I’m sure that you’ve heard the saying that “you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.” Alternative phrases are “putting lipstick on a pig” or “polishing a turd.”
In other words, if something is crappy, you can’t completely transform it into something worthwhile.
Yet we persist on starting with crappy stuff anyway…such as surrendering our writing to generative AI and then trying to fix the resulting crap later.
Which is why I’ve said that a human should ALWAYS write the first draft.
The questionable job description
Mike Harris found a job post asking for a human copyeditor to rework AI-generated content. See the details here.
I’m sure that the unnamed company thought it was a great idea to have AI generate the content…until they saw what AI generated.
Rather than fix the source of the problem, the company has apparently elected to hire someone to rework the stuff.
A human should always write the first draft
Why not have a human write the stuff in the first place..as I recommended last June? Let me borrow what I said before…
I’m going to stick with the old fashioned method of writing the first draft myself. And I suggest that you do the same. Doing this lets me:
Satisfy my inflated ego. I’ve been writing for years and take pride in my ability to outline and compose a piece of text. I’ve created thousands upon thousands of pieces of content over my lifetime, so I feel I know what I’m doing.
Iterate on my work to make it better. Yes, your favorite generative AI tool can crank out a block of text in a minute. But when I’m using my own hands on a keyboard to write something, I can zoom up and down throughout the text, tweaking things, adding stuff, removing stuff, and sometimes copying everything to a brand new draft and hacking half of it away. It takes a lot longer, but in my view all of this iterative activity makes the first draft much better, which makes the final version even better still.
Control the tone of my writing. One current drawback of generative AI is that, unless properly prompted, it often delivers bland, boring text. Creating and iterating the text myself lets me dictate the tone of voice. Do I want to present the content as coming from a knowledgeable Sage? Does the text need the tone of a Revolutionary? I want to get that into the first draft, rather than having to rewrite the whole thing later to change it.
I made a couple of other points in that original LinkedIn article, but I’m…um…iterating. I predict that there’s a time when I WON’T be able to sleep on my text any more, and these days the “generated text” flag has been replaced by HUMAN detection of stuff that was obviously written by a bot.
And that’s more dangerous than any flag.
But if you insist on going the cheap route and outsourcing your writing to a bot…you get what you pay for.
Forensic examiners, YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG based on this bold claim:
“Columbia engineers have built a new AI that shatters a long-held belief in forensics–that fingerprints from different fingers of the same person are unique. It turns out they are similar, only we’ve been comparing fingerprints the wrong way!” (From Newswise)
Couple that claim with the initial rejection of the paper by multiple forensic journals because “it is well known that every fingerprint is unique” (apparently the reviewer never read the NAS report), and you have the makings of a sexy story.
Or do you?
And what is the paper’s basis for the claim that fingerprints from the same person are NOT unique?
““The AI was not using ‘minutiae,’ which are the branchings and endpoints in fingerprint ridges – the patterns used in traditional fingerprint comparison,” said Guo, who began the study as a first-year student at Columbia Engineering in 2021. “Instead, it was using something else, related to the angles and curvatures of the swirls and loops in the center of the fingerprint.”” (From Newswise)
Perhaps there are similarities in the patterns of the fingers at the center of a print, but that doesn’t negate the uniqueness of the bifurcations and ridge ending locations throughout the print. Guo’s method uses less of the distal fingerprint than traditional minutiae analysis.
But maybe there are forensic applications for this alternate print comparison technique, at least as an investigative lead. (Let me repeat that again: “investigative lead.”) Courtroom use will be limited because there is no AI equivalent to explain to the court how the comparison was made, and if any other expert AI algorithm would yield the same results.
As I said, I shared the piece above to several places, including one frequented by forensic experts. One commenter in a private area offered the following observation, in part:
What was the validation process? Did they have a qualified latent print examiner confirm their data?
From a private source.
Before you dismiss the comment as reflecting a stick-in-the-mud forensic old fogey who does not recognize the great wisdom of our AI overlords, remember (as I noted above) that forensic experts are required to testify in court about things like this. If artificial intelligence is claimed to identify relationships between fingers from the same person, you’d better make really sure that this is true before someone is put to death.
I hate to repeat the phrase used by scientific study authors in search of more funding, but…
Leftover pizza is the best pizza. Preparation credit: Pizza N Such, Claremont, California. Can I earn free pizza as a powerful influencer? Probably not, but I’ll disclose on the 0.00001% chance that I do.
Now that it’s time to write the “separate post,” I really don’t want to get into the mechanics of how posts that attract prospects (hungry people, target audience) increase awareness and help you convert prospects for your products and services.
So forget that. I’m going to tell a story instead about two executives at a fictional company that has a real problem. The executives’ names are Jones and Smith.
The story
Jones was troubled. Sales weren’t increasing, prospects weren’t appearing, and if this malaise continued the company would have to conduct a second round of layoffs. Jones knew that “rightsizing” would be disastrous, so the company needed another solution.
So Jones videoconferenced Smith and asked, “How can we make 2024 better than 2023?”
Smith replied, “Increasing sales calls could help, and ads could help, but there’s another way to increase our awareness with our prospects. We could create content on our website and on our social channels that spreads knowledge of our products and services.”
Jones exclaimed, “That’s great! We could get generative AI to create content for us!”
“No, not that!” Smith replied. “Generative AI text sounds like a bot wrote it, and makes us sound boring, just like everyone else using generative AI text. Do we want to sound like that and put our prospects to sleep?”
“So we need a human writer,” Jones realized, “one who can describe all of the features of our products.”
“Absolutely not,” Smith emphasized. “Customers don’t care about our features. They care about the benefits we can provide to them. If we just list a bunch of features, they’ll say, ‘So what?'”
“OK, we’ll go with benefits,” said Jones. “But why is content so important?”
“Take blogging,” replied Smith. “The average company that blogs generates 55% more website visitors. B2B marketers that use blogs get 67% more leads than those who do not. Marketers who have prioritized blogging are 13x more likely to enjoy positive ROI. And 92% of companies who blog multiple times per day have acquired a customer from their blog.”
“Wow.” Jones was silent for a moment. “How do you know all of this stuff, Smith?”
“Because of the content that I’ve read online from a marketing and writing services company called Bredemarket. The company creates content to urge others to create content. Bredemarket eats its own wildebeest food.”
As we close out 2023, I’ve been thinking about a lot of things.
Will 2024 be like 2021, in which the new year (2024) offers mimimal improvement over the preceding year (2023)? Reply hazy, try again later. (“And while tech layoffs slowed down in the summer and fall, it appears that cuts are ramping up yet again.”)
What new ways will we develop to better ghost people? Or will the old ways of ghosting continue to dominate the (lack of) conversation? (And if the person who ghosts is the ghoster, and the person who is ghosted is the ghostee…who is the ghost?)
Most importantly for this post, I’ve been thinking about the following: why are target audiences TARGETS, and why are they AUDIENCES? And is the term “target audience” the best description? (TL;DR: No.) If not, what’s a better description? (TL;DR: I don’t know.)
So let’s look at target audiences. And if you don’t mind, I’ve asked William Tell, Cheap Trick, Steve Dahl, Google Bard, Andrew Loog Oldham, and others to help me examine the topic, which will probably be Bredemarket’s last blog post of 2023.
But first I’ll explain where I’m coming from. Rather than diving into great detail, I’ll take a more, um, targeted approach and just quote a bit from the relevant information page.
There are roughly 8 billion people in the world. Most businesses don’t care about 7.99999 billion of these people; the businesses only care about 0.00001 billion (or fewer) people who will buy or recommend the business’ product or service.
Your content (or proposal) needs to resonate with these people. The others don’t matter.
Daily Copywriting’s use of the word “target” as a pejorative got me thinking about my fave phrase “target audience.”
Let’s start with the first word. At its worst, “target” implies something that you shoot, in a William Tell sort of way. If your weapon hits the target, you and your son don’t die. If your weapon misses low, you kill your son. Is that what we marketers do? Hopefully not.
Even at its best, “target” is just something that you get right. You’ve narrowed the 8 billion people to the few that really matter. So what?
Then we move to the second word of the fave phrase “target audience.” An audience is a group of people that sit in chairs while you perform your song and dance in front of them. (“These are the seven questions your content creator should ask you. Thank you for coming to my BRED talk.”)
Sometimes the audience just sits. Not good.
Sometimes the audience claps. A little better.
If you’re the Beatles or Cheap Trick, the audience screams. But still not enough.
Clapping or screaming is nice, but this doesn’t count as true engagement. I mean, in a way it would be nice if you scream with joy at this post, but it counts for nothing if you don’t actually buy Bredemarket’s marketing and writing services.
I’m forced to admit that there was one time where someone truly engaged his target audience—and that was during Steve Dahl’s “Disco Demolition Night.”
Dahl was not a disco fan, since he lost his WDAI radio job when his then-employer switched to a disco format. As a counter-reaction to disco, Dahl entertained baseball fans on Disco Demolition Night by destroying disco records between two games of a doubleheader. 7,000 fans stormed the field in delirious joy, wrecking the field, and the second game of the doubleheader was never played. This was NOT a good thing. But the White Sox survived, and even celebrated the 40th anniversary of the promotion. Dahl threw out the first pitch. Nothing exploded. But nothing was accomplished.
So if “target audience” isn’t the right term to use, what is?
I’ll grant that “needy people” has a negative connotation, like the person who is sad when people forget their birthday. (Not “ghosting” per se, but perhaps a little “boo.”) But “needy people” is certainly better than “target audience.”
“Needy” is stronger than “target.” Rather than just representing a demographic, it actually represents people who truly NEED things. Just because a company needs content for its website doesn’t necessarily mean that it needs Bredemarket. Many companies have their own people to create content.
And for the reasons stated by Daily Copyrighting, “people” is stronger than “audience.” You are not a faceless audience that claps (or screams) when Bredemarket does its song and dance. You are people who work in a certain way, which I why I talk to people before creating content for them.
This “needy people” phrase sounded good a few days ago, but now that I’ve thought about it some more I see some problems with this formulation also. In addition to the negative connotations of the phrase, the mere fact that someone is “needy” doesn’t necessary mean that they will buy Bredemarket’s services. Take my identification of “needy people” from a few days ago:
My mini-survey shows that of the 40+ identity firms with blogs, about one-third of them HAVEN’T SAID A SINGLE THING to their prospects and customers in the last two months.
Yes, these companies are damaging their future prospects and need Bredemarket. But none of these companies has approached Bredemarket, or any other marketing and writing consultant, or their in-house people.
Perhaps they don’t see the problem at all.
Perhaps they see the problem, but don’t want to spend money (even a few hundred dollars) to fix it.
Perhaps they see the problem but don’t consider it as critically important as the other problems they face. Rather than spending a few hundred dollars, some companies are saving millions of dollars by “rightsizing” by 10-20% and cutting marketing budgets. They’re just fine with spiderweb-covered blog pages.
Because “needy people” doesn’t capture my meaning, I’ll do the recommended thing and use this blog post to throw up another idea.
The problem with the term “hungry people”
My latest iteration of “target audience” is “hungry people.” I figure that unlike “needy people,” “hungry people” are more inspired to act on their needs. They don’t just clap or scream; they are motivated to search for something to eat.
Using my example of the non-blogging identity firms, perhaps some of those quiet firms are troubled by their lack of communication with their prospects and clients. Rather than doing nothing, these firms are ready to plug their communications gap. But will they plug it with healthy food, or with junk food?
Even without writers, companies can unleash a content creation boom with generative AI. By feeding the AI brand guidelines, target audience data, and product specifics, they can churn out blog posts, ad copy, product descriptions, and even social media snippets. This AI assistant generates captivating headlines, outlines engaging narratives, and drafts basic texts, all while maintaining brand voice and SEO optimization. AI handles the heavy lifting, freeing up resources for strategic planning and audience engagement, boosting content output from silence to symphony.
I know this may surprise you, but I didn’t write the paragraph above. Google Bard did. And perhaps some hungry companies will opt for the free route and let generative AI write their content rather than contracting or employing a content marketer. Silence to symphony for a $0 budget! I consider this bittersweet.
I let the melody shine, let it cleanse my mind, I feel free now. Even though the melody was from Andrew Loog Oldham, uncredited, resulting in a decades-long copyright dispute between the Verve and the Rolling Stones. From https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lyu1KKwC74.
So “hungry” doesn’t quite cut it, since I seek the people who are not only hungry, but who will pay for quality fare such as Bredemarket’s marketing and writing services.
To be continued
In this case, the blog post IS a temporary expression of thought. I’ve determined that “target audience” is an imperfect phrase and that I need to replace it with SOMETHING, but I haven’t figured out what that “something” is yet.
Until I get a better idea, I’ll use “hungry people” in my internal work, but I won’t change my customer-facing work (such as the e-book) until I come up with an effective alternative to “target audience.”
And one more thing
And unless I get a sudden brainstorm, this will probably be the last Bredemarket blog post for 2023, and I’m currently ruminating about the first question I asked in this post regarding prospects for 2024. While there were some positive things that happened this year, the negatives during the last seven months tended to outweigh the positives. A lot of other people are also experiencing this, so I’m sharing this song for those who are glad that 2023 is almost over, and who hope that 2024 isn’t more of the same.
A firm’s content should address the needs of its target audience. For Bredemarket, that is people in identity, biometrics, technology, and general business whose firms aren’t marketing effectively.
Narrow target audiences are the enemy of virality.
Unless you create attention-grabbing content that doesn’t contribute to your core business, but only grabs attention.
For example, you could proclaim that “Kokomo” is the absolute best Beach Boys song ever.
Fair
But I couldn’t bear to write such drivel myself, so I assigned the task to Google Bard, who wrote all the “hot take” text under this paragraph. (I hate myself now.)
Kokomo: The Underrated Gem that Shines Brighter than California Sun
Beach Boys fans, brace yourselves for a hot take. While classics like “Surfin’ U.S.A.” and “California Girls” hold their place in the pantheon of summer anthems, there’s one song, often relegated to the realm of guilty pleasures, that deserves a crown of seashells and a chorus of seagulls: “Kokomo.”
Yes, I said it. Kokomo is not just The Beach Boys’ best song, it’s a pop masterpiece, a sonic escape hatch to a tropical paradise, and a testament to the band’s enduring musical magic. Here’s why:
1. The Escape: From the first steel drum lick, “Kokomo” whisks you away from the everyday. Mike Love’s smooth vocals paint a picture of turquoise waters, swaying palm trees, and worries lost in the trade winds. It’s wanderlust in a song, a daydream of bare feet in the sand, perfectly capturing the yearning for escape that made The Beach Boys icons.
2. The Melody: It’s impossible not to hum along. The chorus, a catchy earworm built on layered harmonies and a driving beat, burrows deep into your brain and stays there like a souvenir seashell. It’s a pop hook that rivals anything in The Beach Boys’ discography, a testament to their mastery of crafting unforgettable melodies.
3. The Production: Lush, vibrant, and layered, the production on “Kokomo” is a sonic tapestry. Tropical instruments, steel drums, and gentle percussion create a soundscape that’s both playful and sophisticated. It’s a sonic cocktail that transports you to the heart of that island paradise, with every layer adding a new dimension to the musical journey.
4. The Unexpectedness: Released in 1988, “Kokomo” arrived at a time when The Beach Boys were navigating a new musical landscape. But instead of feeling dated or derivative, it embraced a contemporary sound while retaining the band’s signature harmonies and sun-drenched spirit. It’s a testament to their ability to adapt and evolve, proving their musical magic had never truly faded.
5. The Heart: At its core, “Kokomo” is a song about longing and connection. It’s about finding solace in the arms of a loved one, escaping the mundane with someone special. It’s a love letter to shared dreams and simple pleasures, reminding us that sometimes, all we need is a little sunshine, a sandy beach, and the one we love.
So, next time you reach for a Beach Boys record, don’t just skip to the hits. Give “Kokomo” a chance. Let its infectious melody wash over you, close your eyes, and imagine yourself beneath the swaying palm trees. You might just find yourself singing along, realizing you’ve stumbled upon a hidden gem, the one song that truly captures the essence of The Beach Boys and their timeless sound.
Now, go forth and spread the gospel of Kokomo! Let’s give this underrated masterpiece the recognition it deserves. After all, it’s not just a song, it’s a state of mind, a passport to paradise, and the ultimate proof that The Beach Boys’ magic truly is endless.
P.S. Don’t forget to pack your sunscreen and your dancing shoes!
Robert Young (“Marcus Welby”) and Jane Wyatt (“Margaret Anderson” on a different show). By ABC TelevisionUploaded by We hope at en.wikipedia – eBay itemphoto informationTransferred from en.wikipedia by SreeBot, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=16472486
We’ve come a long way since the days of Marcus Welby, M.D. (who was a fictional character).
Back in the days of Marcus Welby, M.D., we trusted the doctor as the sole provider of medical information. Doctor knows best!
Later, we learned about health by searching the Internet ourselves, using sources of varying trustworthiness such as pharmaceutical company commercials.
Now, we don’t even conduct the searches ourselves, but let an artificial intelligence healthcare bot search for us, even though the bot hallucinates sometimes.
A “hallucination” occurs when generative AI is convinced that its answer is correct, even when it is wrong. These hallucinations could be a problem—in healthcare, literally a matter of life or death.
For example, a counselor may tell a patient with a substance use disorder to use an app in order to track cravings, states of mind, and other information helpful in treating addiction. The app may recommend certain therapeutic actions in case the counselor cannot be reached. Setting aside preemption issues raised by Food and Drug Administration regulation of these apps, important questions in tort law arise. If these therapeutic actions are contraindicated and result in harm to the patient or others, is the app to blame? Or does the doctor who prescribed the app bear the blame?
That’s right. WHO is going to ensure that these bots can be trusted.
A World Health Organization publication…
…underscores the critical need to ensure the safety and efficacy of AI systems, accelerating their availability to those in need and encouraging collaboration among various stakeholders, including developers, regulators, manufacturers, healthcare professionals, and patients.
According to WHO, its document proposes six areas of artificial intelligence regulation for health.
To foster trust, the publication stresses the importance of transparency and documentation, such as through documenting the entire product lifecycle and tracking development processes.
For risk management, issues like ‘intended use’, ‘continuous learning’, human interventions, training models and cybersecurity threats must all be comprehensively addressed, with models made as simple as possible.
Externally validating data and being clear about the intended use of AI helps assure safety and facilitate regulation.
A commitment to data quality, such as through rigorously evaluating systems pre-release, is vital to ensuring systems do not amplify biases and errors.
The challenges posed by important, complex regulations – such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in Europe and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) in the United States of America – are addressed with an emphasis on understanding the scope of jurisdiction and consent requirements, in service of privacy and data protection.
Fostering collaboration between regulatory bodies, patients, healthcare professionals, industry representatives, and government partners, can help ensure products and services stay compliant with regulation throughout their lifecycles.
My decision making process relies on extensive data analysis and aligning with the company’s strategic objectives. It’s devoid of personal bias ensuring unbiased and strategic choices that prioritize the organization’s best interests.
Mika was brought to my attention by accomplished product marketer/artist Danuta (Dana) Deborgoska. (She’s appeared in the Bredemarket blog before, though not by name.) Dana is also Polish (but not Colombian) and clearly takes pride in the artificial intelligence accomplishments of this Polish-headquartered company. You can read her LinkedIn post to see her thoughts, one of which was as follows:
Data is the new oxygen, and we all know that we need clean data to innovate and sustain business models.
There’s a reference to oxygen again, but it’s certainly appropriate. Just as people cannot survive without oxygen, Generative AI cannot survive without data.
But the need for data predates AI models. From 2017:
Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani said India is poised to grow…but to make that happen the country’s telecoms and IT industry would need to play a foundational role and create the necessary digital infrastructure.
Calling data the “oxygen” of the digital economy, Ambani said the telecom industry had the urgent task of empowering 1.3 billion Indians with the tools needed to flourish in the digital marketplace.
Of course, the presence or absence of data alone is not enough. As Debogorska notes, we don’t just need any data; we need CLEAN data, without error and without bias. Dirty data is like carbon monoxide, and as you know carbon monoxide is harmful…well, most of the time.
That’s been the challenge not only with artificial intelligence, but with ALL aspects of data gathering.
The all-male board of directors of a fertilizer company in 1960. Fair use. From the New York Times.
In all of these cases, someone (Amazon, Enron’s shareholders, or NIST) asked questions about the cleanliness of the data, and then set out to answer those questions.
In the case of Amazon’s recruitment tool and the company Enron, the answers caused Amazon to abandon the tool and Enron to abandon its existence.
Despite the entreaties of so-called privacy advocates (who prefer the privacy nightmare of physical driver’s licenses to the privacy-preserving features of mobile driver’s licenses), we have not abandoned facial recognition, but we’re definitely monitoring it in a statistical (not an anecdotal) sense.
The cleanliness of the data will continue to be the challenge as we apply artificial intelligence to new applications.
Things change. Pangiam, a company that didn’t even exist a few years ago, and that started off by acquiring a one-off project from a local government agency, is now itself a friendly acquisition target (pending stockholder and regulatory approvals).
From MWAA to Pangiam
Back when I worked for IDEMIA and helped to market its border control solutions, one of our competitors for airport business was an airport itself—specifically, the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority. Rather than buying a biometric exit solution from someone else, the MWAA developed its own, called veriScan.
2021 image from the former airportveriscan website.
ALEXANDRIA, Va., March 19, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — Pangiam, a technology-based security and travel services provider, announced today that it has acquired veriScan, an integrated biometric facial recognition system for airports and airlines, from the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (“Airports Authority”). Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
So what will Pangiam work on next? Where will it expand? What will it acquire?
Nothing.
Enter BigBear.ai
Pangiam itself is now an acquisition target.
COLUMBIA, MD.— November 6, 2023 — BigBear.ai (NYSE: BBAI), a leading provider of AI-enabled business intelligence solutions, today announced a definitive merger agreement to acquire Pangiam Intermediate Holdings, LLC (Pangiam), a leader in Vision AI for the global trade, travel, and digital identity industries, for approximately $70 million in an all-stock transaction. The combined company will create one of the industry’s most comprehensive Vision AI portfolios, combining Pangiam’s facial recognition and advanced biometrics with BigBear.ai’s computer vision capabilities, positioning the company as a foundational leader in one of the fastest growing categories for the application of AI. The proposed acquisition is expected to close in the first quarter of 2024, subject to customary closing conditions, including approval by the holders of a majority of BigBear.ai’s outstanding common shares and receipt of regulatory approval.
Yet another example of how biometrics is now just a minor part of general artificial intelligence efforts. Identify a face or a grenade, it’s all the same.
Anyway, let’s check back in a few months. Because of the technology involved, this proposed acquisition will DEFINITELY merit government review.
For a long time, each ML (machine learning) model operated in one data mode – text (translation, language modeling), image (object detection, image classification), or audio (speech recognition).
However, natural intelligence is not limited to just a single modality. Humans can read and write text. We can see images and watch videos. We listen to music to relax and watch out for strange noises to detect danger. Being able to work with multimodal data is essential for us or any AI to operate in the real world.
As you can see from the title, Huyen uses an acronym “LMM” that is very similar to another generative AI acronym, “LLM” (large language model).
So what’s the difference?
Not all multimodal systems are LMMs. For example, text-to-image models like Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, and Dall-E are multimodal but don’t have a language model component.
If you’re interested in delving into the topic, Huyen’s long three-part post covers the context for multimodality, the fundamentals of a multimodal system, and active research areas.
At least in the United States, the mobile driver’s license world is fragmented.
Because driver’s license issuance in the U.S. is a state and not a federal responsibility, each state has to develop its own mobile driver’s license implementation. Subject to federal and international standards, of course.
To date there have been two parties helping the states with this:
mDL vendors such as Envoc and IDEMIA, who work with the states to create mDLs.
Operating system vendors such as Apple and Google, who work with the states to incorporate mDLs in smartphone wallets.
But because the Android ecosystem is more fragmented than the iOS ecosystem, we now have a third party that is involved in mDLs. In addition to mDL vendors and operating system vendors, we also have really large smartphone providers.
Samsung Electronics America today announced it is bringing mobile driver’s licenses and state IDs to Samsung Wallet. Arizona and Iowa will be the first states to offer a mobile version of its driver’s license to their residents. The update expands the Samsung Wallet experience by adding a convenient and secure way to use state-issued IDs and driver’s licenses
In this particular case Samsung is working with IDEMIA (the mDL provider for Arizona and Iowa), but Samsung announced that it is working with other states and with the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).
On a personal note, I’m still working on validating my driver’s license for California’s pilot mDL program. It probably didn’t help that I renewed my physical driver’s license right in the middle of the mDL validation process.
Bredemarket 