The problem with this is that it presents a challenge for sparking cultural change. At once, cultural change is one of mankind’s greatest adaptation tricks – allowing us to cope and adjust without the need to wait on physical mutation to help us get along in the rapidly changing world – and one of the most confounding things for us to really understand.

Culture, according to a recent essay in The Edge, is an iterative process that involves four pillars:

• foundational ideas,
• institutions,
• everyday practices and artifacts,
• and selves.

In order to affect cultural change, you need to affect change in all four areas.

When we talk about corporate culture, as we like to do at MindWorks, these things are no less true. And it’s important to be able take off the blinders and study your corporate culture so that you can understand how it works and what you need to change. In light of the assertions in a recent article in the Harvard Business Review, We All Work for Enron Now, it seems that the blindness to your corporate culture could ultimately be your company’s demise. While the article asserts that it pertains to our global economy, the crux breaks down to “lethal” corporate cultures being largely at fault and offers hope by pointing to companies that are making substantive changes. Organizations like The Institute for Sustainability with its Green Plus Certification, and B Labs with its B Corp designation can be a big help in providing structure for building a culture that focuses on the triple bottom line:  people, planet and performance.

By recognizing the ways your ideas, institution, actions, and people comprise your organization and shape its culture, you can begin to make those changes to formulate a stronger company better suited for growth and sustainability. By extension, understanding and embracing culture change puts you in a position to continue to adapt to change, which is coming whether you’re ready for it or not. What are you doing to change your corporate culture for the better?

Information Overload is Real

First, it seems that information overload is real. The impact of more and more information being thrown at us is that we’re less able to make effective decisions about what’s important, or even make effective decisions, period. The activity in our brains actually moves from one region – the one good at making decisions – to another that raises our anxiety and frustration and urges us to make a decision, any decision, while discounting the important criteria that go into good decision-making. Think of it as filling your office with little paper notes until you can no longer get in the door to do your work.

The Biggest Casualty is Creativity

If all you do is work requiring no creativity or creative problem-solving… wait, scratch that. Of course you have work (at your job, home, or elsewhere) that requires creative thinking. But information overload impacts creative decisions most.  Dimoka’s research shows that, to get to creative answers, we need to slow down and let our brains do what they do without trying to force-feed them more information. In other words, we need to stop drinking from the fire hose.

The problem is that our brains appear to be wired to notice change in such a fundamental way that newness trumps value of information. If a new email comes to your inbox, your mind sees that as more important than the email you just read, ignoring the relative value of the information itself.

So, how do you counter this impact and make great creative decisions?  The answer may be as simple as this:  stop thinking. If you consciously stop working the information over in your head, you let your unconscious mind – which seemingly is better at creative matters – process the problem and come up with the answer.

It may seem counterintuitive to turn off our electronics and stop the flow of information to improve our understanding of the information we’ve consumed through those media, but that’s precisely what research is showing. Though we love our shiny gadgets, just about the best thing we can do to get the most value from them is to turn them off. For a little while, anyway.

The triple bottom line is composed of people, planet, and performance. It’s a system that doesn’t value one over the other, but which focuses on the intersection of all three to create a picture of the overall health of a company. It’s our belief that social and environmental responsibility creates financial opportunity. These aren’t burdens or costs, but investments in the world of which we’re a part. Our goal is to personify a company that is thriving because it embraces these values.

It’s said in business that what gets measured gets managed. By committing to the triple bottom line, we are committing to being environmentally responsible. Our LEED-certified space in Durham’s Golden Belt Arts Complex is not only green – it’s an exciting and beautiful space to work, one that reminds us every day of our responsibility to preserving resources and minimizing our impact on the earth. Looking around our space, you’ll see that we didn’t have to compromise comfort or aesthetic; these are, in fact, enhanced by our efforts to be green.

We’re also investing in our employees and the people of our community and the world. What we’ve found by giving back to the community is what other Green Plus Certified-companies will attest to: you get back so much more than you give. The rewards are profound and life-changing. In effect, they make you want to keep giving, so the impact works both ways. We don’t give up our time to do good works; we give of our time. In return, we are energized, and that makes us even better at what we do.

At MindWorks when we think “impact,” we think of the work that we do. But we also think about who we are as a company. We congratulate the other organizations who were recently Green Plus Certified and invite you to consider your triple bottom line as well.

Mobile is building momentum and fast, but it may be mobile video that will have the biggest boom. Not only is mobile video growing, but it’s proving to be a highly effective medium for attracting users and gaining mindshare. Here are just a few of the recent findings that have been announced.

• Mobile video outperforms online with 25% higher viewer retention rate.
• According to a Cisco Report, mobile video traffic will more than double every year between now and 2015 when more than two-thirds of the world’s mobile data traffic will be video.
• Rhythm New Media reported that clickthrough rates on mobile ads are 79% higher when video is the call to action.
• YouTube is the top website with smartphone users.

These reports bring to light some very important implications for mobile content and video in general. For starters, it indicates that mobile video is not only a great way to deliver content to the mobile masses – it’s the preferred way for them to receive it. Whatever the reason – if it’s that the users seem accustomed to texting brief messages or using phones to send out Twitter updates of 140 characters or less – it seems in the choice between mobile written content and video, the overwhelming choice is video.

With viewer retention rates higher on mobile as well, it would appear the audiences are more inclined to view video on mobile devices than they are on desktops and laptops. Maybe it’s because we have gotten in the habit of switching between applications so easily on our PCs or because we are reluctant to put down our phones at all, but this suggests that when we have a mobile audience, we have a captive audience, one that’s actually paying attention to video content.

What this means for business is that video – and especially mobile video – could be your best bet for reaching out to increasingly mobile audiences. Video is both in demand and effective. Leaving it out of your strategy could leave your business behind.

On the other side of the argument is author Clay Shirky. His book, Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age, posits that new media helps people to connect and create innovative ideas, while also increasing transparency. Shirky believes that new media allows for more collaboration and encourages active participation, as opposed to passive learning. He also feels that the technology encourages the pooling of resources and provides an outlet for people to make a positive impact in the world. So, while new media won’t necessarily make us smarter, it can promote positive change and increase our creativity.

So, what is your take? Based on book sales, it seems that Carr’s is the more popular position. For me, I think the Internet is a great thing, but like too much chocolate cake, it’s not always what’s best for my health and well-being. So for now, when it comes to my reading material, I’ll have my cake, but eat my vegetables, too.

Our office, like many in the country, is composed of individuals who range in age from their early 20’s to their late 50’s. In order for MindWorks to be successful as a business, we must work together in an environment where time is very important. The downside is that we don’t always communicate to the best of our abilities for that specific situation. I’m not saying that we punch each other, but this is “a family.”

Of the 5 generations listed, our workforce mainly consists of Baby Boomers, Generation Xers and Millennials. After reading through the differences, I think the writer has hit on the most important concept for all generations – respect. Baby Boomers are looking for others to respect their experience. Generation Xers are looking for co-workers to respect their independence. Millennials are looking for others to respect their intelligence. The problem is that we don’t always recognize what is important to each person. Some of us may not see age when we look at people and others may not be aware of the subtle differences.

Have you had similar discussions in your office? How have you combated this issue?

I was sent an article from the New York Times that addresses similar thoughts: Todd Braver (a psychology professor at the University of Wisconsin) and five other neuroscientists decided to unplug and head into the wilderness for a week with minimal digital interaction. They wanted to better understand how the digital world impacts attention in humans and contemplate the question, “How soon do people need to get information and respond to it?” Many of the scientists in the article feel that “the drumbeat of incoming data has created a false sense of urgency that can affect people’s ability to focus.” While they were on their trip, some scientists were able to resist the urge to check e-mail, while others found hot spots and logged on. Ultimately, all the participants felt rejuvenated from their trip and more aware of their dependence on technology. For some, new ideas and outlooks were imagined in nature because they knew there would be no digital interruption. They were able to concentrate on thinking, creative ideas and brainstorming in a comfortable, non-stressful environment.

Here are my questions: If people generate creativity when they unplug, should businesses encourage employees to take more vacation time? Should businesses sponsor getaways for this specific purpose? Could they see a return on their investment?

The more I thought about this study, the more I considered the impact of online communication as a dominant conversation medium. If the majority of our “conversations” are occurring online, are our brains allowed to respond and engage to their fullest potential in concert with others? What does this say about future communities or societies (especially online) if scientists believe “mirrored” brain activity helps bind us together? Could the increased emphasis on online communities ultimately pull us apart? Obviously, electronic forms of communication (social media, text, e-mail, etc.) do allow us to share experiences, stories, ideas and thoughts more than ever before, but are we sacrificing human engagement for convenience? If nothing else, this study highlights the continued importance of face-to-face communication and in-person storytelling in an increasing digital world.

What do you think?

In a study by University of Toronto psychologist Lynn Hasher, the brains of older individuals were shown to exhibit many of the characteristics commonly associated with the brains of creative people. While some of those traits can be frustrating for seniors – for example, distractibility – they’re all characteristics that make creative thinking more accessible.

There’s even historical evidence to back up the idea that old age is often the prime time for creativity and artistic expression to flourish. Frank Lloyd Wright, for example, completed his design for New York’s iconic Guggenheim Museum at the age of 92. And who can forget the inspiration of artist Grandma Moses, who didn’t even begin painting until she was in her 70s?

So, if the research is right, instead of taking up shuffleboard at the retirement home, you may want to consider picking up a paintbrush instead.

Read the Psychology Today article here.

They all hold an intriguing clue about Alzheimer’s disease.

Scholarship has long suggested that the prolific mystery writer may have suffered from some form of dementia before her death. Now, her writing – along with early essays written by the School Sisters of Notre Dame, an American congregation – is the focus of studies that examine the association between writing complexity and the risk of developing Alzheimer’s.

University of Toronto professor Ian Lancashire has analyzed Christie’s works, counting the number of different words used and their frequency. By comparing early works with those written toward the end of her life, Lancashire concluded that Christie suffered from some form of mental deterioration in her later years.

As for the nuns, they’re part of a 20-year study into memory and aging. Autobiographies the sisters were required to write upon entering the order decades earlier were examined for grammatical complexity and “idea density.” The results were similar to those Lancashire found in Christie’s writing. The nuns whose youthful writing was the least complex were 60 percent more likely to develop Alzheimer’s later in life than those who packed more content into fewer sentences.

So, does simple writing cause dementia? And is writing style a reliable indicator of  future mental competence? I don’t know, but for now, I say, “Bring on those subordinate clauses and compound sentences!”

For more, check out the story on NPR.