Month: August 2006

Right Brain – Left Hand

La Palud

One question that has popped up about brain orientation has been it connection with hand orientation. I’m left handed and appear to be right brained. The people asking the question are right handed, and having done the tests appear to be left brained.

It seems that the dominant point of view on this is that left-handed people have a tendency to be right-brained. It also appears to be a lot more complicated an answer than the simple, left or right question.

I’m starting to thing that the brain orientation issue has been over-simplified a bit and I need to go back to some basics in order to answer the fundamentals of the questions.

Count Your Blessings #76 – 100th Post

Chateau de Dinan

This is my 100th post into this blog. I have found it a real blessing thinking about blessings. Every time I think I might be running out of things to say another flourish arrives.

I don’t get many online comments, but I know people are reading these posts because they tell me how much they like them. Those comments are themselves a blessing.

Will Enterprise IM Survive

Grassy Sun

Stu questions whether Enterprise IM will survive, I think the answer to that is – it depends.

Information passed across an IM session may well be corporate information. In order for enterprises to be comfortable about this information being passed across a public network using an external provider a number of assurances need to be in place:

  • Deliverable service levels, preferably contractually agreed service levels.

  • Protection from malicious attack; virus, malware, etc.

  • Encryption of conversations.

  • Verifiable identity.

Many organisations will also have auditing requirements for a specific set of individuals, so will need the ability to capture and store the information being exchanged.

None of these requirements preclude the use of publicly available IM, but these things are all much easier to control when you are in control of the environment.

The other advantage to operating the environment internally is that you are in control of the end user experience. That control can provide benefits that may not be delivered through the publicly available service.

One example where this might apply in IM terms is in the provision of bots which perform specific business purposes.

Another example would be the creation of an integrated experience for communications. This argument is less clear cut than it used to be. The extensibility of the publicly available services mean has resulted in many enterprise environments being less rich than services that are freely available over the Internet. Many of these services are reaching the point of delivering the entire integrated communications experience anyway.

In conclusion: I don’t see the end of enterprise IM any time soon because the assurance issues are too soft and diverse to be resolved quickly. I do see time, though, when enterprises take more services from external providers over the Internet. I’m not sure IM will be one of the priorities though.

Tags:

e-Society Profiler

How many planes?

via BBC

Apparently I have been classified again. This time my household has been classified dependent upon its access to technology services. Each post-code has then been classified into a set of groups and types all made available via a profiler. My area is apparently F19:

Group F : Instrumental E-users

This Group tends to use electronic technologies for purely instrumental purposes, because they provide a practical method of saving time or money. They have plenty of other leisure activities that they enjoy and tend to be light television watchers. However they find the Internet useful for purchasing on line and they are smart enough to realise that they can drive better deals when purchasing goods and services if they fore-arm themselves with consumer information. Generally they use the net to undertake transactions and manage their personal finances rather than to explore.

This Group contains mostly people in well off, middle class, owner occupied suburbia. Many have children.

Type F19 : On-line apparel purchasers

This Type consists of well educated young professionals, many of them women, who are confident users of electronic technologies and communications. They use the Internet for purchases across a wide range of product categories, but in particular for children’s products and fashion wear. They tend not to use this medium to purchase wines or insurance. Many members of this type look after children at home and do not have access to electronic technologies at work. They are not particularly interested in computer magazines.

I’m not sure that this successfully describes me, but perhaps I’m not typical for my area.

Anyone willing to pay me to do this kind of research it sounds like fun?

BBC: How to Improve Your Memory

Chateau de Dinan

Looks like I’m not the only one thinking about the brain. The BBC has a programme running tonight “How to Improve Your Memory”.

They are focusing on memory – which I think is important, but I don’t think it gets me closer to answering my questions.

Count Your Blessings #75 – Extraordinary Experience

Pointe de Penhir

How do you view the experiences of your life – do you think of them as extraordinary, ordinary, or plain dull.

I’ve always regarded myself as quite ordinary. I was born, I went to school, I got a job, I got married, I had children, I get older. Nothing too extraordinary there.

Recently I have found myself in situations where someone has been describing something wonderful that they have just discovered. I have been polite, I have smiled and listened, but inside I have been thinking something quite different. Inside I have been saying to myself that this wonderful thing that they have discovered is obvious.

Other person: “Graham did you know that (insert something interesting)”

Me (outside appearance): Smiling and listening politely.

Me (inside): “Well obviously”

Is this because I tend to interact with people who are a little slow on the uptake? On the contrary I talk to all sorts of interesting intelligent people, people who amaze me most of the time.

Why are these things obvious to me then and not to them? Because my experience has been extraordinary. There is no-one in the world who has had the same set of experiences that I have, not one. There is no-one in this world who has seen what I have seen, not one. There is no-one in this world who has thought about a situation or an experience in the same way as I have, not one. My experience is extraordinary.

Crozon ChurchEach individual experience might occur millions of times throughout the planet, but no-one has had the same set of experiences as I have.

Every one of these experiences has contributed to who I am. These experiences make me unique.

Your experiences make you unique too.

That uniqueness means that we should look at ourselves with a sense of wonder. That uniqueness means that we should look at each other with a sense of wonder. Things that are unique are special.

I have recently been re-reading a book called The Grace Awakening by Charles R. Swindoll. Today I read these words:

“Variety honours God, predictability and mediocrity bores Him. And if there is proof that He differences, take look down the long of fame in church history.”

and

“He [God] wants each one of us to be unique…an individual blend and expression unlike any other person. That is by His design. There is only one you. There is only one me.

Uniqueness is good. Uniqueness is wonderful. Uniqueness is a blessing.

I suffer with a problem that I think many people suffer with – comparison. I compare myself with others. Is my career going as well as theirs? Do I have this thing that they have got? Am I as fit as they are? These comparisons traps me into a desire to be just like someone else and detracts from my uniqueness. It’s a trap, a snare. My uniqueness makes me special, I don’t need to be like anyone else.

I need to learn that I am unique and that my uniqueness is a blessing – I suspect I’m not the only one.

Brain type? Brain strength? Brain training?

Sand Art - La Palud

Well it was fun doing a couple of tests (here, here) on what type of brain I have. It was also interesting to see that they weren’t at all conclusive other than to prove that I don’t have a completely left oriented brain or a completely right oriented brain. I suspect if I did though I would be dead.

The problem with these two tests is that they don’t actually answer the important questions:

  • What type of brain do I need to be happy?

  • What type of brain do I need to remain employable?

  • How ‘strong’ is my brain?

  • Is it possible to change your brain orientation?

  • Is it possible to ‘train’ your brain?

It’s no use knowing that you are right-oriented if your brain is actually a load of mush and you can’t do anything about it.

Where do I go to find the answers to those questions?

Another Test

I found another test – this one was different…

Brain Lateralization Test Results
Right Brain (56%) The right hemisphere is the visual, figurative, artistic, and intuitive side of the brain.
Left Brain (50%) The left hemisphere is the logical, articulate, assertive, and practical side of the brain

Are You Right or Left Brained?
personality tests by similarminds.com

Now I’m really confused…

Right Brain v Left Brain Test

The Governors House, Dinan

Am I left-brained or right-brained? How do i decide? Is it even a valid question?

Did some searching around and came across one of those survey things that people put together. You know the ones I mean, the ones that you used to do in magazines when you were 14 . The ones that consist of 20 multiple choice questions, with little explanation.

So I did the test and this is what is said…

You Are 30% Left Brained, 70% Right Brained
The left side of your brain controls verbal ability, attention to detail, and reasoning. Left brained people are good at communication and persuading others. If you’re left brained, you are likely good at math and logic. Your left brain prefers dogs, reading, and quiet. The right side of your brain is all about creativity and flexibility. Daring and intuitive, right brained people see the world in their unique way. If you’re right brained, you likely have a talent for creative writing and art. Your right brain prefers day dreaming, philosophy, and sports.

I’m not sure that I’m the right person to judge whether this is correct or not. Does asking the question make me one or the other? It’s very difficult trying to think about your own brain .

The Right Side of the Brain

Quiberon sand artHoliday’s are great times to do something different. On this holiday I did two things which were different for me. The first one is the boring sounding one, I read a business book rather than a novel – The World is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman. The second was spending lots of time on my daughters Nintendo DS playing Dr Kawashima’s Brain Training. While these two things might not sound like they have too much in common – both of them focus on the brain and specifically the use of the right side of the brain.

In the knowledge businesses the brain is obviously a very important asset, and understanding it could help us to look after it better.

Much scientific research has gone into understanding the brain. It would appear that the two  sides of our brain have different roles. The left side of the brain is apparently responsible for thinking things through in a linear way helping us to understand things sequentially. The right side of the brain processes things holistically, it’s about the big picture. The right side is also the side which is the creative side.

The web is littered with information.

In The World is Flat, Friedman argues that all of the left brain activities are the ones ripe for automation by IT systems, or for Outsourcing to other cheaper countries. The people who can see the whole picture and deal with concepts (the right brain people) will be the ones that will be invaluable. This type of people are the ones who will be the versatilists.

The Dr Kawashima game is focussed on exercising the brain – both left and right.

This has left me with a few questions, some of which I think it’s about time I knew the answer to:

  • Is it possible to change the focus of your brain – from left to right?
  • Which am I, left or right?
  • Is it possible to strengthen your brain?
  • If it is possible, how do you strengthen the right side?
  • Will truly right-brained people be the most valuable, or are we talking about people who are balanced?
  • Which type of people are the happier?
  • Will having a more balanced brain make me more employable in the future world?
  • What is creativity anyway?

No answers yet, but I’ll let you know how I get on.

Back from holidays

Strange small people in Quimper

Back today after 2 weeks holiday.

Some of the pictures are over on Flickr, I’ve kept the embarrassing ones private and decided not to publish them to the world .

The Return

Pointe de Penhir

Back today after 2 weeks holiday.

Some of the pictures are over on Flickr.

I tend not to announce that I am not going to be present because I’m suspicious that it leaves my house a little vulnerable.