Cognitive Design

The Global Women’s Leadership Network  has joined forces with others to launch a major effort in developing women and girl leaders around the world.  They posted an open innovation challenge and are looking for fresh thinking on how to quickly build leadership capacity in women and girls.   Their stretch goal  is to develop 5 million women change agents improving our world in 5 years.

This is an important effort for many reasons. As they point out in the preamble to the challenge:

“There is a growing recognition that there can be no peace, security, or sustainable economic development without women’s equal participation in all spheres of society.”

You need to register with Innocentive and electronically sign an agreement to see the details of the challenge.  I signed up as a solver and suggested an approach (copied below) based on knowledge cards and NewHabits.

I hope you too will take up the challenge.

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At Cornell University they have been investigating what type of small changes in eating habits produce lasting weight loss. Several years ago researchers ran a Mindless Eating Challenge involving 2000 participants to try and figure it out. They recently published an article that found:

“The results of this study suggest that online interventions based on small changes have the potential to gradually lead to clinically significant weight loss, but high attrition from publicly available or “free” programs still remains a challenge.”

More specifically, 42% of the participants lost about one pound during the program. Approximately 7% of the participants saw a significant weight loss of 5% or more.  Some gained weight. Impressive results when you realize how small the changes are. Examples that participants found most effective include:

1. Don’t eat directly from a package,  always eat from a dish
2. Put down utensils between bites
3. Keep food out of sight except for healthy items.

These types of changes are easy to make but not for everybody. As pointed out in a Science Daily blog post:

 ”Common barriers that prevented people from making changes included personally unsuitable tips, forgetting, being too busy, unusual circumstances such as vacations, and emotional eating.”

I am working with a physician to develop a solution that addresses most of these barriers.  The solution is a deck of 24 knowledge cards that document  the small changes you can make to achieve healthy weight loss.

You use the cards through a free App called NewHabits.  You can browse through the deck picking the cards that best fit your circumstances. That way the tips are always suitable.  Because the cards are on your iPhone or iPad it is much easier to remember to use them. Cards are designed to fit everyday activities as well as special circumstances (e.g. vacations) and take just minutes to use. That way you can use them no matter where you are or how busy you might be.

Three sample healthy weight loss cards are available in NewHabits.  One is shown above. Download the App (it is free), go to the store and look in the coming soon section for Healthy Weight cards. Give them a try and let me know what you think. We expect to publish the rest of the deck in June.

There can be little doubt that the race is on to improve how we innovate.  Individuals, businesses, universities, economic regions and entire nations have a full on push to out innovate their competitors.  New ways for making innovation faster, better and cheaper are sprouting up everywhere.

There is a lot of noise, some jewels and of course the fundamentals still hold true and dominate the game.  One fundamental, often overlooked, is that innovation flows from specific skills and habits of mind.  Innovators have a calling, think flexibly, experiment and are able to influence others to act on their ideas.  These skills serve the innovator well even if they lack funding, organizational support or external incentives.

The best way to develop innovation skills is to practice them regularly until they become habits. Innovation is not a special technique or method, it is a habit of mind and way of viewing the world. For example, the knowledge card to the right provides a simple way you can practice a habit of highly effective innovators.   Innovators engage the world in a robust way. One way they do that is by using all of their senses.  Getting in the habit of using all of your senses in a way that opens up creativity is not hard but it does take practice.  Try playing this card  five or six times or until you have built up some good notes on products and services that really delight your sense of touch.  Not only will you have new experience to draw on for thinking creatively about features and functions you should be well on your way to using your hands in a more robust way to know the world.  A very good dividend for a modest amount of effort.

To  scale this approach we will need many knowledge cards covering the core skills and habits of highly effective innovators.

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For the last several months I have been collaborating with Jason Becker a former student and now COO of RICS software and co-founder of remember.com on developing an App  for using and publishing decks of knowledge cards.  We just launched NewHabits in Apple’s App store!

NewHabits runs on a micro-learning technique and delivers flash cards for behavior change on a wide variety of life, business and social challenges.  The decks are designed to make learning new skills and habits from experience much easier than other techniques.  There are 7 decks in the NewHabits store now, 2 are free and there are 6 more in the pipeline.   These are just seed decks. Many more are possible. We are actively recruiting new authors and offer royalties and free training and support on  how to write decks.  Check out the news release for more details.

If you don’t have an iPhone or iPad you can still get a detailed look at the App in this screen walkthrough.  I am very interested in hearing from readers with ideas on how to improve the App, use existing decks to meet specific challenges (e.g. organizational change and innovation) or that are interested in authoring new decks.   Knowledge cards are good for forging new personal habits, influencing group change and improving training and coaching.   Please contact me directly at mark.k.clare@gmail.com or 260-433-7923.

I have been following the work of Mayor Michael Bloomberg to ban large sugar-sweetened drinks in New York City.  He and others claim that large-sized (over 16 ounces) containers of high-sugar drinks contribute to diabetes and obesity.  The proposed ban can be viewed as a public health measure.

From a behavior change standpoint, a ban is a hard-stop technique and often generates considerable resistance as it limits choice or liberty and challenges stakeholders that profit from the existing behavior.  Indeed, this is clearly illustrated in the latest news, Judge Throws Out NYC’s Ban on Large Sugary Drinks.  For example, the chief lobbyist of the NYC chapter of  the National Association of Theater Owners is quoted as saying:

“You can’t force people to do things, and that’s what today’s decision shows. You can’t tell people what to drink and where to drink it,”

One alternative to a hard stop is a nudge. Rather than ban large sugary drinks you make the healthier options  more appealing and naturally available. Of course, implementing a nudge requires the cooperation of just the groups that want to sell more drinks.

The judge’s ruling will be appealed so Bloomberg’s experiment in using government to curb the obesity epidemic in the US will continue.  I am interested to hear from readers.  Should we ban such drinks?

The Chief Learning Officer magazine ran a recent article on microlearning - In Learning, Size Matters.   The idea is to deliver bite-sized learning experiences when needed that are fully integrated into work.  The emphasis is on improving performance by learning from immediate experience.  While this may remind some of learning objects, we are now in the era of posts, tweets and smart phone reminders.

The article includes comments from readers, for example:

Parul Gupta: Bite-sized learning is what sticks with learners. Learners are so overloaded with content that a clear, concise and crisp bite of learning is what they cherish. I saw these bites catch fire in a leader-led development program. The small bites of learning should consist of a single topic and need to be extremely well designed.

I’ve seen that too but how do we design microlearning experiences?  One way is the knowledge card model.  In this approach,  we take a particular performance or learning goal and break it down into a set of techniques and behaviors that need to be mastered.  Each card offers a microlearning script for practicing a technique or behavior.  Participants that want to improve get a small deck of cards and start their day by picking one to play. They pick a card that is sure to fit their circumstances.

For example, I recent developed 5 decks that support microlearning the competencies of innovation.   One deck is focused sharpening your observation skills to deepen and broaden what you learn from experience.  An example card:

Something that takes only a few minutes and can easily be integrated into snack or meal time.  This is a microlearning from experience.  Imagine now 24 other such experiences designed to open all five of your senses to drive deeper learning and innovation. Micro changes that accumulate into macro effects, all designed for how our minds naturally work.

Knowledge cards are one way to design and deliver microlearning on a wide variety of topics.  I am interested to hear from readers that are using different designs.

Many of the cognitive designers I know are working on the problem of weight and eating habits.  Not that they are trying to design the perfect diet (some are) but more so, they are working to develop programs that helps us acquire and keep health eating habits despite a hectic lifestyle and easy access to unhealthy food and drink.  So I am always on the lookout for scientific studies that focus on eating habits with insights for designers.

For example, an article in Psychology & Health examines how eaters that intentionally restrain their calories both fail to take in less calories and generate significant guilt feelings.  Unfortunately, these guilt feelings can lead to more serious problems such as emotional eating.  Some specifics:

Checking the food afterwards, the researchers found that the restrained eaters – those who dieted often and who fretted about their consumption – had eaten just as much as the other participants, including just as much high-calorie food. But crucially, they felt more guilty afterwards, especially in relation to their recent indulgence.

The article is available for free and provides a rich set of references many with an open access URL.

I am interested to hear from readers that our working on projects focused on changing eating habits.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) convened an international panel of experts and held a workshop  to explore scientifically validated game designs that boost attention and well-being. The finding are encouraging.

They claim there is ample evidence that some types of video games enhance attention and executive control which in turn can improve self-regulation and well-being.

We also have a long-way to go before we understand how to design interactive media for specific cognitive effects.  The panel cited research that showed many serious games (those designed to purposes other than education) failed to produce the desired outcomes.  While at the same time some produce widespread unintended but fortunately positive effects.  The panel called for more research into the cognitive impacts of specific game mechanics, a focus on social/emotional skills and individual differences as well as improved validation and commercialization methods.

The full report is worth reading for cognitive designers working on game, interactive media, self-control  or well-being applications.

In the cognitive design blog we focus on how minds (individual, group and machine) actually work and how we can turn those insights into innovations.   Take for example, food psychology. How we think-and-feel about food controls our consumption behavior and our body mass index.  A  PLOS research article illustrates this nicely:

“Consumption with large sips led to higher food intake, as expected. Large sips, that were either fixed or chosen by subjects themselves led to underestimations of the amount consumed. This may be a risk factor for over-consumption. Reducing sip or bite sizes may successfully lower food intake, even in a distracted state.”

The effects were significant. For example, they found small bites led to 30% reduction in consumption if subjects were not distracted by watching a movie while they ate.

It appears that our minds are at some level deciding if we are full or not by counting how many bites or sips we take.  Change the size of the bite or sip or interfere with our ability to count and you have a pre-programmed impact on consumption.

The mighty beverage maker is bringing some of their marketing and branding magic to work on the problem of obesity. Check out their Coming Together video and website.  While the video stresses the many things the company has already done to address obesity – created lower calorie versions of nearly all beverages, made calorie count more visible, restricted beverage offerings in schools to water, juice and low calorie choices, and so on –  it looks to be just the start of a broader campaign.  Check out the get involved and newsletter options in Where do we go from here?

They are already attracting critics that claim the approach is too simplistic or a matter of PR.   One thing is for sure, the changes they have made already avoided the consumption of many millions of calories.  Let’s hope they are serious about using their brand and influence to address our obesity crisis.

I am interested to hear from readers about specific actions Coca Cola can take that will fight obesity while simultaneously improving their bottom line.