Thanks to Steve Hughes (fellow IBMer no relation) for pinging this url to Mozilla Labs Ubiquity This features a simple, yet very well executed set of ideas that alters how people will use the web. It is very early prototype, but its a personal mashup tool. Its task based, so as you start to do something, browser email etc, it acts as a helper gathering services from the web that you need for the task you are completing. e.g. sending an address to a friend, but also wanting to include a map.
Each of the things shown in the video demonstration indicate something that we probably have all done at some time or other, but that involve a lot of cutting and pasting, or page swapping to collate information. I know I personally find it annoying swapping around, writing a blog post, but cut and pasting in embed code from places like Flickr, when my brain is saying just put photo a. in here.
All the disparate systems all have services now that can be called upon. It would appear ubiquity is helping us, as people be the collator of those services. Its a great idea and I suspect we will seem more of this sort of thing. I already find Google desktop (just find the document on my machine for me will you please) essential, this would appear to be even more so as it evolves.
You can also see that there is now scope for some more AI innovation to be applied on top. Having an intelligent agent with a ubiquity style helper to pull web services together is going to be really useful.
I can also see how this can be applied not just to the 2d web services that the demo shows but to the wider metaverse services as they become more exposed. I am very impressed so far and look forward to seeing this develop.

Today I noticed @ansi on the twitter stream mention this (very long) article at strategy-business.com on the neuroscience of leadership. It is based on the merging of some of the sciences and the ability to understand how psychology and chemical changes in the human brain drive behaviour.
This article caused me to stop and think about how I do things, why things have worked out the way they have. In some ways its a taste of my own medicine, the things I try and get across to people, in particular as a metaverse evangelist, but do not have the scientific backing just gut instinct to work with. So to quote The Matrix – “there is no spoon”.

One of the most interesting points,  that gave me an “oh I try and do that” moment was this statement.

“For insights to be useful, they need to be generated from within, not given to individuals as conclusions. This is true for several reasons. First, people will experience the adrenaline-like rush of insight only if they go through the process of making connections themselves. The moment of insight is well known to be a positive and energizing experience. This rush of energy may be central to facilitating change: It helps fight against the internal (and external) forces trying to keep change from occurring, including the fear response of the amygdala”

“When people solve a problem themselves, the brain releases a rush of neurotransmitters like adrenaline. This phenomenon provides a scientific basis for some of the practices of leadership coaching. Rather than lecturing and providing solutions, effective coaches ask pertinent questions and support their clients in working out solutions on their own.”

Insights, discovery, making an idea real to oneself produces a very different and positive chemical response in the brain. This is presumably why I often say I try and make things personal to people before the “business case” unless of course the “business case” or logic is the thing that will generate insight. This lets people feel why the concept would be useful for them, generating insight and synthesis making them feel good and able to explore the possibilities then based on their own mental model.

Another part of what the article states is that focus on an area or skill makes peoples mental models locked in more to that way of doing things. This stands to reason, but is good to see documented in this context.

“Attention continually reshapes the patterns of the brain. Among the implications: People who practice a specialty every day literally think differently, through different sets of connections, than do people who don’t practice the specialty. In business, professionals in different functions — finance, operations, legal, research and development, marketing, design, and human resources — have physiological differences that prevent them from seeing the world the same way.”

The implications of knowing or feeling the ideas in this article can be far reaching. Much of this requires, as they indicate, and ability to observe ones own motivations and patterns. Organisms strive for equilibrium apparently, that bubbles up into collections of organisms, corporations. I think though we have a fair set of people in the circles I move in whos equilibrium state is actually one of change and of new ideas, who instincitvely do things the way that this article suggests might work. If more people did it, I am guessing we would be even more effective?

So check out the full article, its very interesting, and try a bit of “self-directed neuroplasticity”

Thus endeth the pop science 🙂

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