Coping with Workplace Mental Overload
Thursday, October 8th, 2009
Check out David Rock’s new book, Your Brain at Work. The format is perfect for cognitive designers looking for potential insights into the needs of psychologically overtaxed professionals. It is in story form and infused with basic brain and cognitive science. The book offers an array of tactics for copying with uncertainty, conflicting priorities, difficult relationships, information overload, unfairness, ego, the constant flow of emergencies and so on. The tactics are interesting but the real value for designers is the psychographic read-out of some deep, unmet cognitive (intellectual, emotional, motivation, volitional) needs in the workforce. This is a potential goldmine (or at least a good starting hypothesis) for those interested in remaking organization to fit how our minds work.
I will blog later offering a taxonomy of cognitive needs I extract from the book. I also plan to understand his research methods and do a literature search to seek supporting or countering views.
