November 8 Readings

A Whole New Mind: Chapter 1

• Science recently created functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to capture pictures of the brain in action.
• Researchers ask the subject to do something inside the machine and then track the parts of the brain to which blood flows
• when the user looks at scary scenes, the brain called in support from the left side
• As far back as Hippocrates, physicians believes that the left side of the brain was the essential half of the brain
• Language is what separates men from animals. Language resides on the left side of the brain.
• The right side of the brain is found to be superior when it comes to performing certain kinds of mental tasks
• "Drawing is not really very difficult," says Betty Edwards. Seeing is the problem. The secret to really seeing is to quite the left side of the brain.
  
• 4 key differences between brain hemispheres
• the left hemisphere controls the right side of the body; the right hemisphere controls the left side of the body.
• the left hemisphere is sequential; the right hemisphere is simultaneous
• the left hemisphere recognizing serial events
• the right side of the brain interprets things simultaneously. It is the right side that interprets faces
• the left hemisphere specializes in text; the right hemisphere specializes in context. The left hemisphere interprets the words, the right hemisphere reads tone and expression to interpret feeling.
• languages that require the reader to supply the vowels by discerning the context are usually written from right to left
• the left hemisphere analyzes the details; the right hemisphere synthesizes the big picture
• L-Directed thinking is the form of thinking and an attitude to life that is characteristic of the left hemisphere of the brain
• R-Directed Thinking is the form of thinking and an attitude to life that is characteristic of the right hemisphere of the brain

My previous perspective of right brain and left brain is that the right brain controls creativity and the left brain controls logic. In the gifted and talented program, we did activities to stretch each side of the brain. Certain people are weighted towards the left brain and others toward the right brain. However, I never understood how these concepts relate to our behaviors. My mother always says "What God giveth, God taketh away. The brain only has so much room. The smarter you are, the less social skills." I always found truth in this, but perhaps now, I can back it up with science. If you are more left brained, you have great analytical skills, but you aren't necessarily able to see the big picture and to see things in context. People who lack Emotional Intelligence aren't able to see the context. I wonder if it is possible to train the mind how to be more creative. I would be interested to see what creative exercises could do to a group of scientist's social skills.

A Whole New Mind: Chapter 3

• There are 3 Ages in the past 150 Years
• Act I, Industrial Age. Cardinal traits were physical strength and personal fortitude
• Act II, the Information Age. Central figure in this was the knowledge worker proficient in L-Directed Thinking
• Act III, the Conceptual Age. The main characters are the creator and the empathizer who is a master of R-Directed Thinking
• Companies must ask 3 questions
• Can someone overseas do it cheaper?
• Can a computer do it faster?
• is that what I'm offering in demand in an age of abundance?
• Need to supplement our abilities with abilities that are high touch and high concept
• Other cultures, such as Japan, are pushing on students to "educate the heart"
• MFA is the new MBA. Corporations are hiring painters, poets, and comic book creators.
• The Rainbow Project, which tests peoples ability to do creative work, has been twice as successful as the SAT in predicting how well students do at college. IQ only accounts for 4-10% of career success
• As people mature, cognitive patterns become less left-brain oriented and more right-brained, resulting in a sharpened sense of reality, increased capacity for emotions, and enhancement for their own sense of connectedness. As a result, meaning is the new money.
• There are six specific high-concept and high-touch aptitudes
• Design
• Story
• Symphony
• Empathy
• Play
• Meaning

When I returned from working in Dublin, I decided that I wanted to work in marketing for a theatre company. I did a lot of networking and I remembered that several of my contacts suggested I get an MFA. They said that the MBA was becoming a dime a dozen, but an MFA was hard to find. Not only that, but the MFA said that you were creative. I actually highly considered it. I found it interesting that IQ does not equivocate to career success. I certainly think that it helps though. But IQ needs to have some ideas. Perhaps more programs should educate those with high IQs to give them more of a career boost.

A Whole New Mind: Chapter 4

• Design is a class whole-minded aptitude that combines utility and significance
• Utility is akin to L-Directed Thinking; significance is akin to R-Directed Thinking
• Good design use to be only accessible to the wealthy, now it is in target
• Design has become a means of differentiation to businesses
  
• CHAD (Charter High School for Architecture & Design) provides art to underprivileged kids and in doing so, has the lowest crime and dropout rate in Philadelphia
• Design has been democratized in terms of Nokia phone plates and types of font
• Decent quality and reasonable price have become merely table stakes for businesses. Many companies compete on design.
  
• For every percent of sales invested in product design, a company's sales and profits rise by an average of 3-4%
• Design impacts results such as the presidential elections, improving test scores by 11%, helping medical patients recover faster

I have actually always thought that design is a major selling point. This also streams with the concept that attractive things work better. However, I was very interested to see the scientific results regarding room design. I think design on mundane things, like a sidewalk, are more likely to create a performance impact than design on products. There are some great products that can't afford to have a great design at the onset. I also was really surprised about the amount of creative design items that I actually do. I already read a lot of design magazines and design museums. What I am poor at is actually implementing it. I love art, but don't consider myself an artist (even though everybody can be). What does that mean for society? How can we channel art lovers into bettering corporate design?

A Whole New Mind: Chapter 5

• Stories are easier to remember because that is how we remember
• In the Conceptual Age, minimizing the importance of story places you in professional and personal peril
• What starts to matter more is the ability to place facts in context and to deliver them with emotional impact.
  
• The essence of the aptitude of Story is context enriched by emotion
• There are never new stories, just the same story retold. The Departure, Initiation, and Return of the hero
• Persuasion - advertising, counseling, consulting - accounts for 25% of Gross Domestic Product
• There is "organizational storytelling" which aims to make organizations aware of the stories that exist
• Storytelling is a way that individuals can distinguish their goods and services in a crowded marketplace

I love telling stories. In fact, I've been told that it is one of my strengths. In business, we discuss having reference stories on hand. The reference story better illustrates the context of the problem. However, other than that, I have hard time understanding how employee story telling can better the business. Now, advertising clearly demonstrates story telling, depending on the type of ad. But, online advertising doesn't tell a story. Maybe it would perform better if it did. I wish this article would have teased out how employee story-telling can impact the organization, not the interpretation of other's stories.

Attractive Things Work Better

• People find that attractive things work better because it makes them feel good and therefore, more creative
  
• Emotions change the way the human mind solves problems. It broadens the thought processes and facilitates creative thinking
• Human attributes result from three different levels of the brain mechanism: the automatic, pre-wired layer, the viseral level; the part that contains the brain processes that control daily behavior, the behavioral level; and the contemplative part of the brain, the reflective level
• the behavioral level allow the mind to operate certain muscles automatically while focusing its attention on something else
  
• occasionally one level plays off of another, such as a visceral angst competing against reflective pleasure (e.g. roller coasters)
• "bottom-up" processes are drive by perception and "top-down" are driven by thought. The result is that everything you do have both a cognitive and an affective component.
• Design requires creative thinking followed by a considerable period of concentrated, focused effort. As a result, one starts brainstorming by telling some jokes to get them in a good mood. Once the ideas are transformed into real problems, one needs to focus. One technique to stimulate this focus is to establish deadlines.
• One can creative a mood that can change from invoking a positive affect to invoking a negative one through several manners. One is through the use of sound (pleasant to shrill)
• The visceral level is the most simple part of the brain, but the most sensitive to conditions
• we all have multiple personalities appropriate for the individual situation

This article again made me think about innovative corporate cultures. Innovative corporate cultures are those that make its employees happy. While I never really had previously thought about the relationship between happiness and creativity, now that I do, it doesn't surprise me. However, I do not necessarily think that one needs to feel negative emotions in order to gain focus. Happy people, I find, generally can have more focus. They are not stressing about deadlines. As the author said, different people work in different ways. I would say that I am a happy person who can focus. I also have been suffering from negative emotions and written creative essays. I also would like to hear more regarding the perception that attractive things work better. It could be legitimate, in that happy people thought more creatively about the overall product, and not only does it work better, but it is also attractive. However, I would be more inclined to think that it is a perception. People have a hard time believing that something ugly or something that tastes bad, can be more effective. I would be interested in seeing how one can creatively impact the audience rather than the designers.

TED Video: Paul Bennett

• need to reconcile what the 'big' wants with what the 'small' wants
• empower the corporation to make creative changes to integrate the 'big' with the 'small'
• creative ideas stem from noticing real life problems
• looking at the peripheral is an interesting place to find opportunity
• people use the world around us to design their own experiences (using a pole on the street, wrapping the tea bag string around the cup handle, use a pencil to hold up their hair)

I have had a hard time contemplating the phrase 'look at the peripheral.' It is a theme that continues to arise. However, this video finally put it in perspective for me. For me, the peripheral include the things that we modify for our use everyday, especially outside. Telephone and street poles serve as a great place to tie up a vespa. Sunglasses can be used as mirrors. Cell phones can be used as flashlights. I think that if people were to pay attention to what they do and assume automatically, it would be a natural source of opportunity.