Brainwaves in Design Thinking

“Our research-grade instruments measure brainwave EEG and heartbeat ECG signals to entertain, relax, detect, heal, and exercise the most vital of our organs. With our partners, we make the intangible, tangible,” proclaims their home page. Added to that is Arthur C. Clarke’s famous proclamation, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

NeuroSky’s MindWave Mobile and technology that easily and cheaply brings Brainwave feedback and training into our living spaces is breaking new ground in helping us understand our brains and minds better, and enables brand new opportunities for us to enhance our performance levels.

I have had the pleasure of getting up close and personal with NeuroSky’s technology, specifically their MindWave Mobile, a nifty little gadget that clips on to your head in five seconds, and is ready to transmit your brainwave signals via Bluetooth to a paired gadget, in another five seconds. After that, it is only a matter of what apps you have installed on your gadget, and what kind of experience you are looking for.

What can it do for Design thinking?

Many detractors of Design Thinking claim it to be just another methodology that either has been or is the flavour of the month, and say it is also another one of those things that will grant a certificate that looks good on the wall, but will end up in a closet in employees brains, seldom seeing the light of insight again after the first few months of training.  In other words, it will be dealt with much as how human nature and employees deal with all new knowledge thrown at them. In the end, the bottom line is KPIs and meeting deadlines.

I would agree whole heartedly with the above. If any of us think that a one off training process will do it for the human brain, well, we Malaysians have a saying, “Don’t be a frog stuck under a coconut shell.” That would be sheer ignorance. Methodologies that work in stressful environments, and in environments where innovation is needed and wanted on top of normal every day duties, are those that are intricately and systematically presented to the brain on a daily basis.

Ever heard of a game overlay that captures, captivates and sustains the human brain in such an entertaining way that the person becomes “addicted” to the game in the work place? The game here being innovating while working. Design Thinking plans, builds and projects the game, and Design thinking is the methodology to play the game.

Which brings me finally to the MindWave Mobile.

Design Thinking has some very clear thinking-style components that in turn might just possibly generate some specific brainwave forms that can be detected. In fact, we know that the whole brain is obviously involved when you are in Design thinking mode. Design Thinking, though, can be broken down into raw technical brain performance patterns that can detect stimulation in corresponding brain areas. For instance, if we hypothesise that logical thinking (Temporal-parietal-prefrontal-hypothalamus), empathy (amygdala), choice making (frontal-pre-frontal and a host of others) can all be mapped to specific areas of the brain, we can then measure what peak performance brainwave outputs for Design Thinking looks like. These can then be correlated to the MindWave Mobile platform, and we now have a set of parameters to build an app to train Design Thinking like behaviour.

What I have just outlined is absolutely not the process to train Design Thinking per say, but is meant to provide a simplistic picture of how we can use brainwave training to train specific areas of the brain to be ready for peak performance in some Higher Order Thinking (HOT) areas. It would be naive and ridiculous for me to say it applies to Design Thinking, since HOT obviously is the basis of human thought.

But…

Let us assume Occam’s Razor and make the simplest of assumption that organisations can create a training room where employees can come in for 20 minutes a week to play a game…but using their minds only. As far as they are concerned, they are playing a racing or shooting game, but the true process is that they are training and stimulating various parts of the brain for Critical and Logical Thinking, Decision Making and Creativity. This room can be cheaply and quickly set-up, since all that is needed are some workstations, a few units of the MindWave Mobile and comfortable seating and environments.

The thing is, systems like these are ready to go right now, and I am willing to bet that they represent the wave of the now and the future. It WILL be the next big thing, if it is not already happening now.

So…anyone want a brain massage?