Cognitive Design

It is widely understood that rigorously thinking about a problem from multiple perspectives can give rise to creative solutions.  New frames take thinking in different directions.  For example, understanding a customer complaint as an opportunity to learn and innovate rather than a painful problem is a classic reframing.  New frames also create the opportunity for a synthesis especially if you have a lot of them.  The parable of the several blind men touching different parts of an elephant illustrates the point. Each blind man describes only part of the elephant – a long smooth tube (a tusk), a flat velvety surface (ear), a thick tree trunk (leg) and so on.  It is only by synthesizing or combining these various frames that we come to understand the elephant.

Despite being widely understood, few have mastered multi-frame thinking.

Fortunately, there are many excellent techniques for generating and combining multiple mental frames. One of my favorites is DeBono’s Six Thinking Hats. In this technique, trying on a new hat is a metaphor for generating point of view. Each hat also has a color that denotes the specific mental frame you need to adopt. For example, when you wear the white hat you focus on listing just the facts of the situation. But  when you wear the red hat you  focus on your feelings and intuitions about the situation including likes, dislikes, fears and other emotions.  There is even a blue hat your wear to manage the overall thinking process and synthesize the multiple perspectives created from the other hats. You can use the six hats by yourself but it works better in a group. While it may seem trivial at first if you use it with discipline and rigor it can produce good results.

Another proven multi-frame thinking technique is stakeholder value analysis. In this business-oriented technique you list all the parties or groups that have skin in the game and describe how they receive and contribute value to the situation. For example, employees are an important stakeholder group in a company. They contribute value through their time, effort, creativity and loyalty and they receive value in the form of a pay check, benefits, meaningful work and personal satisfaction.  Seeing value in both tangible ways (time, effort, money, benefit) and intangible ways (creativity, loyalty, meaning, satisfaction) has proven very important for the modern organization.  It has also helped to give voice to new perspectives about how to think about the environment and future generations as important stakeholders and the need to balance purely economic thinking with social concerns.

General  methods for multi-frame thinking include:

- Lateral and divergent thinking
- Helicopter and systemic thinking
- Structured inventive thinking
- Appreciative intelligence
- Visual sense making and metaphors.

To get good results you need to use these methods with discipline and rigor. Ideally, they will become a matter of habit. This means applying them on a regular basis until they become an automatic thinking response.

To help you develop a multi-frame thinking habit I have created a mobile learning program called NewHabits.   It includes a mobile App called Reframe that covers 25 specific techniques you can apply to generate multiple perspectives on situations at home or work.  Each technique is described by a knowledge card that quickly explains the concept behind the technique and recommends a specific action for using it.  Cards take just a few minutes to play but trigger small bursts of learning from experience. These small steps accumulate over time into significant new skills and habits.

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Inside Pixar Animation Studios

Have you ever noticed that most improvement methodologies have you going in circles?   Consider the examples below.

1.  The Shewhart cycle (made popular by Deming) of plan-do-check-adjust that has been used in one form or another by nearly every organization on earth.

2.  Kolb’s learning cycle, perhaps the most successful model of how adults learn from experience.

3.  The method of validated learning (build-measure-learn) in the lean start-up movement that is sweeping the globe.

4. And even the scientific method itself.

This means there is a common architecture for learning, innovation and change making.  It is used by the most successful coaches, leaders, entrepreneurs and activists.  In my classes on leadership and innovation at Northwestern University, I present the common architecture for improvement as follows:

To get good at this you need to be skilled at each step (set the stage, try, observe and interpret), be able to manage motivation and willpower and otherwise move through the cycle fast and cheap.

That is a tall order. To help clients and students get good at going in circles, I have created a  free mobile learning program called NewHabits. The program consists of decks of knowledge cards, including for example,

Each deck includes 25 proven practices for getting better at one of the steps in the improvement process. A card in the deck “sets the stage” and gives you something specific to try to get better at observation, interpretation, willpower or whatever you select.  Having 25 cards in a deck keeps you going through the improvement process multiple times.  Cards are designed to fit into your daily work or home routine and takes just minutes to play.  Each card is one small improvement step but the effects accumulate over time into significant new competencies and habits. In other words, the App will keep you going in circles until you get better!

The neat thing about NewHabits is you can write a deck of knowledge cards to address many behavior change and skill building challenges.   For example, you can create decks to improve sales skills, customer service, teamwork or creativity.   Or on the personal front knowledge cards are a good way to approach money, relationship and health challenges.   I’ve taught hundreds of clients and students how to write knowledge cards and invite you to do the same.

Watson, IBM’s room-sized super computer that beat the world’s best human Jeopardy players in 2011 has given birth to a much smaller and more serious offspring.  According to Bending the Knowledge Curve with IBM  Watson, the new version is now just 9″ x 18″ x 36″ inches, weights about 100 pounds and is focused on answering questions in healthcare, finance, call centers and the government.

Will Watson reach and exceed top level human performance in these domains? There is reason to think so. For example, after just 18 months in healthcare, Watson is already showing promise towards completing a version of the US medical licensing exam. We could see big things in a 3-5 year time frame.

IBM believes success with Watson in multiple domains will trigger a new computing revolution, one focused on cognitive computing systems. Such systems will do for knowledge work what the early data oriented systems did for transactional work.  The goal is not to replace human experts but to vastly amplify their reach and effectiveness.   This is not an idle claim. Remember, you could consult with the current Watson and wipe out any other human player in the game of Jeopardy!

And IBM is not the only one that thinks technology is poised to bend the knowledge curve. McKinsey’s Global Research Institute calls Watson out as an example of one 12 technological disruptions (automation of knowledge work) that will transform life, business and the global economy.   They estimate a multi-trillion dollar global impact in 2025 by technologies that automate knowledge work.

What does this mean for cognitive designers?

We should see a wide range of new options for shifting the cognitive load of knowledge work from humans to machines.

To gain more insight check out the free chapter in the forthcoming book, Smart Machines: IBM’s Watson and the Era of Cognitive Computing.  The section, How Cognitive Systems Will Help Us Think, is especially relevant for cognitive designers.   It is also worth your time to watch IBM Watson: The Science Behind the Answer.  While this won’t make you an expert in deep analytics and natural language processing, it does give a good overview of the 4-steps the Watson uses to answer an open domain question. Something a computer has never been able to do before!

Magic is a pure example of cognitive design.  It requires insight into how minds work and it uses that insight to meet a deeply felt psychological need.  So I am always on the lookout for good examples of how to use magic in innovation, organizational change, leadership and other business contexts. I call this serious magic or the use of magic for non-entertainment purposes.

One interesting thing about magic-  it  is an illusion we can use to break down other illusions or open the mind to possibilities. This is illustrated superbly in video by  Ferdinando Buscema  on Magician Leadership.  In the video he argues many interesting points including how exposure to fine arts makes us better leaders and how Keats’s notion of negative capability is essential for embracing uncertainty and engaging in possibility thinking versus reflective or analytic thinking.   The suggestion is that mastering negative capability is important for innovation, leadership and managing organizational change.

But that’s not the best stuff, at least from the standpoint of using illusion to bust an illusion. He also explores the notion of synchronicity which at its core challenges our notions of past, present and future as well as cause and effect.   Synchronicity appears when causally unrelated events that are related by meaning happen together.  You think about a friend you have not seen for years and they knock on your door or you are reading an interesting article about  a rare butterfly only to look up and see one hovering outside your window. The more compelling the coincidence of acausal events is the more synchronicity you have. We can quickly dismiss such events as a fluke or open our minds to the uncertainty, deeper patterns and possibilities they represent.

Ferdinando does a magic demonstration to illustrate synchronicity in the video. Even though you know it is an illusion your mind is forced to consider the possible (perhaps only momentarily) because you cannot see the cause-and-effect mechanism at work.  Could meaning rather than cause-and-effect connect events? Can past, present and future be blurred into a single moment?  One magic trick won’t convince you but it  can create a moment of negative capacity where you at least feel uncertain.  A strong cognitive effect with a serious purpose.

I am interested to hear from change agents, educators or others that have used magic experience design to produce non-entertainment outcomes.  How have you used serious magic?

Innovation requires tons of personal energy and professional will.  In the best case it flows from a deep attachment to a particular problem or opportunity.  Something about the challenge or how you see approaching it stirs your heart, mind or soul. In short,  the most effective innovators are energized by a calling.

Finding or creating an  innovation calling takes time. And you need certain skills and habits of mind to do it.   While you most likely won’t find it by reading a book you can cultivate the skills and habits needed to eventually develop one.  At least that is the spirit behind an assignment I give in my graduate class in the Foundations of Leadership at Northwestern University.

The work is guided by a set of 25 knowledge cards (example to the left) that students access from NewHabits  a free iPhone and iPad App or from a private social networking site.  The knowledge cards describe a proven practice for getting in touch with your innovation calling. The idea is to build these practices into your daily routine until they form habits.

While each card is only one small step toward finding your innovation calling the steps can add up. To see this effective check out a log recently created by a student documenting some 20 small steps.  An excerpt is shown below.

After using the deck for a month the student concludes:

“The deck has all the elements to develop a leadership calling.  To put it broadly, find something you are passionate about (stir mind, heart, soul).  Find an opportunity to create value and follow through on the compassion.  All of the cards are very doable (take two minutes, find one way, make a short list, etc.) and will be useful as I progress in my career.”

Give the calling cards a try and let me know how they work. What idea do you find so compelling that must take action on it?

I am a fan of Wired Magazine.  It provides a rich stream of examples and ideas that reflect the best in Cognitive Design.  It includes a section on Jargon Watch. One term caught my eye this month as it captures a key lesson in cognitive design:

Mind-ready: The offhand quality that makes casual communication catchier that polished prose.

The example they give is that Facebook entries are 1.4 times more memorable than sentences in books because they match the way our minds naturally work.    Little surprise that communication in the wild resonates while highly structured communication grinds.

Source of Image: Good fit

How often do you really pay attention to what you see, touch, smell, taste and hear? And when you do pay attention how do you do it? Do you use specific tools and techniques?   If you want to be an effective designer or innovator you need to be an active observer. Indeed, good observation skills are important for all professions and everyday life.

One way to get better at making observations is to practice using a proven technique for a few minutes everyday.  I have assemble 25 proven techniques in a deck of knowledge cards.  Each card briefly introduces the technique and then suggests a specific way to practice it. An example is given below.

A simple practice that teaches you to engage and integrate odors into a perceptual stream that is normally dominated by sight and sound.

You can access all 25 knowledge cards for building observation skills in NewHabits, a free iPhone and iPad application. Give the deck a try and let me know how they work for you. Especially interested in your ideas for new knowledge cards for observation skills and other topics.

Self regulation includes the mental processes we use to manage emotions, drive states (hungry, thirst, need for sleep, sexual urges), cravings and thoughts in order to control behavior and reach a goal.  It is fundamental for success and well-being especially when we need to make and sustain behavior change.

Often called self control for short, these mental processes play a key role in many cognitive design projects.  But how can you measure it?  One approach is to use the 63 item Self-Regulation Questionnaire.   It has been vetted on  clinical challenges and there are some suggestions that it is a good general measure.

Further work has validated a short form (13 to 16 items) of the questionnaire but I have not been able to find a free copy of it on the Internet.

Interested to hear from readers that use instruments to measure self control and regulation in an applied setting.

The former CEO of Zeo, a personal sleep management company, has an interesting blog post on using personal health data to change behavior.  The post summarizes  advice from five years in the trenches and is specific enough to be useful to cognitive designers.

The bottom line is that health  data and advice will change behavior if it is personalized, presents a new view on health,  relates to an immediate concern (e.g. how I look) and is presented in a comparative and visual way.

Devices like Zeo’s have another important feature for changing behavior. They close the loop quick enough to hold my attention. They use sensors, devices and software to measure my behavior and then show me how the adjustments I make produce a change I want or not. If this happens in a fast and visually stimulating way (like it does in video games or speed limit signs that display my driving speed) then behavior change is more likely to take place.

How are you using personal data to drive behavior change?