support of such experienced investors who share our vision of bringing transformative cancer therapies to patients in need,” Michael Torres, CEO of CrossBridge Bio, says in a news release. Torres served as an entrepreneur in residence of ACT.

The company is working on the next-generation of antibody-drug conjugates (ADC) therapeutics that process dual payloads as targeted treatments for a set of challenging cancers. The innovative treatment is based on research from UTHealth experts Dr. Kyoji Tsuchikama and Dr. Zhiqiang An.

“Our dual-payload ADC technology is designed to deliver synergistic therapeutic effects using highly stable linkers that ensure payload release only within the targeted cancer cells, thereby maximizing their therapeutic effectiveness while minimizing the liabilities associated with uptake in unintended tissues, as seen with many of today’s cancer treatments," Torres continues.

He explains that the funding will toward advancing CrossBridge's first development candidate, CBB-120, into preclinical non-GLP toxicology studies in addition to derisking the company’s proprietary linker technology with dual-payload applications, per the release.

As a result of the raise, William McKeon, president and CEO of the Texas Medical Center, and Damir Illich, manager of life sciences of CE-Ventures, will join CrossBridge Bio’s board of directors.

“We are proud to back CrossBridge Bio in their mission to develop the next generation of cancer therapies,” McKeon says in the release. “Their dual-payload ADCs are designed to deliver targeted drug release within cancer cells with greater stability, precision, and control. These breakthrough advancements have the potential to change patients’ lives worldwide and we look forward to helping drive their development.”

Houston firm scores 2 grants to support testing treatment for addiction, neurodegenerative diseases

money moves

A Houston organization devoted to developing early-stage therapeutic and medical device technologies announced fresh funding for one of its startups.

Fannin Partners' Goldenrod Therapeutics, received a $320,000 Phase I SBIR grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) for studies regarding both addiction medicine and neurodegenerative diseases with a single lead candidate, called 11h.

The grant will fund studies in rodent models of methamphetamine addiction and the efficacy of 11h for the tiny patients. This is the next step in charting the established promise of 11h in substance use disorders using animal models. Existing therapies for opioid and alcohol addiction have high relapse rates, and there are currently no FDA-approved medications for Stimulant Use Disorders (StUDs).

Previous preclinical studies demonstrated that 11h was effective in the fight against cocaine addiction. The goal is to note similar results in methamphetamine addiction.

At the same time, Fannin was also granted a $250,000 Early Hypothesis Development Award from the Department of Defense (DoD) to study 11h in neurodegenerative diseases. Specifically, the funds will be used to work on rodent models of multiple sclerosis (MS).

Fannin’s goal is to develop an oral medication that slows or reverses the progression of MS, while also improving the patient’s quality of life by relieving symptoms. Many MS medications come with the threat of liver injury and increased risk of infection, so sidestepping those is also a hope for 11h.

In fact, 11h was developed to minimize the toxicities associated with existing PDE4 inhibitors. Early evidence shows that the drug is not only effective, but also safe and easily tolerable.

“NIDA’s continued support of our SUD program highlights the potential of 11h to significantly improve the standard of care for patients suffering from these conditions, some of which lack any approved pharmaceutical options," says Dr. Atul Varadhachary, managing partner at Fannin, in a news release. “The additional DoD funding will allow us to explore 11h’s impact on neurodegenerative disease, as well. We are grateful for the support from both organizations as we advance 11h towards clinical development.”

Previous steps in 11h’s development were funded by a $350,000 Phase I SBIR grant from NIDA. 11h is part of NIDA’s Addiction Treatment Discovery Program. Next year, Fannin will likely scale up Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) production and complete toxicology studies. This will lead to clinical trials for 11h for cocaine use disorder and other StUDs. But don’t expect Fannin to be quiet for long. Its next big discovery is always on the horizon.