Cognitive Design

As organizations grow large, power is centralized and swarms of manager devote their mental energies to monitoring, command and control.   Policy and compliance begins to crowd out creativity and passion in a legitimate effort to manage complexity and improve productivity.  Bureaucratic control has its purpose but it grinds against how our minds naturally work.

Is it the best we can do in the 21st century? Is there a way to manage complexity and scale and still harness the passion and creative mental energies of employees?  Is there a way to manage without the traditional manager and keep your organization open, sense-and-respond style to the marketplace?

This is the call to action in The Beyond Bureaucracy Challenge on the Management Innovation Exchange.  As of this post there are 63 days remaining and only 11 entries.  You can enter an example of an existing organization that is operating beyond bureaucratic control or post a disruptive idea on how to get there.

Stepping beyond bureaucratic control (if you believe it is possible, timely and relevant) is a cognitive organizational design problem that readers of this blog should be well suited to address.

I hope you go after it!

Submission deadline December 9, 2011 

The Management Innovation eXchange or MIX aspires to revolutionize the theory and practice of management. The idea is that the world is changing faster than our management models and that we are now so badly out of step that nothing short of a revolution in the foundations of management is needed.  The world of work spins on services, networks, knowledge, intangible value and agility. Our management models are focused on products, hierarchy, information, tangible assets and control.

The exchange has done a good job of building community and sharing knowledge on hacks (disruptive ideas) and stories (inspiring examples) but has failed to deliver a revolution.  While their are many interesting ideas and examples on the site, we have yet to see new principles and frameworks emerge. Hopefully that will come with time.

MIX uses a prize-based open innovation model.    The current challenge is a Human Capital M-Prize on Leadership.  They are looking for hacks and stories that tell us how to develop the leadership talents of everyone not just those with formal position in the hierarchy of an organization.   To quote:

“We are looking for ideas and examples that can inspire and instruct talent professionals in their quest to build organizations that encourage and capture the leadership gifts of everyone, every day.” 

So-called informal, unassigned or emergent leaders represent a largely untapped opportunity.   How can we develop and unleash them?

On-line enrollment ends September 20. 

I am often asked by students interested in cognitive design about the best classes to take. I always recommend at least one class in artificial intelligence (AI). An introduction to AI is necessary to make good decisions about the role of smart artifacts and machine intelligence on any cognitive design project.  Once a niche, smart artifacts and various degrees of sophistication are appearing everywhere.

Starting this Fall (10 weeks from Oct 10 to Dec 26), you will be able to take a top-flight introductory class in AI from Stanford for free.  It is the full version of the course including graded assignments and exams and the ability to ask questions as if you were a Stanford student.  If you pass you will receive a letter of completion that includes your rank.  More importantly, you will gain insight into the workings and limitations of of machine intelligence.

The class does assume an understanding of probability and linear algebra.  It will take about 10-15 hours of effort a week. If you don’t know AI and are serious about cognitive design, I suggest you complete this course.

Learning & the Brain is hosting another fantastic conference that examines how the latest findings neuroscience and psychology can be applied to education. Scheduled for November in Boston, Preparing 21st Century Minds will cover: Cognitive Training and Technology; Instructing Innovation and Imagination; Critical Thinking and Reflection; Connecting Culture, Collaboration and Moral; and Leveraging the Strengths and Talents of Special Minds.

The conference includes several workshops and a tour of MIT’s brain scanning facility.  If you have work to share, proposal for poster sessions are open until October 15, 2011.

Source of Image: 21st Century Digital Learner 

Deadline for submission is August 3, 2011 by 5pm EDT 

STEM or science, technology, engineering and mathematics is a big driver of innovation and economic progress in the US. Providing high-quality public education in STEM is therefore vital to growing the US economy.  Our global rankings in STEM education have been slipping and elective enrollment in STEM areas has been falling.  The old model of STEM fails to meet the psychological needs and demands of 21st century students in the US.

Teaching and learning STEM involves all dimensions of our minds – intellectual, emotional, motivational and volitional and therefore retooling it is a major cognitive design challenge.   Making real progress in public STEM education requires designing new learning processes optimized for how the minds of US students really work.

One approach to improve STEM education is to more deeply involve professionals, companies and other community resources with STEM expertise in the learning process. To help bring focus to this approach, Changemakers working with the Carnegie Corporation and The Opportunity Equation has launched a STEM competition around the theme:

“Partnering for Excellence: Innovations in Science + Technology + Engineering + Math Education, an online collaborative competition, will spur creative ways for companies, universities, and other organizations with expertise in the STEM fields to partner with the public schools that need their talent. We are looking for models that bring STEM expertise into public schools, thereby using resources from the private and not-for-profit sectors in new ways to further student learning designed with a “long term, part time” approach (see visual below)”

As of this post there are a 101 entries. The deadline for submission is 5pm ET on August 3rd.  While there are several cash prizes to win, the real value might be in the community-based feedback you received on your proposal.

There is a lot of attention on Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics or STEM education in the US these days. Declining US student enrollment and performance in STEM disciplines spells a decline in the nation’s technology-oriented innovation capability.

Reversing these trends requires a heavy dose of cognitive engineering and design.

We need to modernize the infrastructure, pedagogy and practices used to teach and learn STEM. So I am also on the look out for new models based on insights into the cognition of learning STEM.

For example, Seed Magazine has a recent article highlighting Globaloria’s STEM Games competition. The idea is that students learn STEM by developing their own video games.   This is an example of a broader trend of infusing art and design into STEM education to make it more exciting and naturally enhance innovation skills.  Here is a snapshot:

“Participants have research various STEM topics, blog about what they’ve learned, work in teams, produce video presentations, draw paper prototypes, design sample screens and graphics for game demos, and program webgames that teach others about science issues or mathematics concepts.  This year, 411 students signed up for the competition, and the games they created illustrate the power of CS-STEAM learning. These students never programmed before. But this method of combining art and design with science and computer science generated impressive results.”

Learning by constructing a video game and competing in a contest, that is outstanding cognitive design.  Note too that the learning goes far beyond domain knowledge in a technical field to include teamwork (virtual and on site), writing, drawing, project management and social media skills. All good stuff for success in the 21st century.

The Economist and the global innovation marketplace Innocentive, have teamed up to offer a $10,000 prize to anyone that develops a novel metric for measuring tends in Human Potential.

More specifically, the metric or index should measure how well a region or a country is able to unleash and leverage intellectual energy for social and economic progress.

One example is the Gross National Happiness metric. Your metric does not have to be fully developed but you need to be able to explain how to collect that data to calculate it.

 The deadline for entries in June 20th and the winner will have expenses paid to present at the Ideas Economy conference on Human Potential in September.

In many ways, the X Prize sits at the top of the heap when it comes to prize-based open innovation.  Anyone can enter, they offer large prizes (typically $10M) and are framed to create breakthroughs in important areas.  X Prizes have been won for creating super efficient cars and getting people into orbit and back safely. Right now there is a lot of buzz as 29 teams officially compete for Google’s $30M Lunar X prize. The goal is to send a robot to the moon that can travel at least 500 meters on the surface and send data, including images, back to Earth.

X prizes present serious scientific and engineering challenges.  Cognitive engineering and design typically do not play a key role. Until now. Qualcomm and the X prize foundation just announce the $10M Tricorder X Prize.   The goal and naming of the prize is inspired by the Tricorder, a hand-held device on the series Star Trek that quickly figures out what injury or medical problem you have.

To win the Tricorder X Prize, a team will need to demonstrate a mobile device that can ”diagnose patients better than or equal to a panel of board certified physicians”.  It will also advise consumers on the next steps including the need to seek professional help. Meeting this challenge requires not only significant hardware and software engineering but cognitive engineering and design as well.  

Success turns on understanding the knowledge and cognition of  medical diagnoses and using technology to automate and maintain it.  

This is a hard artificial intelligence and expert system problem.  Furthermore, doing medical diagnosis on a mobile device in a way that will be accepted by consumers acting on their own presents a serious cognitive design challenge.

The prize is in the design phase. This means it is not yet officially funded. It will be further defined this year and if Qualcomm decides to, it will be funded and launched in 2012.   I strongly encourage readers of this blog to contact Qualcomm and the X prize Foundation and encourage them to move forward.

The Rotman School of Management and Mayo’s Center for Innovation recently sponsored a business design challenge for graduate students. The idea is to deeply integrate MBA style business acumen with the creativity of design thinking to produce breakthrough insights. The challenge was to:

“Develop a new offering targeted at a specific patient population that will enable that population to improve their prospects for a healthy future.”

According to the post, The Rotman Design Challenge, the contest attracted some 19 teams from around the US and Canada. Five students from the Masters program in strategic foresight and innovation at the Ontario College of Art and Design won with the concept of Mayo Moms:

“Overlooking the intense emotions so often sparked by the topic of breastfeeding, the project envisioned Mayo as a facilitator, not a provider of healthcare per se. By certifying women who’d previously breastfed successfully as “Mayo Moms” and partnering them with mothers-to-be within the community, the students both leveraged Mayo’s brand and pointed to the creation of a potentially limitless social network.”

It will be interesting to see if this program is implemented. Getting individuals and groups more directly involved in wellness and prevention is something we clearly need to figure out – STAT.

Xtranormal and Bing have teamed up to sponsor a contest for the best short online films with a decision making theme.  Xtranormal is creator of Movie Maker an easy to use tool for producing online films just by typing. Microsoft just launched a new version of Bing positioning it as a “decision engine”.  Here is the assignment:

“Create a video that’s two minutes or less in one of three categories: Action, Horror or Romance, and remember that Bing is looking for movies about a “decision”. A winning video from each category will receive $2,500 and be eligible for the grand prize: $5000!! – and a new Xtranormal actor made in his or her likeness!”

While the money is modest, the real value to the winner might be the brand lift they get from being announced at the Bing party at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 26.

Fortunately, using Movie Maker to create a film is really easy. While the theme can include anything involving decisions (e.g. a decision you made or how to make better decisions)  the judges might naturally favor something that resonates with Bing’s new brand:

“the decision engine that helps you make more informed decisions by providing the best search experience for topics that are important to you”

There is short video that describes decision-themed and lays downs the rules.

With an emphasis on decision-making, character design and on-line search experience this is clearly a cognitive design challenge.