Readings for November 15

A Whole New Mind: Chapter 6

• Symphony is the ability to put together the pieces. It is the capacity to synthesize rather than to analyze; to see relationships between seemingly unrelated fields; to detect broad patterns rather than to develop specific answers; and to invest something new by combining elements nobody else thought to pair
• Those with the ability to see the big picture have a decided advantage in their pursuit of personal well being.
• When the left brain doesn't know what the right is doing, the mind is free to see relationships and to integrate those relationships into a whole. This is the key to Symphony.
• People who hope to thrive in the conceptual age must understand the connections between diverse, and seemingly separate, disciplines.
• The next 10 years will require people to think and work across boundaries into new zones that are totally different from their areas of expertise. They will not only have to cross those boundaries, but they will have to identify opportunities and make connections between them.
• The ability to make big leaps of thought is a common denominator among the originators of breakthrough ideas. Usually this ability resides in people with very wide backgrounds, multidisciplinary minds, and a broad spectrum of experiences
• Metaphor is another important element of Symphony often excluded from the domain of reason in Western Society. However, human thought processes are largely metaphorical

As a music minor, I am exceptionally familiar with the concept of symphony. I always joke with my friends that when I listen to a symphonic work, I always close my eyes. It helps me hear better and in doing so, I generally can follow 5 voices at a time. I never considered that this was the right brain listening to items in context. Nor did I consider Symphony to relate to the collision of different fields into one masterpiece. However, while working on the Whirlpool Interterm, the most valuable technique I gained was exactly this concept. The Whirlpool Innovation tool has people take two separate cultural trends and mash them together. I found it very easy to come up with amazing ideas just by using Symphony. Also, I found it captivating that those persons with multiple experiences are more innovative. However, at Google, we were told to express what we did for fun and our high school experiences. At the time, I thought that they wanted to see only a more dynamic picture of our personality. However, people's extracurricular activities add creative layers to a company because of their diverse range of experiences. I now am certain that it is important I continue to list my extracurricular activities on my resume, especially my musical ones.

A Whole New Mind: Chapter 7

• Empathy is the ability to imagine yourself in someone else's position and to intuit what that person is feeling
• Empathy isn't feeling bad for someone else, it is feeling with someone else
• Empathy was often considered a softhearted nicety in a world that demanded hardheaded detachment
• Charles Darwin wrote in The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (and Paul Ekman proved in 1964) that facial expressions are universal
• "Just as the mode of the rational mind is words, the mode of the emotions is non-verbal" - Daniel Goleman
• The vast majority of women cradle babies on the left side because the right side of the brain interprets the empathy requires to properly care for a child
• Computers are great at math, but autistic when it comes to interacting with people
• The work that is not outsourced will demand a much deeper understanding of the subtleties of human interactions
• Seven basic human emotions have clear facial signals: anger, sadness, fear, surprise, disgust, contempt, and happiness
• A smile of true enjoyment is called the "Duchenne smile," and require two muscle contractions: one of these we can control and one we cannot
• Empathy is an essential part of Design, because good designers put themselves in the mind of whoever is going to experience their design
• Empathy is related to Symphony because empathetic people understand the importance of context
• Empathy also includes story
• A patient's health was more likely to improve with an empathetic doctor; however, empathy test bore no relation to scores on the MCAT
• To systemize, you need detachment. To empathize, you need some degree of attachment. This is why women generally are more likely to be more empathetic than men

I read the book Book, which discussed Paul Eckman's technique. I have also read Goleman's Emotional Intelligence. Both describe the importance of being able to interpret emotion and facial expression in order to better manage people. People work better when they feel that their manager 'understands them.' Managers are equally more effective at motivating people when they understand them. To often, people use the 'suck it up' technique. The 'suck it up' technique is not nearly as effective as a manager who takes a minute to give an employee an e-card. It is also interesting that the essence of design is empathy. In order to effectively innovate, one needs to empathize with the consumer during the discern and observe phase. Without this phase, one cannot effectively innovate.

A Whole New Mind Chapter 8

• Madan Kataria believes that laughter can function like a benevolent virus
• "When you are playful, you are activating the right side of your brain.The logical brain is a limited brain. The right side is unlimited. You can be anything you want" - Madan Kataria
• More than fifty European companies have brought in consultants in "Serious Play," a technique that uses Lego building blocks to train corporate executives
• Joyfulness is demonstrating its power to make people more productive and fulfilled
• America's Army is one example of how the U.S. military is giving recruits a feel for the reality of military service, "substituting virtual experiences for vicarious insights"
• Half of all Americans over age six play computer and video games
• In the U.S., the video game business is larger than the motion picture industry. Americans spend more on video games than they do on movie tickets
• Games can be the ultimate learning machine. They encourage good principles of learning that are often better than those instruct and drill taught in school.
  
• Learning is not about memorizing isolated facts. It is about connecting and manipulating them.
• Several universities now offer an Entertainment and Technology Center, a collaboration between College of Fine Arts and School of Computer Science
• If the MFA is the new MBA, soon the MET might be the new MFA
• The right hemisphere plays an essential role in understanding and appreciating humor
• Humor embodies many of the right hemisphere's powerful attributes of putting things into the large contextual picture
• The most effective executives deployed humor twice as often as middle-of-the-pack managers because it signifies higher emotional intelligence
• Jokes that people tell at the workplace can reveal as much about the organization's culture than surveys
• The goal of laughter clubs is "thought-free" laughter. If you're laughing, you cannot think. This is the same objective achieved in meditation.
• Happiness is conditional; joyfulness is unconditional. Look for laughter within
• Games are teaching a variety of whole-minded lessons to a new generation of workers and have given rise to an industry that demands several of the key skills of the Conceptual Age

The more I read this book, the more I realize what an amazing place Google is to work for. I never quite understand why we had gaming rooms filled with Wiis. Since I worked on the business development side, my team rarely had time for play. However, my team generally was more right minded. My job was to empathize with the consumer and to observe their experiences in order to improve upon them. I often thought that the engineers used game rooms because they were socially awkward. However, perhaps games are a way for them to expand beyond their systematic way of thinking in order to develop the innovations that define Google. Since they rely on the business end for end user information, games may help them develop a contextual way of thinking and problem solving. After reading this chapter, I do think that companies should make time for laughter and joy. Joyful people change the corporate culture and improve corporate performance. It also makes people more receptive to new ideas and makes them more innovative. So why not have a laughter club at work?

A Whole New Mind: Chapter 9

• Viktor Frankl's book, Man's Search for Meaning argues that "man's main concern is not to gain pleasure or to avoid pain but rather to see a meaning in life."
• Frankl's approach is called "logotherapy"
• Meaning can grow from suffering, but suffering is not a prerequisite.
• The search for meaning is a drive that exists in all of us
• "Spiritual inequity is not as great of a problem as material inequity, perhaps even greater. People have enough to live, but nothing to live for; they have the means but no meaning." - Robert Fogel
• There is a shift from Materialist values to Postmaterialist priorities, which emphasize self-expression and a quality in life
• Science and Buddhism are very similar. They both explore the nature of reality and have the goal to lessen the suffering of mankind.
• Spirituality is a fundamental part of the human condition
• The merging of spirit and health is used to treat each patient as a whole person rather than as a receptacle for a particular illness
• Companies that acknowledged spiritual values and aligned them with companies goals outperformed those that did not. It often helped companies meet their goals.
• "Happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue" - Viktor Frankl
• Happiness depends on biology and to items such as engaging in satisfying work, avoiding negative events and emotions, being married and having a rich social network. Also important are gratitude, forgiveness, and optimism.
  
• A calling is the most satisfying form of work because, as gratification, it is done for its own sake rather than for the material benefits it brings.
• When people walk a labyrinth, they shift consciousness from the linear to the non-linear. The ideal life is more like walking a labyrinth, where the purpose is the journey itself

Organization behavior aligns with this chapter. Part of the human condition is the need to belong and to understand meaning. In a recent conversation at ND MBA's Diversity Conference, I had the honor of sitting at the head table with Dean Caroline Woo and Ms. Punan Mathur, SVP of Corporate Diversity at MGM Mirage. In our discussion, I expressed that I feel that 22 is one of the hardest ages. You leave college with all of these ideas and you start to question "who am I?" and "what do I want?" We want meaningful jobs. We want meaningful lives. We want to know that earning very little money is going to mean something to us in the future. But most importantly, we want to find our calling. One of my previous managers said something very meaningful to me. She said, "If you don't love what you are doing, you're in the wrong business." That line has stayed with me as I pursue jobs. I fully believe that if you do not see meaning in your job, you will not be happy at your job. If you are not happy at your job, you will not be able to be creative and innovate. Perhaps more companies should employ labyrinths or yoga sessions to give people an opportunity to get in touch with their spiritual side while still being religiously ambiguous. It may help those seeking meaning find it.

The Beauty of Simplicity

• innovation's biggest paradox is that consumers demand more from the stuff in our eyes but we increasingly demand that it be easier to use.


• The technology that powers Google's search engine powers an algorithm that includes 500 million variables to rank 8 billion web pages


• Google has the functionality of a really complicated Swiss Army knife, but the home page is our way of approaching it closed.


• if the equation T (technology) + E (ease of use) = $ can be proven, the time may be right for the voice of technologically challenged who can't operate their remotes to be heard


• 87% of people said that ease of use is the most important thing when it comes to new technologies.


• "Less isn't more; just enough is more" - Milton Glaser.


• it's easier to market technology, than ease of use


• making product simpler can start by simplifying your company


• Royal Philips Electronics christened "Sense and Simplicity," required everything Philips did to be technologically advanced, but it had to be designed with the end use in mind and be easy to experience.


• a company should see how user's use the product to see how they can make the product more simple

This concept of simplicity is not a surprising one for me. Google's competitive advantage is simplicity. Its mission is to make the world's information universally and easily accessible. Part of the ease lays in its simplicity. Making technology easy to use can be difficult, especially as Baby Boomers start to age. I like to think that 'classic' products are those that are the most successful. 'Classic' products have a very clean and sleek look. It is usually aesthetically appealing and all the hard work is done on the inside. Apply the 3 deep webpage to products to allow maximum choice with the easiest use. It also would be beneficial if instruction manuals were easier to follow. All of these items help make products more simple.

TED Video: Chris Bangle

• Auto-mobiles are automatic things


• Cars are an avatar. They are an extension of yourself. If you feel sexy, the car is sexy. If you are full of road rage, your car is like a rock.


• The original cars are all hand sculpted


• There is a sense of doing something new with a sense of obligation to sculpting the car


• Sculpture should always give an impression that stems from within


• Car sculptures are interested in finding form that is more than function


• BMW decided to assemble a team of designers, Deep Blue, to determine the next trend after the SUV. These designers would intermittently work independently and together. However, the designers went different places


• Determined that engineers solved problems and BMW was asking them to create problems. The engineers were waiting for designers to bring them problems and threatened to walk out. The designers then created a presentation to illustrate ways to increase communications.


• Determined that one can't have a premise that dictates. They need trust.


• Trust and love contributes to the design.

Love is indicative of passion. Passionate people are those who continue to look for new and innovative ways to develop the items about which they are passionate. Violinists search for ways to improve their technique. Car enthusiasts work to better their cars. I believe that innovation depends upon passion. If a designer doesn't love what he does, it will show in the final product. That is not to say that that designer cannot create great new concepts. Rather, that great concept would be a spectacular one, if infused with passion.