As long as the Earth can make a spring every year, I can.
As long as the Earth can flower and produce nurturing fruit, I can,
because I’m the Earth. I won’t give up until the Earth gives up.
-Alice Walker
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‘The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.’
Eleanor Roosevelt
The beauty of dreams
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A machine that allows people to play computer games using just the power of their thoughts could open up the world for locked-in syndrome sufferers, scientists claim.
By picking up ‘thoughts’ using the sensors they could be converted into commands for a computer screen.
The device has enabled people to move a cursor around a screen and also fade and brighten images using just their brain.
The instructions are enough to play a simple computer game and could eventually allow brain damaged individuals to communicate with the outside world.
The team at the University of California and California Institute of Technology recruited 12 epilepsy patients who because of their illness had sensors embedded into their brain to monitor nerve activity.
They then set about training the volunteers to “exert conscious control” on individual nerve endings or neurons within the brain so that they could be switched on and off using just their thoughts.
By picking up these “thoughts” using the sensors they could be converted into commands for a computer screen.
Professor Christof Koch, of the California Institute of Technology, said that the study showed “individuals can rapidly, consciously, and voluntarily control neurons deep inside their head.”
The team, that included Moran Cerf, a PHD student, looked at the medial temporal lobe—a region on the left hand side of the brain that plays a major role in human memory and emotion.
Prior to recording the activity, the volunteers were interviewed to find their interests and 100 images created around them.
These were then tested to find the four that showed the strongest correlation response in the brain.
These could then be used to control the movement of a cursor or to fade in and out different images.
They also made the participants think of one image, while looking at another to see how the thoughts in the brain competed.
They found that people were able to exhibit conscious control over their unconscious thoughts.
“The patients clearly found this task to be incredibly fun as they started to feel that they control things in the environment purely with their thought,” said Mr Cerf.
“They were highly enthusiastic to try new things and see the boundaries of ‘thoughts’ that still allow them to activate things in the environment.”
The work is published in Nature.
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Consider the progression of society, from the stone age to the agriculture age, then with the invention of machines came the industrial revolution. As recent as the early 90’s with the birth of the internet, we entered the stage we have come to know now – the information age.
But some are saying that a new era is dawning upon us. In Daniel Pink’s book “A Whole New Mind – Why Right Brainers Will Rule The Future” – Pink suggests we are moving into a Conceptual Age – characterized by creators and empathizers. According to him “Artists, inventors, designers, storytellers, caregivers, consolers, big-picture thinkers – will now reap society’s richest rewards and share its greatest joys”
When you express yourself you journey down the path of self discovery and authenticity. When we create something, we take it from our essence of what we truly believe, feel and think. Creativity is also a spiritual expression, so naturally people who often express themselves creatively feel more self-confident and connected to a higher source.
So maybe creativity isn’t just for art class anymore?
Laura Silva has a very interesting blog post – please click here
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“The greatness comes not when things go always good for you. But the greatness comes when you’re really tested, when you take some knocks, some disappointments, when sadness comes. Because only if you’ve been in the deepest valley can you ever know how magnificent it is to be on the highest mountain.”
-Richard M. Nixon
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If you worked on the production line, we cared about your productivity, not your smile or approach to the work. You could walk in downcast, walk out defeated and get a raise if your productivity was good.
No longer.
Your attitude is now what’s on offer, it’s what you sell. When you pass by those big office buildings and watch the young junior executives sneaking into work with a grimace on their face, it’s tempting to tell them to save everyone time and just go home.
The emotional labor of engaging with the work and increasing the energy in the room is precisely what you sell. So sell it.
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Swimming with dolphins – a new twist!
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Most existing systems (organizations, cities, careers, governments) are resilient to external shocks. If they weren’t, they wouldn’t still be here. Earthquakes, edicts and emergencies come and they go, but the systems remain.
And yet, it’s the emergencies we pay attention to.
No single event demolished the music business. It was a series of slow changes over the course of two decades, all the way back to the CD.
Smoking killed far more people than terrorists ever did. It’s just not as dramatic.
No single technology destroyed the business model for newspapers. Sure, Craigslist hastened their demise, but the writing has been on the wall for a decade or more.
Your career won’t be made or broken on the back of one interview, one meeting, one sales call. Sure, it might help (or hurt), but the sudden impact of one event isn’t sufficient to change everything forever.
The slow changes in the media landscape are accelerating and virtually every pre-digital system is in danger. The slow changes in the marketing landscape are in their second decade and these changes will have their effects on every business and cause as well.
Cultural shifts create long terms evolutionary changes. Cultural shifts, changes in habits, technologies that slowly obsolete a product or a system are the ones that change our lives. Watch for shifts in systems and processes and expectations. That’s what makes change, not big events.
Don’t worry about what happened yesterday (or five minutes ago). Focus on what happened ten years ago and think about what you can do that will make a huge impact in six months. The breaking news mindset isn’t just annoying, it may be distracting you from what really matters. As the world gets faster, it turns out that the glacial changes of years and decades are become more important, not less.
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What story do you tell yourself about yourself?
I know that marketers tell stories. We tell them to clients, prospects, bosses, suppliers, partners and voters. If the stories resonate and spread and seduce, then we succeed.
But what about the story you tell yourself?
Do you have an elevator pitch that reminds you that you’re a struggling fraud, certain to be caught and destined to fail? Are you marketing a perspective and an attitude of generosity? When you talk to yourself, what do you say? Is anyone listening?
You’ve learned through experience that frequency works. That minds can be changed. That powerful stories have impact.
I guess, then, the challenge is to use those very same tools on yourself.
( Seth Godin )
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