Colorful Conversations

Euphoria in a single stroke

2011-10-15T21:06:00.000-07:00

For many people a stroke means death, permanent paralysis, loss of speech or living inside a body cut off from the world of other humans. But for neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor it was ringside seat for research into euphoria.

It all began one morning when a blood vessel burst in her brain and developed into a clot as big as a golf ball, which pressed on her speech centres. What started out as a life threatening, excruciatingly scary but curiously euphoric moment became an opportunity to relate theory to practice.

At TED, Jill Bolte Taylor demonstrates we each have two clearly separate brains by showing us a real but deceased brain complete with several feet of spinal cord.

The "separateness" of the two brains is visually astonishing. Most of us just accept the seamless one-ness of our brains. But Jill Bolte Taylor explains that each brain has it's own personality and unique way of engaging with the world. Serial left and parallel right, joined together by 300 million nerve fibres across the corpus callosum and connected to our bodies via the central nervous system.

In a sense we are "energy beings" says Jill Bolte Taylor. The left hemisphere of the brain tends to define us as a unique individual - an unconscious automatic "I"-ness. The right hemisphere tends to connect us consciously to the universe in an integrated "we-ness".

The right engages with the world through pictures, sounds, tastes, smells and touch. It's the sense-making lobe that makes meaning from the constant stream of energy that floods into our senses.

The left works with language, symbols and signs. It busily organizes, categorizes and sequences activity. It is a successive processor that performs speech or motor actions for us, so we don't have to think about it.

With her language out of action Jill discovered she could not express or understand any words. The spoken word sounded like her Labrador, "woo woo woo woo" and when she tried to speak, the words came out the same way. She also struggled to recognize the printed word and numbers, so dialing a telephone number to get help became an almost impossible task.

Unhampered by the filters, rules and limitations imposed by the left hemisphere, she became overwhelmed by the energy that flowed into her brain, which hurt at first, but developed into feelings of euphoria and a sense of one-ness with the universe.

Here are some questions and activities to explore the world that Jill Bolte Taylor discovered:

1. Thought experiment one: Imagine you only have a left hemisphere brain. What would like be like if you had just a simultaneous "we" cognitive processor? No pattern detector. No processor to interpret incoming sounds, visual images, touch sensations, tastes etc.
2. Thought experiment two: Imagine you only have a right hemisphere brain. What would like be like if you had just a successive "I" cognitive processor? No categorizer. No sequences of new complex actions.
3. What is it about serial cognitive processing, categorizing etc, that might help us define us as individuals - our "I"?
4. What is it about simultaneous processing, sense making, seeing patterns etc, that helps define us as part of the whole - our "We"?
5. The brain features successive and simultaneous process. What other parts of the human body functions feature interdependent pairs. Make a list and explain how do they work together e.g. lungs, breathing in and breathing out.
6. How could you switch off one side of your brain to focus on the kind of thinking performed by the other hemisphere?
7. If you could spend more time exploring the "we"-ness of the right hemisphere of your brain, what journeys of discovery might you want to pursue?
8. Based on Jill Bolte's unintended "experiment", what is Nirvana?
9. How might Near Death Experiences be explained by Jill Bolte's "experiment"?
10. How might we more powerfully connect our inner and outer worlds?
11. What can we learn from reverse-engineering the integrated whole systems approach of our brains to better manage/control/deal with interdependent pairs of activities in our lives that we often consider unique/separate e.g. cost and quality, centralized and decentralized, incremental and transformational innovation?

Real Hyperreality

2011-09-04T11:57:00.000-07:00

Thank you Umberto Eco for the word Hyperreality for this is what you experience when you watch this TED Talk. How some works of art can become larger and more "real" than the original.

Adrian Hohler and Basil Jones of Handspring Productions show us how to breathe life into a dead object - a puppet - so the character is larger than life.

They present two of their creations, both feats of "emotional engineering" - a puppet horse that has starring roles in the London and New York productions of War Horse and its ancestor, a hyena created for a 1995 Handspring production of "Faustus in Africa", to play draughts with Helen of Troy.

War Horse is a play based on a book of the same name by Michael Morpugo, about a young boy who falls in love with horse that is conscripted into World War I. He joins up to be reunited with his horse. On stage there are several horses, each with riders aboard, that collectively create the power and danger of a cavalry charge.

They explain that while "an actor struggles to die onstage", "a puppet has to struggle to live" and that this is "a metaphor for life".

Three puppeteers control the Joey the horse, two inside one who manipulates the tail and the other the breathing with his knees, and one who controls the head. All three puppeteers contribute to a whinny or other sounds the horse makes.

Joey's tail flicks, his ears point in different directions which is an emotional indicator of the horse, his chest heaves with breathing, he stamps his feet, gallops, rears up. It is all very convincing.

So here is a workshop to explore some of the issues Handspring raise:

1. In what ways is the hyena the ancestor of the horse? What could we learn from Handspring's process of invention/innovation?
2. If puppets are "emotional engineering" what are the features? How does the engineering relate to the emotions?
3. What is it about the horse puppet that is so mesmerizing?
4. Why do you think the puppeteers seem to disappear from view?
5. Choose from this list and describe how you might think like/act like it. Photon of light, the moon, a spider, an unborn baby, a neuron in your brain, an elephant, the wind, a cuckoo clock.
6. Make a list of unusual objects, people, creatures, etc. that it might be interesting thing to imagine thinking like/acting like. Choose one and describe how you would think or act if you were this.
7. Describe the differences between a puppet and a robot? A puppet and an animation.
8. What could it mean that "an actor struggles to die onstage, but a puppet has to struggle to live." And how is this a metaphor for life?
9. Explain how puppetry is a fusion of technology and art. What helps makes the horse puppets come alive? And how is this related to how artists interpret our world?
10. How could a horse puppet seem more real than real? How could we apply this to other human activities? e.g. product design, leadership .
11. What other art forms are a fusion of technology and art? Make a list of the tool that are used for example in opera, dance, or sculpture and then explain the rules of use of the tool e.g. chisel is used by a sculptor to remove excess stone to reveal a figure inside that previously only existed in the imagination.

Eco, U. (1967, 1986) Travels in Hyperreality. Orlando: Harcourt.

Designer as "change agent"

2011-02-12T19:11:00.000-08:00

Paola Antonelli, a curator at MoMa, the New York Museum of Modern Art, discovered at a early age that relationships with objects were easier than with people. And so began a love affair with things.

Throughout her life she has tried to discover what is happening in the world and make the patterns explicit so others can benefit from the knowledge.

In her role as a curator she is a "knowledge creator". Picking the trends. Suggesting better designs for a better life. Pointing towards the possibilities of low cost affordable designs, not just decoration.

Antonelli regards designers as mavericks who build bridges across the boundaries of ideas, a unique fusion or confluence of the economic, the social, the cultural, the aesthetic and the scientific, where the result is greater than the sum of the parts. Each design makes some kind of point about what has gone before or amuses us, because it shows us the stupidity or quirkiness of past ideas that seemed a good idea at the time.

She thinks of heaven as "satisifed curiosity", a really comfortable cloud where design dreams are fulfilled. Some of the best designs are "humble masterpieces" where you discover the extraordinary in the ordinary, or even iconic, so that the design points the way to a new and better future.

She argues that designers are "agents of change" increasingly focused on inventing new ways for people to do things. So we behave differently. Remember to take our medicine. Interact more personally and joyfully. Or learn from our mistakes. It's all a kind of "civil disobedience".

Her next show will be about the intersection of science and design, our concerns and issues that design in a partnership with science csn solve, and point us in new directions.

1. Heaven is "satisfied curiosity" for Paola Antonelli. What is heaven for you?

2. If you could create a "humble masterpiece", your own private collection of extraordinary arrangements of ordinary objects, what would it be?

3. In what ways can design make a point? Or show a sense of humor?

4. If Spaniards invented the mop, Italians the pizza and Kentuckians moonshine, what iconic form was invented in your part of the world and why might that be important to you?

5. As a designer, in what ways are you a maverick, and you pretend something never existed before, or what you create will change what people do?

6. Choose an artfect your wish to redesign. Brainstorm some new scientific aspects (materials e.g. buckbyalls, biomimicry), social aspects (emerging trends in what it means to be human, e.g. brain plasticity), economic aspects (emerging values, eg, wise application of knowledge, sustainability) and aesthetic stuff,(emergent styles, e.g, glamor at every pricepoint). And combine them all into a new idea.

7. What is the difference between design and decoration? Give examples.

8. Think of a big unsolved problem and an extreme means by which you may need to solve it. What "suit for civil disobedience" could you could employ to cause people to engage with you?

9. What could you design that has no real immediate purpose, that just seems a good idea at the time e.g a chair that protects you against radiation.

Simplicity Rules

2010-11-10T04:25:00.000-08:00

John Maeda is the author of "The Laws of Simplicity" and founder of the Simplicity Consortium at MIT which develops new methods and technologies in healthcare, play and communication built on these principles.

He works at the intersection of art and computing and is reponsible for much of the graphics "eye candy" that we find on the Internet today.

He wrote the book as a Simplicity 101 to help people in business, technology, design and life create simpler and better design solutions.

Here's a workshop based on his 10 laws you can use to design/develop/conceive of an artefact, product, method, procedure, service or way of seeing or being in the world.

Start with a design challenge: a product that is in need to thoughtful redesign, and follow these steps:

DESIGN CHALLENGE - What is the product, service, method or procedure that you would like to redesign? Describe it in great detail, its' features, what it does, how it does it, how it gives the customer some greater power, capability or usefulness, and what is its intent.
USER FEEDBACK - What have we learned from the customer about their experience of the product, service, method or procedure? What do they like about it? How do they feel it could be improved?
REDUCE - What can we do to thoughtfully reduce e.g. fewer buttons, shrink in size and complexity, hide some functions, embody the hidden value?
ORGANIZE - What goes with what, so the many appear fewer, or can be incorporated into a single or simpler controls, display, switch, suite of functions etc? Sort into categories, and simplify. Squint to see the forest for the trees.
TIME - How can we shrink time, or make the wait shorter, seem shorter or more tolerable? How do you inform progress?
LEARN - What metaphor could we employ so the artefact makes sense to the user by connecting to their lives, feels like they have seen it before, make a connection to a new capability, then work out how to do it themeslves? e.g. desktop giving access to folders and programs.
DIFFERENCES - In what other ways can we make the complex simple and use the emergent simplicity to enable more complexity?
CONTEXT - What's the appropriate balance between attention/focus and expansion/connection? How can it be more attuned/connected to the context?
EMOTION - What must be done to give the artefact a "life force" of its' own? Animate it, bring it alive, to which there can be an emotional connection/attachment? And for it's "being" be clearer and more meaningful, to achieve a greater return on emotion?
TRUST - In what ways can your design "think" for the user so they develop trust in and appreciation for what happens, so there is no need for an undone? But also that can be undone?
FAILURE - If, after "subtracting the obvious" and "adding the meaningful", it did not work out, what can you learn from the exeprience?
THE ONE - If all else has failed, how can you "move it far far AWAY" so more seems less, OR make it OPEN, so the power of the many outweighs the power of the few OR use less to gain more POWER, for example an in-built power source.

Maeda, J. (2006). The Laws of Simplicity. MIT Press: Cambridge

In memory of Benoit Mandelbrot

2010-11-06T12:36:00.000-07:00

The king of "roughness" departed the physical world on the 14th October, 2010, but our memory of him lives on in the name of a spectacular example of self-similarity at every scale, the Mandelbrot set.

The Mandelbrot set which honors his work (which can be expressed as z² + c, where Z is a complex number e.g. the square root of -1) exhibits patterns of dazzling complexity at ever greater magnifications, all the way to infinity.

Benoit Mandelbroit discovered order in the apparent messiness of life. He shows how a cauliflower is both simple and complex all at the same time. When you cut off one of the floreats, you find it is composed of many more smaller floreats, that are essentially the same design. And if you cut off one of those floreats, and look closer, you discover many smaller floreats, again similar to the larger floreat.

Self-similarity or fractal order is a field of mathematics which Mandelbrot helped develop and popularize. Simple rules describe natural features or artefacts of great complexity. The ruggedness of mountains. The branching of arteries. The growth of neurons. The shapes of rivers. The leaves of ferns.

He discovered that self-similarity, where simple patterns are repeated infinitely, can explain complex data sets such as stock prices and non-smooth objects such as clouds and coastlines. His work grew out of a field of mathematics - Julia sets - which was once regarded a mere curiosity with little practical use.

So what if you were able to apply fractals to psychology and sociology.

Here is a workshop to think "fractally" to discover the simple rules in the complex, and develop the complex from the simple:

1. Brainstorm a list of all the artefacts, natural features, processes, etc. you can think of that are self-similar at every scale, e.g. like cauliflower floreats
2. Choose one artefact, natural feature, process or method from your list and describe how it is fractal, self-similar at every scale and how the generation of smaller or larger versions follow the same simple rules.
3. Fractals in discourse - Choose a problem to be solved. Write down three solutions. Discuss with a pair, and combine your two sets of ideas, into a single set of three ideas. Meet with two other people and combine your six ideas into three. Repeat the entire group has generated just three fantastic ideas.
4. Create a new fractal decision/learning game. Create a new set of discussion rules similar to the Fractals in discourse
5. Fractal leadership. Craft a set of three rules for how you will expect to be led by others to maximise your support and engagement.
6. Connecting with others. Craft a set of 2-5 simple rules for successfully engaging with others so they feel a close connection. Describe how the rule applies in relation to a wife/husband/partner, sister/brother, friend/enemy, family group, work team, community, organization, nation.
7. Finding the fractals in new relationships. Look back over your life and think about the people, groups, organizations and communities you know or have known or joined with. What are the rules for maintaining long term relationships? What are the rules for losing connections?
8. New concepts. You have been given the task of creating a wisdom age ecology of new products and services. Looking back over the Hunter-Gatherer, Agricultural, Industrial, Information and Knowledge eras, what are the simple rules for generating whole/integrated ecologies of products/services/jobs at each scale?

Blinded by our preconceptions

2010-08-17T01:52:00.000-07:00

When Hans Rosling taught a global development class comprising some of Sweden's brightest students at the Karolinska Institute, a medical university, he was surprised to discover they knew less than he thought they did.

He found that what the medical students knew already - their preconceptions - caused them to make bigger mistakes than if they knew nothing whatsoever about the subject.

When the students were asked to choose between five matched pairs of countries, where one had twice the infant mortality of the other, they got it right just 1.8 times out of five, which is worse than chance. Chimpanzees could have done better.

He also tested his fellow Nobel-prize winning university professors. They performed better than the students, but no better than the chimpanzees.

Rosling uses the Gap Minder software program he developed to illustrate the dramatic improvements in infant survival that have occurred in the past 50 years. With smaller families, even in the developed nations, infant mortality in many countries has declined dramatically.

He goes on to show how social change, including health outcomes, comes first, ahead of economic development contrary to conventional wisdom which considers that economic change comes before social change.

Here's a workshop to explore some of Rosling's findings:

1. Give examples of some pre-conceptions/assumptions that you have made about people/things which were wildly off the mark when you finally found out what was really going on.
2. Give examples of common cultural pre-conceptions/assumptions that people from other countries mistakingly hold about you.
3. Now choose a country about which you know little, e.g. India, China, Indonesia, Brazil. Make some guesses about the differences between your countries, with a focus on lifespan, annual average income, population, climate, main exports, attitides and check Wikipedia to see how much you knew.
4. Brainstorm some surprising facts you know about some countries. e.g. 3.2 million US citizens are incarcerated which would translate into 360,000 Australians instead of just 24,000. One in three Indians is middle class. 92% of Australians regard themselves as middle class, only 42% of Americans feel the same.
5. Choose one fact from Question 4 and describe the consequences. Respond like this Fact: consequences.
6. Here are some changes that are taking place in the world. What might be the consequences? In China, children have no sisters or brothers, aunts or uncles. By 2015 45% of all jobs in the USA will require conversation or negotiation skills, yet schools teach critical thinking as an individual activity.
7. Thinking about an economically under-developed part of the world, including parts of rich countries, what kinds of social changes might "change-the-game" sufficiently to engender new economic development.
8. What fundamental social change could transform your community for the better? And what new economic activities could leverage off that?

Haunting music from everyday objects

2010-07-23T10:30:00.000-07:00

Circus composer Sxip Shirey takes us back to our musical roots as a species. He shows how mysteriously beautiful and haunting music can be created using everyday objects and body parts.

In this clip, Sxip enrolls the help of an assistant. With their lips almost locked together, they jointly create an extraordinary musical moment. Rhythmic collective heavy breathing morphs into an orgasmic delight, that should inspire others to explore new dating rituals. A kind of musical mating, at the confluence of "ecstatic melodies" "imaginable sounds" and "deep sexy beats".

Kissing will never be the same.

So here's some workshop activities to see how you might make music using whatever you have on hand...maybe even that will do.

1. Brainstorm a list of body parts and everyday objects you could use to create "ecstatic melodies, unimaginable sounds and deep sexy beats".
2. Choose your everyday object/body part "instrument", describe how you could play it, the kind of music it will produce, and how it will sound.
3. Demonstrate your new musical instrument to others, and after each person does their stuff, brainstorm some ideas about how you could expand the use of the instrument, or create an intriguing/dazzling/wierd couple of bars, a motif, a crescendo, a coda etc.

How to start a movement

2010-07-15T09:39:00.001-07:00

Ever wanted to start a movement? To get the ball rolling in a new direction, to have followers join you in some new enterprise, game or opportunity? Or in the pursuit of an ideal or your passion?

Derek Sivers shows us how. He's a professional musician and the founder of CD Baby that generated huge sales of independent music over the web and changed forever the way music is sold. His latest project is MuckWorks to help reduce the burdens (and boredom) of creative people.

Critical to the success of a movement is not the leader but the first follower. If you don't have followers all you have is a "lone nut" doing his or her own thing.

For a movement to take-off the leader must embrace the first followers as equals and nurture them. Followers give legitimacy to what the leader is doing.

As others join the movement the risk of seeming to be wrong or stupid is reduced. A tipping point is reached when a critical mass of people join almost simultaneously to be part of the "in crowd". After this, the movement becomes self-sustaining.

The stragglers, those most reluctant to join in, ultimately do so to avoid being stigmatized as uncool.

So here's a workshop to plan how to start your own movement:

1. Describe an idea for a movement. What is your cause, ideal or opportunity? And how is it different? Or stand-out from the mainstream?

2. What do you have do to get your first follower? To attract attention in public?

3. Once your first followers have joined, what can you do to embrace them as equals? To promote the cause even more?

4. If people join to emulate what the followers are doing, how can you orchestrate what the followers are doing to maximise attention, and promote growth of the movement, by being a brilliant follower yourself?
5. What might be the advantages of persuading someone to be the "lone nut" that you could follow?
6. What "lone nuts" do you now regret you did not follow? And what did you never get to experience as a consequence?
7. What actions of a leader or follower might cause a movement to collapse, that you need to avoid?

Why humans believe almost anything

2010-07-06T06:46:00.000-07:00

Humans are programmed to believe - almost anything - according to Michael Sherman, founder and publisher of Skeptic Magazine.

We make associations and find patterns even when they are not there. And it's all because our ancestors adopted a conservative approach to making mistakes.

When we face a choice between making a small mistake (a Type I error) such as over-reacting to a rustle in the grass, and making a big mistake (a Type II error), such as ignoring the rustle, and being eaten by a predator, we err on the side of safety.

By making many silly little mistakes - and unecessarily wasting energy when all we hear is the wind blowing - we avoid certain removal from the gene pool, on those fewer occasions when the threat is real.

Says, Shermer, this is why we give credit to God, the angels or leprachauns when there is "no intentional agency" whatsoever. We err on the side of caution.

Our pattern detection devices can be easily tricked. Sometimes we can see two or more patterns in the one image (as in the drawing of the young and old woman).. Some people see patterns when there are none to see.

An overly active dopamine circuit helps you see more patterns, so if you're really creative, you're more likely to be fooled than if you are down to earth and practical. Too much dopamine and you see too many patterns. It's the difference between the madness of mathematician John Nash and the genius of physicist Richard Feynman.

We also tend to "infuse patterns with meaning, intention and agency". This propensity to favor Type II errors, leads us to believe in God, leprechauns, souls, spirits, demons, aliens, the Loch Ness monster, conspiracy theories and invisible agents. That there's someone in there, like in the Wizard of Oz, pulling the strings. Or when we are in trouble, someone big and powerful will rescue us.

So here's some questions to explore these ideas:

1. Brainstorm a list of all the different phenomena that people believe in for which there is little or no objective evidence.
2. What are some of the things you do that fly in the face of your own objective reality e.g. consult the astrological forecast, refuse to walk under a ladder, and why do you still do this?
3. What conspiracy theories do you "kind of" believe in? Give a detailed description of the theory.
4. If you have trouble seeing the patterns to events in your work or private life, how could you be more creative?
5. Give examples from your private/work life where you assume, wrongly, there is an intentional agent working against you e.g. someone is pulling the strings, manipulating things.
6. Give examples from your private/work life of Type I errors that you make, where you over-react to the situation so you don't make Type II errors.
7. Give examples from your private/work life of Type II errors that you have made, where you failed to act, with awful consequences?
8. How could you achieve a better balance between making unnecessary Type I errors and fatal Type II errors?

More We and less I = A longer life

2010-05-10T12:54:00.000-07:00

Dr. Dean Ornish, the author of "Eat More - Weigh Less" knows the secret of a long and happy life.

He is an expert in preventive medicine who found that 99% of patients could reverse the progress of their heart disease. And just because you have heart disease, it does not follow it will always get worse.

Our bodies have an amazing capacity to heal themselves. Faster than you might think. So if you stop doing whatever is causing the problem the chances are you will start to get better. And it works just as well for old as well as young people.

When Dr. Ornish started an institute to train hospitals and their staff, on preventive approaches, the health insurance companies got very excited. They discovered savings of $30,000 per patient, because when we make these changes, most of us can avoid expensive surgery to keep us alive.

We all know what's bad for us. Smoking, drinking and eating too much, working too hard and not enough exercise. Thirty per cent of Americans smoke. In some countries it's 80 per cent. And we watch too much television.

But the real epidemics are loneliness and depression. We eat when we get depressed, alcohol numbs the pain and some people think of a packet of cigarettes as 20 friends.

Two thirds of American adults are now overweight! An obesity epidemic. To lose weight you should either eat fewer calories or burn them off with exercise.

It's also better to eat lower calorie foods. Fat has 9 calories per gram, carbohydrates four. A big fatty meal makes you sleepy. It slows down the blood flow. And we rest instead of exercising.

We eat too many simple carbohydrates which have all the fiber removed such as sugar, white flour, white rice and alcohol. When you eat simple carbs, your blood sugar zooms up and your pancreas has to work overtime to make insulin to bring it down. And so diabetes has become an epidemic.

Unrefined carbs like fruit, vegetables and whole wheat flour are rich in fibre fill you up and you don't get the rapid rise in sugar levels. If you eat less of the energy intensive foods, you feel hungry less often.

However, not all fats are to be avoided. There are some good fats, like the omega-3 fatty acids. Three grams of fish oil every day, can reduce the risk of heart attack and sudden death by 50 to 80%.

So, if you change the behaviors which cause you to be tired, depressed, lethargic and impotent, your brain will get more blood, you will have more energy and your sexual function will improve, and you will have more fun.

Another secret to a happy, healthy life is to have more we (we-llness), and less I (I-llness). Numerous studies show that lonely or depressed people are five to ten times more likely to get sick and die prematurely. So phone a friend. Be of service to others. Give. Be compassionate.

Here's a workshop to explore Dr. Ornish's ideas:

1. Brainstorm a list of what you will do a) to connect more with others (friends, family), b) be more compassionate, c) give more and d) be of service to others to improve happiness and reduce depression.
2. Knowing that fats have 4 calories and carbohydrates have 9 calories per gram and fibre (fruit, vegetables and wholemeal flour) fills you up, design a breakfast, lunch or dinner which will help you reduce your calorie intake.
3. Make a list of all the foods that are high in fats, and which will make you sleepy and not want to exercise, that you plan to eliminate from your diet. e.g. sausages, bacon and eggs for breakfast.
4. Make a commitment to live an extra 10 years by making a list of all the extra fun things you will be able to do. e.g. 520 extra romps in the hay. 3,650 walks in the bush or along the beach.

Humans, the second replicator

2010-05-02T08:41:00.000-07:00

First there were genes. And now there are memes.

According to paranormal sceptic and scientist, Susan Blackmore, humans have let this second replicator out of the box....Pandora's Box...and it's here to stay. Like it or not.

Blackmore, who began her scientific career in the hope she would be able to demonstrate evidence for paranormal activities, has found none, and is now a confirmed skeptic.

She says that memes came about because humans imitate each other, like how to light fires, wear clothes, or perch sunglasses on our foreheads. Or how we fold the ends of the toilet paper over in hotel bathrooms.

The word "meme" was coined by Richard Dawkins, author of The Selfish Gene. Blackmore took the idea and turned it into a full fledged theory.

Memes are parasites of our brains, a symbiant. In the same way that genes survive in the members of our species that have competed and survived, so too do memes. It's all copying with variation and selection. The best memes live on and are transmitted from one generation to the next.

In a sense, when a new gene or meme survives, or is selected, you get design out of nowhere with no conscious designer in sight.

According to Blackmore, memes have forced us to have big brains, to use fatty tissue called myelin to insulate the neurons. Brains that love music, religion and art.

And because we all now have big heads, it it dangerous to give birth to new members of the species, which places our memes and our species at long term risk.

So be warned. There's another replicator lose in the world and its called a Teme, or technological meme. Temes are the tools we use, such as the motor car, washing machine or computer. And they are becoming smarter every day, and could soon live on without us.

So here's a series of questions to explore these issues:

1. Give examples of "genes", "memes" and "temes", that explains the differences between them.
2. In what ways might the transmission of "memes" have an influence over the genes that are transmitted? Think about the consequences of memes such as medicine, social welfare etc.
3. Explain how the idea of a "meme" is itelf a meme.
4. If memes are "design out of nowhere", how did the concept of "meme" get started and develop? Was it Richard Dawkins, Susan Blackmore, the universe, the "system", ancestor memes or what?
5. What influence might genes have on the development of "memes" and "temes"?
6. At what stage of human development might "temes" take on a life of their own, and how might this happen?
7. What factors might contribute to a meme or teme dying out?

Products that make us feel happy

2010-04-12T07:29:00.000-07:00

Don Norman is an anthropologist who explores the modern day world and helps us understand how product's make people happier. Or feel they are beautiful. Or simple to use. Or add to our power or status.

It all begins with our emotions, and how they change the way we think.

When people are anxious or fearful, neuro-transmitters are squirted into the brain that cause you to focus on the presenting problem. Its "depth-first" thinking, which is good for getting you out of the mess you are in, quickly. When people are happy, dopamine is squirted into the frontal lobes, which leads to "breadth-first" thinking, which opens us up to possibilities and is good for brainstorming, or planning new projects.

There are three levels of emotional functioning of the brain:

* Visceral - that monitors inputs from our senses - sight, touch, taste, hearing and smell - and sneakily controls much of what we feel, so we automatically dislike bitter tastes, loud sounds or extremely hot and cold temperatures, but we equally and automatically love, symmetrical faces or the bright colors of fruits and plants with which we have adapted.

* Behavioral, which monitors our automatic learned actions, that enable us to converse, operate a computer, drive a car or give a speech, without having to consciously think about it, and whose emotions give us feedback about how well we are doing; and

* The Reflective, "thinking" or conscious level of the brain, which does not control anything - either the sensual inputs or our motor actions - but whose emotions give us feedback about everything else, a kind of global view of our performance.

Well-designed products appeal to all aspects of brain functioning. As designers we need to be mindful of these different ways of responding to the products design.

Designers grab our attention with an appeal to the senses by creating bright red motor cars that might otherwise be a lemon, or make bottles with such a beautiful symmetry we want to keep them after we have consumed the contents, or products we never use, but which are so stunning, we put them on show and never use them for their intended purpose.

We can "wow" the customer by attending to functionality and usability and appeal to the emotions that give feedback about our automatic actions. With products that are simple and easy to use, the simpler the better. Like the powerful sharpness of Global knives, the sensuousness of the Kohler shower, or the elegant simplicity of the Ronnefeldt tilting teapot, which keeps the tea leaves out of the liquid.

Or designers can appeal to the "thinking brain" that weighs up what is "good" or"bad", "beautiful" or "ugly", "expensive" or "cheap" or "why are you doing that?". Like the way we decide whether the purchase of a house or a motor car might add to our status. Or if it will help us live a better life? Or make us happier?

You can even get emotions to compete with each other for your attention, so one over-rides the other. Take for example the Jake Cress chair, where one leg has lost its' ball, and the visceral part of our brain says beware, that's looks dangerous, and our reflective brain says, "its OK, its just a designer's playful trick."

So here's a workshop to play with some of Don Norman's ideas:

1. What kinds of products do you associate with fun and enjoyment?
2. What kinds of products do you associate with powerful and useful?
3. What kinds of products do you associate with beautiful?
4. Visceral emotions: Choose one of your senses - sight, taste, touch, hearing, smell. Close your eyes and thinking about that sense, recall/imagine the most wonderful feeling you have ever experienced about a product. Describe the product and the emotion/feeling.
5. Behavioral emotions: Close your eyes and think of a time when you used/experienced a product, how perfectly easy it was to use, or how powerful it felt, how in-tune with your body and the way you act/perform. Describe the product and the emotion/feeling.
6. Reflective emotions: Close your eyes and think of a time when you used/experienced a product when you decided it was the best, the greatest, the most amazing, the most prestigious you had ever experienced. Describe the product and the emotion/feeling.
7. What kinds of emotions are associated with the visceral - the automatic and direct experience via the senses?
8. What kinds of emotions are associated with the behavioral - the automatic experience of our muscles in use?
9 What kinds of emotions are associated with the reflective - the thinking/decision making aspects of our being?
10. Think of the worst, ugliest, most difficult product you have ever used/experienced. Using the three different kinds of emotional experiences, what could you do to transform it?

Thinking in pictures

2010-03-09T03:23:00.000-08:00

Animals think in pictures. And so does Temple Grandin, a famous autistic and expert on animal behavior. Whose life story recently became an inspiring tele-movie starring Clare Danes.

Her brain works like Google for Images. Or movies in your head. Similar to the way animals see the world, through direct experience. But also via the senses of hearing and smell.

Grandin's "disability" is also the source of her amazing ability. Autism helped her discover what makes cattle balk. To see the world from a cow's point of view. Flags waving. A coat on a fence. A hose on the floor. A chain hanging down. Rapid movement.

Animals see a man standing or riding as different things. They might be spooked by all men with black hats, even if the men are different people, simply because they appear identical to a feared situation.

She gives the example of the power of direct experience, that human's have lost since we have become verbal thinkers because we now mostly think with words.

The dog that sniffs a fire hydrant can tell straight away who has been there, when they were there, if they are a friend or foe or suitable for mating.

Her way of seeing the world from an animal perspective led to revolutionary designs for cattle handling chutes and races, that are both more efficient and more humane. She found she could play a movie in her mind to visualize how the different parts of something new would work.

Autistic minds attend to details. Bottom up thinking, how to put all the pieces together, like a jigsaw puzzle. It's also a continuum from the extremely severe to the mildly autistic but includes, at the top end, brilliant scientists and engineers. If we had no more autism there would be no Silicon Valley.

So it's hard to tell where autism ends and nerds begin. Grandin speculates that in this day and age, Einstein, Mozart and Tesla would have been diagnosed as autistic. We have autistics to thank for inventing our way out of the cave.

For parents of autistic children she has this advice. Get help as soon as you can. Start with activities that have a hands-on practical bent, like designing and making things. Cookery. Art. Woodwork. Do "visual" geometry and trigonometry and forget about "verbal" algebra. And because autistic minds tend to fixate on something, connect the fixation to something else, so the new activity is motivating. As a child, Hardin was fixated on horses. Over time her fixation with horses became a career with animals.

And for the rest of us. We need to redesign the education system, so it caters for all the different kinds of minds. The verbal, the visual, the pattern finders and the kinesthetic. But most important of all, she says kids need to also learn the basics. Table manners. Punctuality. Respect. If they are to succeed in the real world. And engage with mentors who have a practical bent developed in the real world, like the NASA space scientist who became her teacher. Who recognized her amazing visual and spatial abilities, believed in her, and steered her on a pathway to success.

So here's a workshop to explore these ideas:

1. In what ways do you feel you are different to other people? Give examples.
2. Describe some mental, physical or social skill you always wished you had, and how this could change your life.
3. Describe, what for you, is the most unusual way that other people think you can not understand/comprehend. Why is this way of thinking/acting so puzzling?
4. What are you really good at and how does this possibly relate to the quirky ways your mind works?
5. You can see the world in pictures like Temple Grandin. How could you use your powerful visual skills to design something practical to benefit the world.
6. You have developed a super-sensitive ability for smells, similar to a dog. What could you use this new-found ability in a career e.g. relationship consultant who helps people better deal with body odors.
7. Imagine one of your senses has been damaged e.g. taste, smell, vision, hearing. In what ways might you develop the other senses to acquire extra powers?
8. Thinking of the issues/thing about which you are passionate/fixated. Imagine you have acquired some new physical/mental powers that help you achieve your goals. What are they and how do they work?
9. You have the job of redesigning schools/lessons/activities to better suit the way you engage with the world. Describe an activity you would really enjoy.
10. Describe a person you have meet from real life who you think would make a wonderful, practical mentor for children.

The two faces of happiness

2010-03-04T11:52:00.000-08:00

There's a big focus on happiness these days. Over 40 books on the subject and happiness coaches in abundance. But are people any happier?

Daniel Kahneman, who founded the field of behavioral economics, and jointly won the Nobel Memorial Prize in 2002 for his work with Amos Tversky on irrational decision making, is an expert in how people make less than perfect choices.

He shows there can be a significant differences about life as we experience it, and life as we remember it. When the doctor asks "Where does it hurt?" she is talking to your experiencing self. When the doctor asks "How have you been feeling lately?", she is engaging with your remembering self.

Often, an unfortunate event ruins the memory of an entire experience. The operation that ends in severe pain. The memory of the motor car accident on the way home from vacation that overwhelms an otherwise enjoyable experience. The pathetic movie ending that spoils a great story. The scratch at the end of a recording that renders irrelevant an hour of listening to celestial music. The loss of your credit card after paying the bill for a delicious meal.

The psychological present is about three seconds long. And most of the 600 million moments we all experience during a lifetime are lost forever. Research shows that money and goals are important to happiness. In the USA, happiness starts to deteriorate below $60,000 per annum. Earn more, and you dont get any happier. Earn less and your misery escalates the less you earn.

Perhaps the way to happiness, is Kahneman's idea of "adversarial collaboration," where two different kinds of mind pursue research as a joint enterprise, to openly and fairly critique each other's work to arrive at the truth, together.

So here's a workshop to explore your experiencing and remembering happiness/misery.

1. Your experiential self: How happy are you now and what contributes to that feeling?
2. Your remembering self: Thinking about life's journey and all the happy and sad moments, how happy have you been overall and why?
3. When during your life were you the most miserable? What were your circumstances at the time?
4. When during your life were you the most happy? What were your circumstances at the time?
5. Your remembering self: Describe the worst thing that ever happpened to you while on holidays and how did it influence your enjoyment of that holiday?
6. Comparing two experiences. Think of two different movies you have seen, houses you have purchased or meals you have eaten out. Compare the experience of each and what was notable about them....the whole meal and the finale?
7. Significant moments and endings: Describe an event in your life where a significant moment or ending spoiled the rest of the experience for you?
8. Describe how you could alter the experience of a product or service so that the ending was always fabulous/amazing/memorable?
9. Think of something you purchased today e.g. at the supermarket, delicatessen. What influenced your purchase?
10. In what ways was your purchase today, rational/irrational and influenced from memories of past experiences?
11. Remember back to your most recent major purchase e.g. house, car. What prior experiences with houses or cars influenced your decision?
12. What's the most irrational decision you can ever recall making? And how did that happen?
13. Offbeat - How could you use "adversarial collaboration" in pursuit of truth and happiness?

Too much choice is bad for your health

2010-02-25T08:39:00.000-08:00

We used to think that choice = freedom. But, says Barry Schwartz, author of The Paradox of Choice, too much choice results in decision paralysis.

We find it hard to choose. Which starts us down the slippery slope to raised expectations, dissatisfaction and ultimately, clinical depression.

Walk into any supermarket, electrical goods or clothing store and you instantly face a bewildering array of choices. Hundreds of salad dressings, breakfast cereals and detergents. Multiple brands of music players, washers, dryers and coffee makers. Computers with more features than you will ever use. Jeans used to come in one style. Now they're slim, easy fit, distressed, stone-washed...

In the old days, the doctor gave you advice. Now she gives you options, each with different benefits and risks. The phone company used to rent us one-size-fits-all phones; now we buy our own cell phones, which comes in different colors, shapes, sizes and a flotilla of bells and whistles. We used to get married as soon as we could, now we worry whether to have a career or family first, or whether the girl or guy we're dating is the best we can get.

The problem with too much choice, is if you make a purchase, and it's not as good as expected, you may come to regret your decision. Which detracts from your satisfaction. With so much choice, there's many more ways be disappointed.

Then there's the opportunity cost - the benefits foregone by ignoring other choices. Like the case Schwartz cites of a guy "relaxing" on the beach in the New Hamptons pre-occupied with the idea that, with all his neighbors on holidays, he's unable to benefit from a rarely available parking space on the streets of Manhattan.

It turns out that when we make a choice, we often think it's the wrong choice, and blame ourselves, which detracts from enjoyment of the experience. Or we avoid making a purchasing decision, and miss out in other ways. Contributing further to our misery.

But not all the world is drowning in choice. Schwartz points out that in some parts of the world there is little or no choice. In the poorer countries of Africa, South America, the Middle East or Asia. He wonders whether we in the West could shift some of our surplus choice to where it is needed more.

So here's two workshops to explore how to reduce choice, increase satisfaction and experience happiness:

For customers

1. Make a list of all the things about products/services that make you unhappy, angry, disappointed or concerned.
2. Make a list of all the things about products/services generally that make you happy, delighted or excited.
3. Thinking about a product or service you recently purchased. What was it, what other choices were available and what were there main features/benefits?
4. How satisfied/happy are you now with your recent product/service purchase? How does it compare with other choices?
5. Describe a product or service that has a ridiculous number of features and options that make it diffcult to choose what to buy.
6. Describe a time when you avoided making a purchasing decision because you could not decide.
7. Describe another time when you made a product/service purchase, only to later feel you could have made a better choice.
8. If you had responsibility for the design, manufacturing and retailing of a product/service you are currently considering purchasing, what would you expect in order for you to be pleased, delighted or surprised.

For organizations

1. Think of a product/service category that you offer and describe all the different choices that people have available.
2. Make a list of all the different products and services and the variations available that compete with your product or service?
3. How could you change/transform your product or service so that it either sits within a different product/service category or gives the customer fewer clearer options to choose from?
4. What marketing strategies could you pursue so that you simplify the customer purchase options and at the same time satisfy unique market segments.e.g. separate sales channels only available in the specific geographical regions for the segment you serve.

Starting powerful conversations

2010-02-20T17:37:00.000-08:00

Since 1996, when The Vagina Monologies was first performed in New York, thousands of women, and vagina-friendly men, have been inspired or empowered to become "vagina warriors", to fight against the rising tide of violence perpetrated against women.

Stripped of every right, subjected to genital mutilation, gang-raped in parking lots, murdered to satisfy family shame, disfigured as a payback, or simply disappeared. Powerless in the face of brutal husbands or companions, testosterone-laden thugs, archaic cultural practices or warring families, tribes, sects and countries.

Now, thanks to Eve Ensler and her very famous play, women everywhere are claiming back their rights, their bodies and their lives.

The Vagina Monologues tells the intimate stories of hundreds of women she interviewed about their sexual experiences, their feelings, themselves and their bodies. What began as a one-night affair with Susan Sarandon, Glenn Close and Whoopi Goldberg, has now played in 120 countries and 45 languages.

Back then, women rarely spoke about or even had the time to look at their vaginas. All that has changed. Now, woman everywhere, are able to talk openly about issues they face. And work powerfully together to turn back the tide.

Along the way Eve Ensler has found that serving a higher purpose is the key to happiness. That your Mr. Alligator moment (a character she invented to rescue her from the hands of a brutal and sexually abusive alcoholic father), shows up, not for you, but for someone else, who is saved from a similar fate as a result by the collective efforts of a movement that you started. Which indirectly heals that damaged part of you.

And which comes about by giving away what you most want.

So here is a workshop to explore how you too might start an important conversation, about which few dare to speak, and unleash powerful symbolic forces. So the core idea goes global.

1. What do you go weeks, months or even years without noticing, that is really important to you, and could be more center stage in your life.
2. What really important conversation do you need to start so it becomes your "important thing", of equal or more importance to the Vagina Monologues?
3. Make a list of all the common/uncommon names for your "important thing."
4. What powerful symbolic social/theatrical/physical event could you stage which ensure your conversation becomes contagious?
5. To be really happy, how can you give away what you want the most?
6. How do you keep going, when, by pursuing your life's most important work, you become an outcast in your community, exiled and slandered for daring to do something vitally important?
7. What for you could become your most fabulous Mr. Alligator moment, which may not rescue you from your troubles at the time, but when the day arrives, rescues others, and in the process, heals the broken part in you too?
8. What powerful symbols could you employ that summon others to your cause?

Glamour girl

2010-01-21T13:21:00.000-08:00

Glamour used to mean "a magic spell".

That was a century ago. Today glamour is that elusive essence shared by famous people and beautiful objects. Cary Grant. Marlene Dietrich. Arches with stained glass windows. Apple electronics with not a cord in sight. Sleek powerful motor cars. Flights to exotic destinations.

Wearing a pair of sunglasses, which is, of itself glamorous, Virginia Postrel, explores what contributes to this elusive quality.

Glamour is about transcending the everyday, to live in a different world, a little distant. That's why the subject is looking elsewhere in glamorous photographs and paintings. A bit above and beyond the ordinary. But not too far above, so we can still identify with the subject.

Glamour can be the myth that grows up around the founding of an empire in a garage, like Hewlett Packard. Or the stunning beauty and expanse of outer space. The sleek, sweeping lines of a locomotive or airplane. Retouched. Stylized. Sometimes in false colors. As in fabulous books. Or architectural photography. Or stark landscapes.

It's falsification for a purpose. To illuminate. Glorify. Idealize. Dramatize. To create an illusion. Perhaps a little dangerous, because the magic spell is not in your interest. Or Sprezzatura, the art that conceals art.

So here is a workshop to explore the world of glamour:

1. What for you are the qualities of glamour? e.g. perfect beyond belief.
2. If "glamour" is about transcending "the everyday", to live in a different world, to be mysterious, a smidgin beyond the ordinary, in an idealised perfect place, explain how each one of these is glamorous. Nicole Kidman. Cary Grant. Tiffanys. 5th Avenue. Aspen. Airline pilot. Couturier.
3. Describe a holiday destinaton that is glamorous.
4. What lifestyles/work are glamorous, extraordinary, exotic and perfect and why?
5. Choose a product that could benefit from some glamor. What can you do to make it more ideal, extraordinary or mysterious with sleeker lines and a perfect skin.
6. One of the original meanings of glamour was "a magic spell". If you could cast a spell over your life so it was more glamorous, what would you be/do?
7. Recall and describe a landscape or cityscape that felt glamorous when you were there.

The seventh kingdom

2010-01-01T20:55:00.000-08:00

For someone who writes about technology, Kevin Kelly, co-founder of Wired magazine, seems somewhat ambivalent, especially when he takes the cynical view that "technology is anything invented after you were born" or "technology is anything that doesn't quite work yet."

To better understand technology he poses the question "what does technology want?", the topic of his forthcoming book, and asks us to think about the parallels between technology and life.

At the Big Bang, everything was squeezed together so much there was no room for any difference, but as the universe expanded, the space for variation increased dramatically. Life has explored these emerging possibilities, and is now found everywhere on earth, even in cores of deep-drilled rock, under miles of ice or in the driest deserts.

He presents a concentric model of evolution on planet earth. More like the spreading ripple on a pond. Each and every organism highly developed. Not the climb-the-ladder-of-life model which leaves our simpler cousins on the bottom rungs.

Each form of life has experimented to the same degree about "how to do life". Our fellow organisms have explored every possible nook and cranny. They have developed a seemingly endless variety of body designs that range from the simple to the complex, the bizarre to the beautiful and from the minute to the gigantic. Each has developed it's own specialized way of earning a living or reproducing.

There are six kingdoms - plants, animals, fungi, protists, bacteria and the archae bacteria. Archae bacteria were first detected in extreme environments such as volcanic hot springs, but have since been found in many other environments. Protists are simple cellular organisms such as single-celled protozoa which are animal-like or plant-like such as algae, or fungus-like such as slime-molds.

As life has evolved it has become more sociable. Rather than merely living off an inanimate substrate most life forms are now surrounded by and interact intimately with other life forms as symbiants, hosts, predators and prey.

Kelly explores how technology has evolved and shows that just as life experiments with new possibilities, technology allows us to do the same and has the same general features. Technology is everywhere humans go. From the simple personal to the complex planetary-wide. Tools have become adapted to all kinds or human needs. And just like life, tools designed for yesteryear, live on alongside more complex and powerful technologies. And from new combinations of the old and the new, new stuff emerges.

He argues that technology should be regarded as the seventh kingdom as life and technology share five key features - ubiquity, diversity, specialization, complexity and socialization. A powerful cosmic force that helps us accelerate evolution. That obliges us morally to invent new technologies so everyone can express their "true difference: with others. And become more than we could otherwise be.

So here is a workshop to explore some of these ideas:

1. If technology is anything that was invented after you were born, what is technology?
2. If technology is something that does not quite work yet, give examples of technology?
3. If we look at the world through the eyes of technology, what does it want?
4. Ubiquity: Make a list of all the different kinds of technologies in your home or office, think doors, beds, toasters, pens, photocopiers etc.
5. Complexity: Give examples of how technologies for cooking, writing, travel OR entertainment have evolved and become more complex.
6. Specialization: Give examples of how technologies have become more specialized e.g. different kinds of technology for entertainment, travel, conducting/observing experiments.
7. Socialization: Give examples of how technologies depend on their connections and interaction with other technologies for their existence e.g. motor car, freeways, gas station, shopping mall, hotel/motel.
8. If technology is becoming more sociable, forecast some of the consequences of this e.g. machines talking directly to other machines, exchanging information.
9. If technology can be regarded as an accelerator of evolution, what might be in store for the human race?

Happiness for all

2009-12-18T20:14:00.000-08:00

If you're angry, anxious or depressed, there's new hope. Richer, happier lives are now possible thanks to a new approach to mental and emotional well being called positive psychology.

And there are better days for the rest of us who live normal or contented lives. We too can now become happier and more successful. All thanks to Dr. Martin Seligman, who founded the field in 2000.

It's goodbye to the old disease model that dominated our thinking for much of the 20th Century. Back then we treated alcoholism and depression just like any other medical problem, as victims of pathologies rather than life choices. With drugs and psychological methods. The best we could hope for was to reset our misery clocks back to "zero" to live "empty", inert and unfulfilled lives.

Seligman discovered there are very few differences between happy and sad people. Happy people are not better looking, richer, fitter or more religious than miserable people. Just very social, with secure romantic relationships and a rich repertoire of friends.

And there are three kinds of happy lives, in ascending order of enjoyment:

* the pleasant life. We enjoy as many pleasures as we like, but be warned. The effects wear off through frequent use (or over indulgence) via a process of habituation. And because 50 per cent of the benefits are genetic or cultural -we get that from our parents - there's not much you can change.

* the engaged life. We become so absorbed in our work, parenting, leisure activities, games or romance, we enter a state of peak experience called Flow, where time flies and we are completely in harmony with the world around us.

* the meaningful life. We pursue relationships that make a difference to our lives. We apply our best strengths in the serv ice of a purpose greater than ourselves.

So here's a workshop that prescribes some of Dr. Seligman's positive approaches. The activities draw on skills quite unlike the expert-driven disease model:

1. Fun - Brainstorm a list of fun activities. Design a day when you can enjoy them all.
2. Gratitude - Write a testimonial to a person you have never properly thanked who did something enormously important that changed your life.
3. Build on strengths - Make a list of your five greatest strengths and your life partner's five greatest strengths. Then design/describe an evening/date with your life partner where you can make use of them.
4. Serving a higher purpose - Think of someone or some group in need. Design/describe what you will do to help them.
5. A beautiful day - Design yourself a beautiful day and use SAVOURING and MINDFULNESS to enhance the pleasures that flow from it.

Dire and not-so-dire-tribes

2009-12-10T09:32:00.000-08:00

David Logan has been researching tribes for the past decade. Not the ancient or nomadic, but the tribes that dwell within 21st Century organizations.

He is the author of Tribal Leadership, the co-founder and senior partner of CultureSync, a management consulting firm. He also teaches management at the University of Southern California.

Logan says each of us lives in a tribe of 20 to 150 people. It's where all our work gets done and societies are created. Or so says his extensive research program involving 24,000 people in all kinds of organizations.

The yawning chasm between our widely differing tribal beliefs leaves organizations wide open for failure. It's no wonder we struggle to create new knowledge that is aligned with the emerging future. It's no wonder the collective jigsaw we create is often missing vital pieces. It's no wonder many people feel their opinions are never heard or acted upon. It's no wonder the future turns out to be different to what we expected. It's no wonder that some are able to say, "we told you so."

There are five tribal stages. Stage 1 (1% of us) is "Life sucks". Our members are desperate people who do whatever must be done, including bad stuff, in order to survive. Think gangs and prison inmates.

Stage 2 people (21%) believe "Our Life sucks". It's life on the treadmill, barely making ends meet, surviving by the skin of our teeth, the fun is always had by someone else.

Competitive, self-centered narcissists occupy Stage 3. That's 48% of us. We see the world through an "I'm great and your not" lens. It's all a zero-sum game. We believe that for some of us to gain, others must lose.

At Stage 4 (22%) "We're great". Our kind of people value creativity, having fun and "being a little bit weird". We find something to unite us, start doing stuff together, then we click as a group, and transform to a "we" kind of world. We shift from being motivated individualists to a tribe that performs remarkable feats. We are the first of the tribes to see ourselves as a tribe.

Just 2% of us ascend to Stage 5. For us, "Life is great". What we do is change the world. Our actions are determined only by our values. We serve a purpose, higher than ourselves. We comprehend all the levels, whereas lower level tribes can only understand the stage above or below them.

Tribal leaders have a role to play in expanding the influence of their tribes, nudging them forward to the next level. We also expand our influence by introducing other tribal leaders to each other.

The toughest task is to nudge Stage 3 tribes to Stage 4, from a zero-sum world to a world of abundance. For the fun-loving and creative stage 4 tribes there's not much incentive to go to the self-less noble life of a stage 5. Few make the journey anyway.

So here's a workshop to explore this space:

1. Brainstorm examples of each of the tribal stages. Stage 1 (Life sucks). Stage 2 (Our life sucks). Stage 3 (I'm great but you're not). Stage 4 (We're great). Stage 5 (Life is great).
2. What kinds of tribes live in your organization? Give examples.
3. If we believe "Life sucks" or "Our life sucks" why might our beliefs constrain what we can do with our lives/with our work?
4. You have the task of designing a corporate brainstorming event. All the tribes are mixed for maximum creativity. What must you do to ensure everyone "hears" each other?
5. How might tribes choose to differentiate themselves from tribes immediately higher or lower on the scale? Think about language, symbols, signs...
6. What kinds of cultural/communications difficulties might you encounter with a roomful of all the tribes?
7. Brainstorm a list of ideas to help/encourage/nudge Stage 3 (I'm great) people to explore the Stage 4 (We're great) tribal belief system.
8. Thinking about each of the stages, Stage 1 (Life sucks). Stage 2 (Our life sucks). Stage 3 (I'm great but you're not). Stage 4 (We're great). Stage 5 (Life is great), how could you get each stage to understand the beliefs/attitudes of the other stages?
9. You're the leader of a Stage 1 tribe, and can speak all the levels. What's stopping you from ascending to other levels?
10. What life circumstances might cause you to migrate to an early and unhappier stage of tribal development?
11. When you randomly introduce one person you don't know, to another person you don't know, how does that expand you and your tribes influence? Give examples of the possible effects/outcomes.

Mutual dependence or slavery?

2009-11-20T13:46:00.000-08:00

Joshua Klein asks whether crows could be enlisted to do stuff for us like recover the millions of dollars worth of coins humans lose every year.

Or perhaps crows could learn to collect and dispose of garbage, the billions of pieces and tens of thousands of tons of packaging hurled out of car windows, that despoil our freeways and roads.

Thanks to us, crows are thriving. They have adapted, like rats and cockroaches, to benefit from human activities. They live everywhere that we do.

Crows are really smart. Really, really smart. Klein demonstrates how they quickly learned how to operate a "crow vending machine" that dispensed food in exchange for loose change.

Crow power presents a unique opportunity to offer a universal, standardized service, wherever they are located, which is everywhere, just like the internet, electricity and roads.

Perhaps crows could be enlisted to perform the repetitive and scalable tasks that we don't want to do. Collect certain kinds of bugs that eat crops most prone to attack. Trim hedges. Weed gardens. Harvest crops. Or clear gutters.

But the question remains, would such a relationship be really equal, one of "mutual balance" between humans and crows? Or would we humans be guilty yet again of enslaving a fellow species for our benefit.

Here's a workshop to explore the issues:

1. What other smart creatures could we enlist to help us perform useful roles for humans in a kind of "mutual interdependence"?
2. What are some of the repetitive tasks that crows could be enlisted to perform on our behalf, with a little training?
3. What is the boundaries/differences between "mutual independence", "slavery" and "service"?
4. What might be the possible consequences of enrolling many more other animals to become our servants of "mutual dependence" in addition to dogs, pigs, horses, cows and ducks?
5. What ethical issues does this idea of new "servant animals" raise?
6. For a long time, humans have asumed that what makes us different from other animals is our ability to evolve culturally as well as genetically. If crows clearly learn from each other (as do dolphins, monkeys etc), what differentiates us from these animals?
7. If we are only different from other animals by a matter of degrees what gives us the right to enslave/co-opt other species? Give your reasons why or why not.

Something out of nothing

2009-11-16T15:44:00.000-08:00

Authors create their own universes, their own cosmology, says Amy Tan the mischievous author of The Bonesetters Daughter, The Joy Luck Club and Saving Fish from Drowning.

Which begs the question, "if there is a creator of the universe, is she a writer?"

Tan explains the ambiguity of the creative process to the TED crowd using a curiously warped interpretation of modern day physics. She equates the nebulousness or indeterminism of the creative act with the uncertainty principle of quantum dynamics and the "11 levels of anxiety" experienced by a writer with the 11 dimensions of string theory.

Tan jokes that creativity has three sources. Nature, nurture and nightmares. Nature involves some inherited genes. Nurture is a dash of childhood trauma. And the nightmares are the psychoses, depression and the temporal lobes seizures she personally has experienced.

Encouraged as a child to become a doctor or concert pianist, Tan chose to ignore her teacher's assessment of her literary talent of B/B+/B- grades and become an "artistic arranger of words".

On stage she is a living, breathing version of her own story telling process. She starts with nothing except some ambiguous concepts which seem unconnected - accidents, serendipity, ambiguity, balance, intentions, and peripheral exploring - then weaves them into a compelling narrative.

The creative act, she says, is about answering three questions. Why do things happen? How do things happen? How do I make things happen?

She asks if ideas turn up serendipitously just when you need them or do artists simply discover new ways of seeing the world and become aware of patterns that were already there.

She surmises the answer could be either/both, (just like the famous experiment where light passing through a slit behaves both as a particle and a wave - my words, not hers).

Tan also reveals that as she writes a story, she learns from the "life" experiences and interactions of the characters, and in doing so, she "becomes the story".

Over time, each story develops it's own internal consistency. She tells the story of meeting a man who created towers of rocks, large and small, perfectly balanced, one of top of the other, who explained the principle that "there is a place of balance" for everything in life.

But Tan also says that a light touch is required. Push too hard and creativity is stifled. Write around the periphery of what you don't know and something new emerges.

So here's a workshop to explore some of Amy Tan's ideas about the creative process?

1. What is the something in your nothing? What unusual pattern or thing have you observed/noticed or been amazed about lately to which you are attracted? e.g. the chewing gum stuck to the pavement.
2. Thinking about your unusual pattern/thing, in what other situations have you seen such a pattern, and why might it be interesting to others? e.g. the mess we humans leave behind, which we ignore in our daily lives.
3. Create a minor solar system of characters, and a scenario, to explore your interesting pattern/thing. e.g. the derelict sleeping on the pavement with accumulated junk/garbage all around, who dreamed of being a.....
4. How did your character get to be in this stuation?
5. As you start creating your character and the story, what can you now observe around you that you did not see before?
6. As you start creating your story, what do you learn from the character, and especially how does this learning enrich who you are?
7. If you were now faced with death, what stories do you now feel compelled to tell, as urgently as possible to your friends, family, the world?

Compassion and peaceful co-existence

2009-11-07T18:43:00.000-08:00

Religious Historian Karen Armstrong made a 2008 TED Prize wish that has resulted in thousands of people around the world joining together to collectively create a Charter for Compassion so we can live together in peace, and leave the world in a better state for our children.

At the heart of all the world's religions is a Golden Rule, to "always treat all others as you'd like to be treated yourself. Yet religious people often ignore the Golden Rule at the heart of their belief system and define themselves by how different and right they are compared to others, rather than what they have in common.

When we don't live a compassionate life and go back to being thoughtless, selfish, spiteful and egocentric, we ignite the flames of hatred or mistrust. Such differences become a major source of conflict between the world's people. Then, when we discriminate against people on the basis of some perceived difference - their sexual orientation or gender - we become less than what we can be.

Living the compassionate life is not about feeling sorry for another - a narrow interpretation of compassion - but having the ability to to stand in another person's shoes and know how they would feel, and to be sensitive to how they see the world. When we live the compassionate life, we somehow transcend or transform ourselves, and become of greater value to each other and to the world.

Here's a workshop to explore the issues:

1. Describe how you like to be treated by others.
2. Describe all the the different ways you would NOT like others to treat you.
3. Give examples of what Rabbi Hillel, the contemporary of Jesus Christ, might have had in mind when he says "That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor" when describing the Torah and all its ramifications.
4. Think about someone special who is very different to you. Step into their shoes. Describe them, their mental models, and how they might interact with the world.
5. Imagine yourself standing in that other special person's shoes, how might you now perceive your own mental models/world view?
6. What can you and that special person focus on jointly, to become friends so you and your two worlds can live in harmonious co-existence?

Seeing without sight

2009-10-09T08:45:00.000-07:00

When we grow old and lose our sight, one-in-ten of our brains will invent images that can be both surprising and challenging.

Surprising because the "hallucinations" come and go suddenly. Challenging because we think we might be going mad.

Oliver Sacks, the famous neurologist, assures us that such people are not crazy. The brain is forming the images in the imagination, simply because "we see with the eyes and the brain as well".

When some people lose their vision, constellations of cells in their brains where millions of images are encoded, can become hyperactive. They start to fire off and you begin to see things. It's like a movie over which you have no control in the form geometric shapes, cartoons or people, often with accentuated features such as big teeth. Soundless and without a story line.

All you can do is watch, unlike psychotic hallucinations, which argue and interact with you.

Sacks explains that a mere 1% of us have the confidence to speak up about this kind of condition. Most of us keep quiet, worried that we might be diagnosed as "crazy" and locked up or given inappropriate treatments.

Sacks is best known for his heart-felt stories about brain malfunctions and how they change our lives. His best-selling book Awakenings, tells the true story of a group of patients, frozen like statues, unable to speak or move on their own, and how they responded to the "miracle drug" L-Dopa. The patients were survivors of the 1920s sleeping sickness epidemic, encephalitis lethargica. L-Dopa helped to unfreeze their movements, but only for a short time.

Sacks admits to experiencing some of the geometric hallucinations which, like his tinnitus (ringing in the ears), he tries to ignore.

So here is a workshop to explore some of the issues that arise from this talk:

1. Why, in these times of unprecedented knowledge creation, would people be fearful of revealing to their families and doctor, unusual events in their inner world?
2. Make a list of variations to the human condition where fellow humans might take action against you because of a condition or experience which seems weird, either out of fear or lack of knowledge.
3. What are some of the deep 'hidden assumptions" about variations in the way our bodies work that cause people to be mis-diagnosed or maltreated by the "caring professions" in some unreasonable way?
4. If the loss of capability in a functional network such as the human brain can stimulate "hallucinations" what might the declining capability in a social or corporate system produce, metaphorically speaking?
5. What kinds of fears/prejudices might we need to be aware of and guard against that could arise as a consequences of failing system capability that produces the metaphorical corporate/social equivalent of "hallucinations"?

The "true facts" about "carrots and sticks"

2009-10-08T12:38:00.000-07:00

If creativity and productivity are going South in your organization it could be the "carrot and stick" incentives on offer.

Dan Pink, author of A Whole New Mind, shows there is a huge "mismatch between what science knows and business does" about getting the best out of people.

Business continues to use financial rewards designed for a late 19th and early 20th century workplace when higher pay, bonuses and other rewards (and punishments) improved productivity of workers engaged in routine and mechnical work, like the factory production line.

All this has changed. The old ways of rewarding people are not working any more.

A whole raft of scientific studies now show that financial and other incentives are the least effective way to reward the people in "right brain" jobs. It's all about solving wicked problems, creativity and creating new knowledge that can't be automated or sub-contracted to unskilled workers in low-cost countries.

For this kind of 21st Century work, the intrinsic motivators of "autonomy, mastery and purpose" deliver the most sensational results in postcodes like 95128 (Silicon Valley, CA) and 02139 (Cambridge, MA) and countries like Australia and India.

So knowing this, why do we still keep on paying the bankers of Wall Street and the CEOs of big companies huge bonuses to turn our financial system and our corporate sector into rubble?

Pink shows that knowledge and wisdom workers respond positively to the very human desire to exercise control over our lives, to do what we think is important, to choose our own directions. We also love to do it incredibly well and feel proud of our achievements. And do so in the service of a cause much bigger than ourselves.

It's the new way that up-and-coming software companies treat their employees. Instead of rules, time clocks and managerial control, it's ideas like "Fedex day" where all the programmers do whatever they please and create some new software fix/application overnight. And celebrate together over a beer. It's the amazing 50% of new software products coming out of Google produced during the 20% of the time they can do whatever they want. Its the amazing productivity of the millions of people who worked tirelessly to create Wikipedia, for NOTHING!

And, says Pink, it's not a socialist conspiracy. Nor a philosophy. But as Washingtonians would say, "a true fact".

Here's a workshop to deal with your productivity/creativity gap:

1. What's the mood of your organization, how does it feel about itself and what it does? Is it a party, a wake or something else?
2. List all the jobs in your organization where the staff are motivated by EXTRINSIC rewards (money, bonuses, sanctions etc.) and describe how they are rewarded.
3. List all the jobs in your organization where the staff are motivated by INTRINSIC rewards (autonomy, mastery and purpose) and describe how they are rewarded.
4. What programs (e.g. bonuses, piecework rates) does your organisation have in place to recognize and reward success at "left brain" routine work that can be automated?
5. What programs (e.g. FedEx days, celebrations) does your organisation have in place to recognize and reward success at "right brain" problem solving, decision making, improvement and creativity tasks?
6. Thinking about your "productivity/creativity crack/gap/gulf/chasm" (if any), what could you do NOW to allow your people take control of their lives, be brilliant, and serve a higher purpose?

3.8 million years of R&D

2009-09-27T14:34:00.000-07:00

Nature has spent 3.8 billion years perfecting how to make stuff without messing up its' own back yard.

Humans have taken just 40,000 years to pollute our oceans, raise the earth's temperature, change the climate, pollute the rivers and streams, eradicate numerous species and generally poison/pollute the world we share with millions of other organisms.

Jane Benyus, author of Biomimicry: Inspired by Nature, shows that humans use a heavy-handed approach to making things using the full spectrum of elements from the periodic table via a "heat, beat and treat" process that produces 96 per cent waste and a mere four percent that's useful.

On the other hand, nature makes stuff using the lightest possible touch, at room temperature and pressures by recombining in clever ways a small sub-set of the chemicals at its' disposal. The result is an environment which is sympathetic to other life forms.

Benyus asks three qestions about what nature can teach us. How does nature make things, make the most of things, and make things that disappear into systems or become part of systems?

She puts up twelve big design ideas such as self-assembly at room temperature. Carbon dioxide as a feedstock to make stuff from glucose and protein chains. Harvesting light directly. Power shapes that reduce friction or improve flow. Extracting water directly from the atmospshere. Using "green chemicals" rather than the dangerous and toxic. Metals without mining. Timed degradation.

Here's a workshop to explore the possibilities:

1. Brainstorm some ways Benyus 12 rules might change our world and the tools we use.
2. What would it take for hard-rock miners to make the switch to extracting minerals using biological rather than physical processes?
3. If we could self-assemble tools and products at room-temperature, using a small sub-set of the least toxic elements, what would be the impact on our environment?
4. What do you know about how nature works that could change the way we design, organize and operate organizations for the better?
5. Brainstorm a list of possible uses for surfaces that are self-cleaning?
6. What might a farm be like if it was part of nature? What new rules might farmers follow?
7. What if we could grow houses, or parts of houses such as light collecting surfaces. What might they look like or be like to live in?
8. If we could unlock nature's rules for timed degradation, what could we use this technology for?
9. If we could convert sunlight directly to usable forms of energy in the way plants do with the same kinds of efficiencies, what impact would this have the social and physical world?
10. What new powers might humans acquire using new kinds of tools we create that not only mimic nature but become a part of nature?

A new fractal future?

2009-09-05T22:04:00.000-07:00

For most of the past few thousand years of human civilization, our thinking has been dominated by geometry. The line. The circle. The ellipse. The square. The triangle.

The geometric is reflected in everything we do. The shapes of our buildings, the designs of our tools, the mental models we use. It is both the basis of our incredible success as a species and a millstone around our necks that gets heavier by the day.

According to ethno-mathematician Ron Eglash, geometric thinking dominates everywhere in the world. Except Africa, where villages, homes, living spaces and their tools are fractally organized.

Fractals or self-similarity is how the real world works. The trunks and branches of trees. The blood vessels and capillaries of our bodies. Rivers, tributaries and streams and the patterns they carve out of mountains and deltas. The feathery path that lightning blasts through a resistant atmosphere. The design of a nautilus shell and the peacock's tail. Snowflakes. Our DNA.

It is this new kind of self-organising thinking that the rest of the world needs now to help us design systems that mimic, reflect or are a better fit with nature. To clean up the mess we have made of the natural world through our over-use of geometry.

Which could be just the kind of inspiration Africans need. To see their culture as a resource for the kind of new thinking the world needs right now.

Here's a workshop to explore the possibilities:

1. What are the big differences between seeing the world in terms of circles/straight lines/polygons and seeing the world as a fractal?
2. In what ways does geometry (circles, lines, squares etc.) restrict how we see and what we can do in the world?
3. What might be the advantages of using self-similarity and self-organisation as the way we design products, services, organizations and how we interact with each other?
4. What might a fractal social relationship be like? Give examples of fractal relationships with employers, parents, children or friends.
5. What might a self-organising/fractal learning program look like/be like?
6. Choose one of these concepts and describe in detail what a self-similar version might look/function. Hotel, transport system, garbage disposal system, book, play, dance, social occasion, family or house/home.
7. Apply the concept of self-similarity to solving one of these world problems. Poverty, war, famine, disease, global warming, virus, dislocation, terrorism/freedom fighting.
8. What features/aspects of self-similarity could we use to design organizations and social systems.
9. How could you use knowledge about fractals and self-organizing systems to create wealth in the 21st century?
10. How can Africa use its deeply embedded knowledge of fractals and self-organizing systems to contribute to a new and more powerful/fulfilling future for the people of the continent of Africa and the world?

A new purpose for school education

2009-08-31T20:06:00.000-07:00

According to education supremo Sir Ken Robinson "schools kill creativity". And although all children are born talented, mistake making is so stigmatized they become frightened of being wrong.

Creativity is now more important than literacy to cope with a world of accelerating change, where knowledge reaches its use-by-date in decades rather than centuries.

He says schools are designed as a competition to educate people from the waist or neck up, and "slightly to one side". The winners are people who become lecturers and professors who "see their bodies as a form of transport for their heads".

We place the sciences and mathematics at the top of the learning hierarchy, the social sciences in the middle and the creative subjects such as drama, art, dance, and physical education at the bottom. Robinson argues it should be the other way around.

What we now have now is a left frontal lobe learning system, that educates young people out of their creativity. We socialize them into giving automatic "correct" responses to closed questions. We squander their talents and preparedness to take risks. We equip them for jobs that will not exist when they complete their studies.

And so the wonderful right frontal lobe ability to create and implement new ideas becomes lost to society, except for the very few, who rebel against the system.

Here's a workshop to creatively explore what we would like the education system to become in the future:

1. What would the learning system be like if it was designed for a rapidly changing world with a greater focus on creativity?
2. List and describe the major changes in the world we might expect over the next few decades and the impact this will have on the lives of people in the 2030s. (e.g. entertainment+education > edutainment etc.)
3. Describe the lifestyle of a typical 30 year old citizen living in 2030. How will he/she live?
4. What kind of work/activities will people enjoy in the mid 21st Century? Name and describe the new activities e.g. nano-medic, replacing body parts with nano-machines.
5. What will relationships and family life be like in the mid 21st Century?
6. What kinds of skills, values, attitudes and outlook will a 21st Century citizen need to be successful in business/community/life?
7. What does our school, college or university currently do very well upon which we should build or focus? (e.g. drama, art)
8. What are the aspects of our school, college or university we would want to change/improve over the next 20 years?
9. What kind of learning experiences will we need to create for young people to acquire the skills, values, etc. to be effective and successful in the next century?
10. What will our school to be like (structure, relationships, culture, staffing, technology, linkages)?
11. Describe a day in the life of a student at our school in in the mid 21st Century.
12. What should be the key goals for our students in the mid 21st Century? How will we/they know if they have been successful?

Are their eyes shining?

2009-08-21T20:31:00.000-07:00

When you interact/engage with another person as a speaker, playmate, spouse, lover, parent, sibling, boss or co-worker do you leave them with "shining eyes"?

According to orchestra conductor Benjamin Zander, the ultimate test of a successful interaction is whether their eyes are alive in some new way. Not just a twinkle. But beaming.

It's all part of the process of perfecting our co-performance with others.

He demonstrates the progress of pianist from neophyte to expert. First we hear the stilted performance of a hypothetical seven year old who emphasizes every second note. Then the passable performance of an eight-year old who stresses every fourth note. Next the competent performance of a nine year old who gives weight to every eighth note. And finally the remarkable "one-buttock" performance of the same hypothetical player, now aged 11.

In the presence of a one "buttock player" we are transported from the first note to the last in one undivided stream of consciousness, enveloped in the richness of the journey. Like a bird soaring over fields on its' way to another world, so immersed in its' greater purpose, "it does not notice the fences" below.

As a conductor, Benjamin Zander says he makes no sounds at all. Instead, his job is to make the performers look good. To be powerful. But completely silent he is not. His body speaks volumes, a conversation, not with himself, but with the audience.

Perhaps he has an overdeveloped Broca's area, the part of the frontal lobes where speech and gesture orchestration lie side by side. Partners in performance. The empathy center of the brain where the same "mirror neurons" fire when we watch a performance and when we perform the actions ourselves. The part of the brain that helps us form an image of another person and what they might be thinking or feeling.

Benjamin Zander is a "gestural chatterbox". His whole body is constantly in motion. The raised buttock. The lift of an eyebrow. Waving arms and expressive hands emphasizing ideas. Physically "speaking" with the audience. Striding around the stage seemingly at random but with deliberate purpose to warmly "embrace" everyone with whom he comes in contact. Clapping the audience for their excellent co-performance. Connecting with people and the emotions they are expressing to help reveal the inner, blossoming you.

An orchestrator of music and the mind.

So here's a workshop to explore some of Benajamin Zander's ideas:

1. What's the difference between those who are "passionate" in your organization/family/team/community and those who have no interest whatsoever?
2. Explain how Benjamin Zander engages his audience passionately in the music. How did thinking about a departed loved one help reveal the beauty/wonder of the music?
3. What are the features of a "one-buttock" organization/family/team/community?
4. How would you go about creating a "one-buttock" organization/family/team/community?
5. What happens to people when you as their leader have a wonderful dream but "you are not sure whether they will be up to it"?
6. What are the essential elements of co-performance?
7. How does believing in what you do change your role as a leader?
8. What "notes" do you play in your world that make the previous "notes" sad, happy, amusing or surprising?
9. No one is tone deaf, otherwise we could not change the gears on our car or tell the difference between speakers' accents. How do you people deny their abilities so you don't participate more fully in your organiation/family/team/community?
10. Explain how you would walk/talk if everyone loved what you do? How would you perform differently?
11. If you could engage with people's passions (instead of trying to grow the market for your ideas from 4% to 5%) what would you need to do in your organization/family/team/community?
12. How could you "light up a village" with shining eyes? Describe something wonderful you could do....voice and gestures please.
13. In a world of co-performance what new names/labels do we need for "audience", "leader", "conductor", "speaker", "performer", etc.?

Our aquatic origins

2009-08-20T19:10:00.000-07:00

Octogenarian Elaine Morgan has been fighting for most of her adult life to gain acceptance for her aquatic ape theory that humans evolved in an estuarine environment rather than the Savannah.

There are big difference between us and other primates. We live on the ground. They live in the trees. We are naked. They are hairy. We walk on two legs. They walk on four, although they wade through water on two. The fossilized pollens found with ancient human remains are not found on the Savannah.

Most other naked mammals such as the dugong, walrus, dolphin and hippopotamus live in water. Even the ancestors of elephants and rhinoceros

Humans are one of a group of creatures with control over our breathing which is a precursor to the development of language. The other primates can't talk. We have a layer of fat just under the skin which would insulate us better in water. They have hair which works best in air. We are streamlined and built for diving into and swimming in water. They are not.

So why has it taken so long for this idea to take hold?

Elaine Morgan cites Thomas Kuhn whose theory of scientific revolutions contends that when a theory gets into strife scientists just carry on as normal. They pretend nothing has happened. Worse still, this "head in the sand" approach is far from rare. It happens all the time.

Why then do scientists ignore the mounting evidence and stick with the Savannah hypothesis? Why do the academic journals refuse to touch the theory, even with a "barge pole?" And why does the theory get lumped in with UFOs, astrology, extra sensory perception and poltergeists? Or is the theory fundamentally or just a little bit flawed?

Here's a series of workshop questions to explore why scientists are sometimes slow to change their minds:

1. Brainstorm a list of DISPUTED theories (and what they claim) for which there is little or no scientific support/proof. e.g. phrenology, phlogiston
2. Brainstorm a list of SUPERB theories (and what they claim) for which there is substantial scientific evidence/support/proof.
3. How would you explain the reluctance of scientists to consider the aquatic ape theory?
4. When Rupert Sheldrake's book "A New Science of Life" - in which he described his theory of "morphic fields" to explain patterns of biological development was first published - some of the establishment said it was "a book fit for burning"? Why might some scientists react like this?
5. What does it take to shake off an old scientific view and adopt a new theory?
6. What explanation can you give for the widely held belief (48% of Americans, 2007 Newsweek poll) that the world was created during the last 10,000 years?
7. Why do you think some scientists continue to support old theories rather than new theories which offer a better explanation of the phenomena?
8. What explanation can you offer for other great schisms in science e.g. instructionist vs. constructivist models of learning, behaviorism vs. socially mediated psychology, big bang vs steady state theories of astrophysics, animal cognition vs animal instincts?
9. Explain why you agree/disagree with the following statement: "Fundamentalism is a belief in an outmoded point of view no matter what."
10. What parallels, if any, might there be between the evolution of ideas and biological evolution?
11. Describe an experiment to more thoroughly explore the aquatic theory of human development. What should be the key elements of the research?
12. If you were given the task to "market" the aquatic ape theory to the world, what would you do to help spread and gain acceptance for the idea?