Mind over Matter using Neuro Analytics

So I have not written for a while, been very busy. The recent modern business experience (https://www.oracle.com/modernbusinessexperience/index.html) was incredible, seeing the culture change of our employees and customers to consuming capability in so many different forms. I thought it could be useful to show the relationship to innovation and business change. I love doing strategy work and driving new areas of growth through innovation, but my other side is to consider what will happen next? So many broad areas are appearing at pace from AI, Machine learning, IoT, VR, etc.

Oracle has kicked off an accelerator in Bristol (https://www.oracle.com/uk/startup/index.html) to support startups in the UK. Working with startups is so cool, it allows me to consider different streams of innovation. Everyone is so different, culture, idea and approach. I’m very proud to have a small part in this programme.

 So this little article may be interesting, just some ideas which I have been thinking about in my spare few minutes.

For a while now I have been looking at future technology and seeing what can be achieved. A recent project that I have been working on showed me what is possible which I will come back to in a minute. First, let’s look at the change in businesses cost model we are seeing shifting funds to innovation. In a recent survey undertaken by Coleman Parkers 66% of CIO’s now control less than 50% of IT budget.

Why?

Certain industries have increased cadence of refreshing technology or introducing new ways to capture customers through value, example industries are Retail, Media, Telco, etc. A threat from the unknown competitor through a lower barrier of entry (e.g. Cloud), mature businesses need to gain agility and change the culture to one that matches the emerging competitors.

A typical challenge is blending current revenue streams with new innovation revenue. My approach is to test different ideas quickly and see what can be learned. I call it “Experiment and learn with positive impact”, people know it as “Fail fast”.

So going back to the opening line “future technology” we know that AI is taking off, but what else is changing. We are slowly less dependent on a specific device. We are moving to the era of “deviceless engagement”. Which means the digital experience is being driven from many sources, we already know of IoT in clothes and I recently had the pleasure to see wallpaper TV (e.g. OLED) all amazing. But can the Human interface handle this change?

So my latest project is to start to look at the Human mind, EEG sensors have been out for a while, but connecting this to the digital experience could be interesting. It will be important to know how the brain is handling the experience. Neuro Analytics will be key to understanding how Humans are being challenged by emerging technologies and speed of innovation.

Over the last 10 years, through sport, I have seen how work on the mind has improved performance “marginal gain”, especially the inner chimp.

But I started to wonder if we captured Frontal, Parietal, Limbic, Temporal, etc. information as the electrical activity occurs it could really help people know more about themselves. Let me give a real example, people have a busy day. You are squeezing the next meeting into the diary due to your schedule, not what is best for you. So flip the diary management around and run a schedule based on your best performance. If we capture patterns of your activities, we can start to use AI methods (e.g. Learning Vector Quantization) to train positive outcomes. People learn at different speeds, people like to perform certain activities at specific times, etc.

So if we connect the real world to how you are thinking, we can work out how not to overload and create time for recovery or acceleration of tasks. The world is going at a faster speed every day, but the Human adapts and changes at a much slower rate. The balance of innovation and human interaction with technology is complex.