business

Neurotech gone pervasive

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This Is Your Brain on Busi­ness (For­tune):

“…here’s a sign of how quick­ly things move in neu­ro­science: Ear­li­er this year, anoth­er para­plegic man, Rodri­go Hüb­n­er Mendes, became the first per­son to dri­ve a race car sole­ly with his mind.

Some might even argue that mind con­trolled dri­ving is not as impres­sive as mak­ing par­a­lyzed peo­ple move their limbs—since for neu­ro­sci­en­tists, con­trol­ling objects thanks to cut­ting-edge brain-com­put­er inter­faces has become quite com­mon. What is note­wor­thy in Hüb­n­er Mendes’ dri­ving per­for­mance is that [Read more…] about Neu­rotech gone pervasive

How mindfulness meditation is infiltrating the corporate world

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mindful workI thought I’d read every­thing about mind­ful­ness, but this was news to me: Steve Jobs was a med­i­ta­tor. Back in 1981, long before mind­ful­ness med­i­ta­tion became a pop­u­lar sub­ject of sci­en­tif­ic inquiry, Jobs, the cofounder and pub­lic face of Apple Com­put­ers, was already prac­tic­ing mind­ful­ness as a way to calm his mind, stay focused, and feel happier.

Accord­ing to David Gelles, busi­ness reporter for the New York Times, Jobs is not some lone outlier—the num­ber of busi­ness lead­ers embrac­ing mind­ful­ness is at an all time high, and grow­ing. To write his new book, Mind­ful Work: How Med­i­ta­tion Is Chang­ing Busi­ness from the Inside Out, Gelles trav­eled the coun­try, talk­ing to [Read more…] about How mind­ful­ness med­i­ta­tion is infil­trat­ing the cor­po­rate world

The Next Frontier: Neuroscience, Business and the Arts

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“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer your­self any direc­tion you choose.” — Oh The Places You’ll Go, Dr.Seuss.

The space between cre­ativ­i­ty and entre­pre­neur­ship is one of the most excit­ing areas unfold­ing in our mod­ern world right now. [Read more…] about The Next Fron­tier: Neu­ro­science, Busi­ness and the Arts

The Business and Ethics of the Brain Fitness Boom — Part 4: The Future

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Build­ing Blocks for a Bet­ter Future

The best alter­na­tive for tomor­row should be bet­ter than the best alter­na­tive avail­able today. How do we get there, when “cog­ni­tion” and “brain fit­ness” remain elu­sive con­cepts in pop­u­lar cul­ture? I believe that the lack of pub­lic edu­ca­tion is the major obsta­cle that lim­its the brain fit­ness field’s poten­tial to deliv­er real-world ben­e­fits, since only informed demand will ensure the ongo­ing devel­op­ment of ratio­nal, struc­tured “rules of the road.” What could be done to address this and oth­er par­tic­u­lar obsta­cles? [Read more…] about The Busi­ness and Ethics of the Brain Fit­ness Boom — Part 4: The Future

The Business and Ethics of the Brain Fitness Boom — Part 3: The Real Need

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Engag­ing peo­ple where they are in the life-course

Eighty per­cent of the 38,000 adults over age 50 who were respon­ders in the 2010 AARP Mem­ber Opin­ion Sur­vey indi­cat­ed “stay­ing men­tal­ly sharp” was their top ranked inter­est and con­cern (Dinger, 2010). What exact­ly does this phrase mean? And what role can tech­nol­o­gy play in “stay­ing men­tal­ly sharp”? Intel CEO Paul Otelli­ni has said, “You have to start by think­ing about what peo­ple want to do… and work back­ward.” [Read more…] about The Busi­ness and Ethics of the Brain Fit­ness Boom — Part 3: The Real Need

The Business and Ethics of the Brain Fitness Boom — Part 2: The Ethics

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The ter­mi­nol­o­gy “fun­da­men­tal attri­bu­tion error” describes the ten­den­cy to over­val­ue per­son­al­i­ty-based expla­na­tions for observed human behav­iors, while under­valu­ing sit­u­a­tion­al expla­na­tions for those behav­iors.  I believe that a pri­ma­ry rea­son behind many per­ceived and real eth­i­cal chal­lenges in the brain fit­ness field is due not so much to cer­tain stake­hold­ers’ lack of per­son­al or pro­fes­sion­al ethics, but derives from the flawed soci­etal con­struct that under­pins cur­rent, rel­e­vant inno­va­tions. To improve the ethics of the brain fit­ness busi­ness and its appli­ca­tion (and empow­er con­sumers’ informed deci­sion mak­ing), there must first be agree­ment about a mean­ing­ful, appro­pri­ate way to ana­lyze and guide inno­va­tion. This is the crux of the prob­lem. The cur­rent med­ical mod­el is not up to the task at hand, since it is heav­i­ly skewed toward inva­sive drugs and devices dri­ven by dis­ease-based mod­els, and fails to lever­age [Read more…] about The Busi­ness and Ethics of the Brain Fit­ness Boom — Part 2: The Ethics