Sure you can fit 1,000,000 people into your Ning network, but don’t expect them to fit in your head, even if you do look like that little kid on Family Guy. Your cognitive reality, is that all these “relationships” just don’t fit into your brain. So the question becomes: in order to make way for an exponential number of relationships, do we:
1. Create a definition of “friend” or “acquaintance” that vastly reduces the amount of cognitive resource required to maintain the definition of friend across absurd numbers of people?
2. Do we accept that each peep-node in our network is not actually significant?
3. Do we rank our peep-nodes to enable an allocation of brain-sustenance based on personal importance?
Or possibly none of the above. I maintain that people are not nearly as good at being social as pop-social media would like us to believe. I further maintain(and I’ve said this plenty of times) that the dynamic personal value of an increasingly large relationship-network actually trends downward, rather than upward the diluting effect of Dunbar’s Number begins to erode the quality of individual peep-nodes. That is unless we can hold constant the Dunbar Cognitive Plateau, while at the same increasing the number of peep-nodes that we connect to. So how is this possible? As follows:
Peep-Node = Sum(a,b,c,d………n)
Dunbars Number = 150
Cognitive Plateau = 150(Peep Node)
If a Peep-Node in our relationship network is comprised of N number of variables, lets say 10(name, birthday, sex, favorite color, etc), then our Cognitive Plateau equals 150 multiplied by N., or in this case: 150 x 10 = 1500.
We can therefore say that we socially saturated when we are required to maintain fluency in 1500 pieces of data regarding our social network.
But let say that we were willing to forego all 10 pieces of information about each peep-node. And that we were more interested in simply remembering each person’s first name. it would follow that we could then increase our number of viable peep-nodes from 150 to 1500, but of course nothing comes for free. We have not made our brains bigger, we have simply filtered our cognitive database. And for sure, there are lots of good reasons to know lots of names, at the sacrifice of knowing lots of names + favorite color.
Take for example the Office Manager with 150 employees. Is he perceived as a better or worse manager if he knows all 150 first names? Or if he knows 50 first names + dog’s name + shoe size? It’s a bit of a downer for the 100 people who did not make the Top 50 list.
Taken to another level, and moving beyond the personal/social aspects of a human network, what if we were more interested in maintaining stable relationships with only people who’s favorite candy bar is Snickers? This is more to the point of Ning, but it is a trap!! Great! We have the Snicker-Lover network. Chat with global Snicker-files everywhere. Chat about what? You’re bumping up against the Dunbar Plateau constantly. There are 1500 Snicker-groupies in the network, and you can’t possible know anything about them except how they get their sugar fix……But wait, since they are in the network, can’t I just stop thinking about Snickers, and use that brain-space for something else? Cool. They wouldn’t be here unless they liked Snickers right? Now I can learn their names. See, this really is a stable network of relationships. I learned the names of “snicker2000”, “snixnosher”, and “DJ ReSnix”. I knew this network was powerful……
The bottom line is this: there is no evidence that suggests that we can derive personal relationship value from a multitude of bloated social networks. And there is plenty of evidence to suggest that much smaller personal relationship networks are the only ones that are viable. So is the answer for all of us to simple reduce the size of our networks? Of course not. We simply need tools. Tools that can help us glue these oversized networks together by socializing on our behalf, and reminding us of all the things that we have forgotten, or never had the time to learn in the first place. So hey, wouldn’t it be great if an analytical tool came along that could autonomously discover, and then notify us of all the cool things that we had in common with lots of other people? That’s the ticket: Relationship Outsourcing. We outsource our math. Why should be remember long division any more than we should remember what kind of candy bar Brad Pitt likes. There’s an App for that!
Next Up: Brian’s Number – the maximum number of digital tools that an individual can maintain fluency in concurrently. (but don’t worry, we will find a way to aggregate tools before there is some sort of social-real relationship Armageddon)
Saturday, February 27, 2010
The Forbidden Decision: Balancing the Luminance of Opponent Concepts in Innovation
“Things that do not fit the existing paradigm are hard to think about”
But if we can bypass the hardwired opponency, we can access a perceptual filling-in mechanism that will yield the Forbidden Decision…
We should not be able to see yellowish-blue, or reddish-green. We are hardwired perceptually to attempt to amalgamate these colors to produce a singular hue that can be simplified. Ie. Our perception + cognition attempts to render a swift and simple conclusion that satisfies our need to understand what we are seeing. The resulting conclusion is generally accepted by ourselves because it is largely the result of our own rationalized conditioning.
Things that do not fit the existing paradigm are hard to think about….
But under the right condition, we can induce the “Forbidden Conclusion”. Perceptually, we can create a color palette such that a viewer will in fact see opponent colors flowing together(Scientific American, Feb 2010, pg 75). Thereby rendering a perception of what should in fact be incomprehensible. It presents a challenge to the viewer because it is something that has never been encountered, and can lead to momentary confusion, but importantly, the perception is not rejected.
In the color experiments, the “forbidden colors” were perceived only when the opponent colors were represented with identical luminance. Luminance is essentially “brightness”, and the inducement of forbidden-perception requires that the luminance be identical. It has been determined that by mirroring the luminance, the flickering effect of changing opponent colors is minimized, thereby making the transition between opponencies as transparent as possible. i.e the transition is less “startling” and therefore leaves a smaller cognitive disintermediation footprint.
So, how does this apply to innovation in the workplace?
1. Change is often capable of being defined as set of opponent concepts.
a. Just as Red vs Green are opponent colors, some may perceive that:
i. Casual and Business are opponent
ii. Distance and Intimacy are opponent
iii. Games and Work are opponent
iv. Service Quality and “face-face alternatives” are opponent
2. As with colors, our a priori hard-wired perceptions can be defeated if we are precise in our presentation of the opponent pairings. With colors, this is luminance. So what is the equivalent of Luminance in the context of business?
3. Contextual Change Opponency in Business
a. As with opponent color-swapping, the reduction of flickering when 2 opponent colors are rapidly alternated was the means by which forbidden colors were perceived. The brightness of the colors needed to be massaged such that the luminance was identical
b. The concept is: hold as many variables as possible constant, such that the cognitive-sensory disruption is tightly focused on a precise variable.
4. Organizationally, it might present as:
a. Face-Face vs 3D Immersive meeting spaces
b. The context, and variability between the 2 concepts must be contained, such that only the target variable is perceived as changing, and not the entire universe of variables
i. Therefore, if we consider *only*: face-face images, vs Avatar-Avatar images, we can contain the spectrum of sensory-cognitive change parameters
5. How to neutralize the luminance of face-face and avatar-avatar?
a. Take a Point-of-View photograph of 1-1 meeting in a real meeting room
b. Render a photo-realistic head from a photograph
c. Swap the Avatar head onto the 1-1 meeting counterparty.
d. Rapidly alternate between real-real, and real-avatar.
e. Additionally, create a POV photograph in which the viewer is meeting 1-2(eg. Viewer is meeting with 2 people)
i. Swap an Avatar head onto a single counterparty, and rapidly alternate between Real-real-real, and Real-real-avatar.
6. In this example, the luminance is perceptually defined as a combination of contextual visualization parameters
a. Contrast, color, shading – must remain precise
b. Avatar head must be of extreme quality(no goofy hair)
c. While this is a “photoshop” experiment, the avatar head must be expertly pasted into the photograph to appear seamless
The purpose of this exercise is simple: to advance a tiny step towards overcoming a common condition of hardwired opponency in business that conditions decision makers away from accepting that Virtual can be a “good enough” approximation of reality. The defeating of this perception is results in the “Forbidden Decision” that VR can be effective in the workplace.
Next steps include the one-by-one introduction of virtual elements into the photograph flip book. By Balancing the Luminance of Opponent Concepts, we are able to minimize cognitive disintermediation(i.e. we are not startling) and are able to tightly focus our audience on a single, discrete change variable, without incurring a rapid retreat to a more comfortable hard-wired opponent reaction(i.e. it will never work).
But if we can bypass the hardwired opponency, we can access a perceptual filling-in mechanism that will yield the Forbidden Decision…
We should not be able to see yellowish-blue, or reddish-green. We are hardwired perceptually to attempt to amalgamate these colors to produce a singular hue that can be simplified. Ie. Our perception + cognition attempts to render a swift and simple conclusion that satisfies our need to understand what we are seeing. The resulting conclusion is generally accepted by ourselves because it is largely the result of our own rationalized conditioning.
Things that do not fit the existing paradigm are hard to think about….
But under the right condition, we can induce the “Forbidden Conclusion”. Perceptually, we can create a color palette such that a viewer will in fact see opponent colors flowing together(Scientific American, Feb 2010, pg 75). Thereby rendering a perception of what should in fact be incomprehensible. It presents a challenge to the viewer because it is something that has never been encountered, and can lead to momentary confusion, but importantly, the perception is not rejected.
In the color experiments, the “forbidden colors” were perceived only when the opponent colors were represented with identical luminance. Luminance is essentially “brightness”, and the inducement of forbidden-perception requires that the luminance be identical. It has been determined that by mirroring the luminance, the flickering effect of changing opponent colors is minimized, thereby making the transition between opponencies as transparent as possible. i.e the transition is less “startling” and therefore leaves a smaller cognitive disintermediation footprint.
So, how does this apply to innovation in the workplace?
1. Change is often capable of being defined as set of opponent concepts.
a. Just as Red vs Green are opponent colors, some may perceive that:
i. Casual and Business are opponent
ii. Distance and Intimacy are opponent
iii. Games and Work are opponent
iv. Service Quality and “face-face alternatives” are opponent
2. As with colors, our a priori hard-wired perceptions can be defeated if we are precise in our presentation of the opponent pairings. With colors, this is luminance. So what is the equivalent of Luminance in the context of business?
3. Contextual Change Opponency in Business
a. As with opponent color-swapping, the reduction of flickering when 2 opponent colors are rapidly alternated was the means by which forbidden colors were perceived. The brightness of the colors needed to be massaged such that the luminance was identical
b. The concept is: hold as many variables as possible constant, such that the cognitive-sensory disruption is tightly focused on a precise variable.
4. Organizationally, it might present as:
a. Face-Face vs 3D Immersive meeting spaces
b. The context, and variability between the 2 concepts must be contained, such that only the target variable is perceived as changing, and not the entire universe of variables
i. Therefore, if we consider *only*: face-face images, vs Avatar-Avatar images, we can contain the spectrum of sensory-cognitive change parameters
5. How to neutralize the luminance of face-face and avatar-avatar?
a. Take a Point-of-View photograph of 1-1 meeting in a real meeting room
b. Render a photo-realistic head from a photograph
c. Swap the Avatar head onto the 1-1 meeting counterparty.
d. Rapidly alternate between real-real, and real-avatar.
e. Additionally, create a POV photograph in which the viewer is meeting 1-2(eg. Viewer is meeting with 2 people)
i. Swap an Avatar head onto a single counterparty, and rapidly alternate between Real-real-real, and Real-real-avatar.
6. In this example, the luminance is perceptually defined as a combination of contextual visualization parameters
a. Contrast, color, shading – must remain precise
b. Avatar head must be of extreme quality(no goofy hair)
c. While this is a “photoshop” experiment, the avatar head must be expertly pasted into the photograph to appear seamless
The purpose of this exercise is simple: to advance a tiny step towards overcoming a common condition of hardwired opponency in business that conditions decision makers away from accepting that Virtual can be a “good enough” approximation of reality. The defeating of this perception is results in the “Forbidden Decision” that VR can be effective in the workplace.
Next steps include the one-by-one introduction of virtual elements into the photograph flip book. By Balancing the Luminance of Opponent Concepts, we are able to minimize cognitive disintermediation(i.e. we are not startling) and are able to tightly focus our audience on a single, discrete change variable, without incurring a rapid retreat to a more comfortable hard-wired opponent reaction(i.e. it will never work).
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