The Long View

Real music from a virtual choir

11 brief tips for keeping your brain young

Change and speed are two the hallmarks of our knowledge society. Information abundance and creative decision making are two more.

Many feel overwhelmed - their brains register and react to the sense of helplessness and, bingo, here comes the killer: stress.

The good news though, comes from an ever growing volume of brain research (talk of recursive discourse - the brain researching the brain): we can train our brains to cope with new information and contexts and keep it fresh until old age. We continue to learn until our last day, so to speak.

Here are 11 tips that will help you keep your brain in shape:

1. Learn to love change. We are inherently resistant to change. The law of inertia also applies to our brains. But this creates a stressful paradox: Change is here to stay - and so you might as well make the best of it, in small and big ways. While our beloved little routines keep us going, they also dull our adaptability and resilience. Resilience has been shown to be one of the core success factors for our century. So: deliberately build change into your daily routines: changing your route to work, reading a different paper, storing your cups, plates and clothes in different places all make for eye opening and sometimes amusing surprises.
2. Get some physical exercise. Yes, that old chestnut. Enough said. Just do it.
3. Watch your diet. Rubbish in, rubbish out. What works for databases applies also to our bodies and our brains.
4. Meditate. There are many different forms of meditation, and they all help in different ways to keep the brain alert. Sitting still does wonders for the brain. It is not because you don't do anything that you are not doing anything.
5. Listen to music, and, even better, play it. There has been a lot written on the stimulating effects of Mozart's music on children's brains. It works for adults, as well. And if you don't like Mozart, there are many other composers to chose from.
6. Eat your porridge and your broccoli. I know. But they are good for you. Porridge has the virtue of providing the right nutrients for the brain and releasing them slowly into the system. Broccoli increases the ability to learn and helps protect existing and new nerve cells.
7. Regularly go on training programs. For adults there are essentially two kinds of learning: Perfecting your knowledge in a field or area you already know or entering a completely new field. The second is a lot more difficult for the ego (a beginner again…) but also for the brain: progress will take longer. Yet it will expose you to new perspectives and ways of thinking, including a new vocabulary. This will create new synaptic connections. Connections are good, in fact they are the drivers for keeping the brain young.
8. Adopt a creative pastime or five. Origami, dancing, painting, flower arranging, chess, Go, photography, writing, problem solving exercises… whatever floats your boat. More synaptic connections.
9. Meet new people. Many of us feel a slight sense of unease when meeting new people. That is because the brain has to adjust to the new context and the surprise factors related to the behaviour that unfamiliar people may display. Not to worry though - it's the same for them.
10. Keep a check your level and ability of multitasking. The jury is out on whether it is good or bad for you. On the upside, the brain can learn to handle more things at the same time; on the downside, the more interruptions we get, the less we get one task done. So if you feel that you get too many interruptions, create interruption-free blocks of time. Your brain will breathe. If you feel that chatting, texting, emailing and generally being in touch enhances your creativity - go for it.
11. Kill the sleep killers. Sleep, and the dreams that come with it, carries a vital restorative power for the brain. No sleep, no creativity, no brain training. And I am not talking about the odd work-through-the-night sleep deprivation to finish a project, but of the regular sleep disturbances many of us experience today.

Brain stimulation has to do with creativity, and creativity with brain stimulation. In our world of total interconnectedness, tender love and care for our brains matters. Nurturing, replicating, maintaining and enhancing our beloved synapses is a prerequisite for more open minded, balanced and satisfying life until the end.

And, in the process, for a more interesting world.

Your brain in your pocket: why an Apple Tablet could bring about media convergence

With a rather large library at home and the prospect of moving house has become quite daunting.

As has the chance of finding stuff.

Famous last question: Where did I read that again?, followed by an hour's search across dusty shelves.

This has, of course, its own inimitable charm. Invariably I come across thoughts, ideas, stories that either I had forgotten about or that I had just simply not connected with.

However, as soon as I leave the house (a very regular occurrence), that entire library becomes useless.

So what if?

So what if there were a technological frogleap that would allow me to have that library with me all the time, allowing me to roam through at leisure on the train or the plane?

What if I could access all sources of information and all media, perform instant searches and combine text, music and video into one knowledge mega-library?

A laptop, you say?

Nah, not a laptop. Laptops are still far too appliation-centric (as opposed to content focused) Nah, not a Kindle, either. Too static.

Something that combines the flexibility and the colour of a magazine, the reading comfort of a book (or 1000 books -- without the weight), the charms of a Kindle (or so I am told, not owning one, but I have my doubts) the advantages of a laptop (film, music, searchability) as well as the potential of the new forms of converging media (did you recently visit the New York Times site?).

Well, according to Gizmodo, Apple (yes, I know, them again…) may be about to launch such a device. Much has been written about the Apple Tablet, but what got me animated here, is not so much the prospect of a possible near launch (February 2010), but more the prospect of media convergence in one device with a touch screen.

One thing in particular struck me in the article: the idea of putting school textbooks onto iTunes.

That would be a total game changer - for kids (think about those heavy satchels), for teachers (up-to-date materials), for bookshops (whoops…sorry, no good news here) and also for publishers (a new definition of the marginal cost of text book publishing).

Publishers would also be encouraged to release the long tail, their huge catalogue of books that have been out of print for years.

But most of all, once multimedia content becomes standard fare, tablet content will be to books what television has been for many years to travelogues: wildly more vivid and engaging. Just imagine your standard economics book with interactive, automatically updated graphics.

Whether it is going to be Apple or someone else, is beside the point. We are fast approaching the convergence of media.

If you add the recent evolution of e-paper (flexible screen technology) into the mix… we might just be at the beginning of an(other) information revolution.

Remember the live newspapers in the Harry Potter movies? Well, I have come to think that they are but a frog's leap away.

Musical interlude

A new take on an old theme by the Ukulele Orchestra of GB:

Stand by me

35 musicians; they never met, yet play a song together. 

Good to wake up up to on a Monday morning. Thanks for the tip, Don.

The iPhone as paradigm shifter

Talk of innovation.

Apple has, over the past 23 years, has revolutionised three major
industries: in 1984, it produced the first Macintosh computer with a
graphical user interface and a mouse (I clearly remember saying: "a
what??"); then in 2001, the company set out to change the way the
music industry functions when it introduced the first iPod, and
shortly thereafter the iTunes music store, which by now has sold over
5 billion songs.

The iPhone was introduced in the US 6 months ago with a declared
target of selling 1 million in 2007 and 10 million in 2008 (which
would represent 1% of world market share-- yes the are 1 billion
mobile phones in the world...). So far 5 million have started ringing.

A lot has been written about the design of Apple products, often with
a mix of envy and condescendence.

The fact remains: Apple stuff just works. And people like it, because
it is easy to use. And it is a pleasure to look at.

Apple is telling us a story of customer centered and user focused
design and functionality.

Apple makes what its customers wants.

Of course, I had to have an iPhone straight away. That I am delighted
may come as no surprise to those of you who know me.

My wife, on the other hand, is much less of a techno-gadget-geek/
freak. She was quite content with her five year old Nokia. She was not
sure if she wanted a new phone (with the associated learning curve),
let alone an iPhone, not sure whether she would use all its functions.
After 2 weeks, she is smitten. And she is using every bit of it. It
does what it says in the ad. Simply and beautifully.

The iPhone is not perfect. But although it is a 1.0 version device it
blows the competition away. Competition? What competition? The other
handset manufacturers are struggling to keep up: a new paradigm for
user interface on telephones has been created.

As has a new business model of revenue generation in the mobile phone
industry: Apple gets a share of iPhone generated income - another
world first.

Looking at my (recent) Blackberry, I realise that phones will never be
the same again.

By the way, this article was written on and posted from the iPhone,
quite comfortably, while lying in bed.

Learn from the music industry

The music industry, we all know, is, and has been for a while, in uproar. But now it is not so much illegal downloads which threaten it. Now it is the musicians that are assuming their independence.

Artists moving from large contracts to direct online sales. Prince giving away his latest record in a UK newspaper to promtoe ticket sales for tours. Madonna leaving her record company Warner Brothers and signing a ten year deal with a ticket promoter. Radiohead asking for volunteer donations for their latest downloadable record (so far they average about £1 per download…). Not too mention the scores of artists selling via iTunes.

What matters to customers is the content. The packaging has taken on a myriad dimensions to suit a fragmented market. The packaging will decide where I buy my songs.

Most other markets have broken or are are breaking up as well, even if sometimes not quite so visibly or radically. Fragmentation is, however, rapidly becoming the norm.

Time to diversify your packaging?