Right Brain-Left Brain

Google Chairman, Eric Schmidt, recently spoke out about the division between the Arts and Science in British education and the demise of the polymath.

Meanwhile Iain McGilchrist has written a well researched book describing the same thing. The Master and His Emissary, The Divided Brain and the Making of the Modern World roams across Philosophy, Psychology, History, Neurology, Art and more to make his point that Left Brain thinking has come to dominate individuals and Society......

Having dropped the names of some clever people, to get your attention and maybe add some weight ...........

The right side of the brain provides the big picture, the inspiration, the vision and to some people the Everything. See Jill Bolte Taylor's amazing stroke of insight on TED on this.

The left side of the brain specialises in the detail.

Einstein is said to have seen the concept of relativity in an instant and spent the rest of his life explaining it............

Linking the two hemispheres is the corpus callosum, sometimes seen as the bridge, though McGilchrist suggests it acts more like a gatekeeper.

Now, in a well balanced individual (back to Schmidt's polymath) the vision is passed to check the detail, the enriched vision is passed back for further envisioning and so on.

As with the individual, so with Society. And with the development of Society and the division of labour, has grown the separation of the visionaries and the mechanics.

I make no value judgement here, by the way. Just as I don't expect a plumber to sing opera (though it does happen sometimes) I would not want a bridge built by a philosopher. Horses for courses.

The point is: who leads?

Now, if we understand that the Right Brain tends to huge self belief, whilst the Left sees the (Health and Safety) dangers, then the answer is tricky and the balance of power is critical.

My point (backed up by the clever folks mentioned above and lots of others) is that the balance has swung too far to the risk averse.

Getting to some practical examples in our world of social enterprise; this is characterised mostly as a relationship between the public sector and the 3rd (4th?) sector. The current policy direction towards social enterprise diminishes the vision and passion of the sector, when the commissioning process gets to work. Where the best social enterprises spring from a need identified and a vision of delivery, the commissioning process starts with a spurious Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (more of which later), followed by a service specification generally constructed by committee and a huge wadge of paperwork with which to waste the time of anyone foolish or desperate enough to enter the game.

Power, in this process, is held by the risk averse, so we should not be surprised that it does not work very well.

If we take a look at some brilliant social enterprises, the process is different. Kids Company, for example, attracts almost no local authority funding, yet does the most amazing work on the streets of London. The Big Issue, similarly found its own way and seems to make a real difference.

The challenge for our sector, is to find the revenue streams that are not controlled by fear of what might go wrong, but drawn to schemes that may just go great!

Social Impact Bonds perhaps?

Anyway, there's my starter for discussion..........

Steve Day

The dangers of "partial logic"

Interesting piece on BBC website - http://bbc.in/p3AR2X - about black runners always winning the 100m. It shows how false logic affects all race relations. I suggest it is not false logic - but "partial logic". And that it infects virtually all aspects of our thinking.

Causation vs Correlation.
It can be demonstrated that global warming has increased with the decline in the number of pirates on the high seas.
Any amount of research could be carried out into the geograhical spread of pirates; the manufacture of their ships; the liklihood of their wearing of eye patches - and nothing would take away from the evidence-based fact that the less pirates there are, the more our climate warms up. It even coincides with the view of conventionial science that climate change is man-made, so all that evidence could be brought to bear to back up the pirate based theory.

With so many factors affecting everything, we must be very wary of finding patters of correlation and assuming causation.

Perspective
The term "strategic overview" is often used as if it is a good thing - and it sometimes is, for getting a strategic overview!
But it is not very good for much else.
And who is it useful for? Strategists!
But what happens when strategists sit too far away from the situation?
Well, try using Google Maps without the zoom function, and you'll soon realise how limited strategies are when trying to find your actual destination.
Strategists also make an assumption that because they don't know the issues in our communities in any detail, that we don't.
So they tell us what they do know - that smoking is bad for us; that children are getting fatter; that this community is poorer than that community . . . all the stuff that we already know - because we live here.
All that is fairly harmless, until we get to the practicalities of dealing with these problems.
From the perspective of a strategic overview, 'Michael' doesn't qualify for any business support because the town he lives in is not poor enough - despite his own, very real, personal circumstances.
Meanwhile, 'Peter' who is a lot better off can access unlimited support, because the detached house he owns outright is in a deprived village.

A Solution? - Designer Thinking?

In the world of product design, innovation and user experience are key.
From the Hovermower to the iPad, the history of product design is brimful of new ways of doing things - an all are focussed on User Experience. They are easy to use, efficient, effective, affordable and available.
They are driven by competition, with commercial advantage creating a reward for risk taking and happy customers.

And in the Public Realm?
So why do we not have this flurry of continual service improvements in the public realm? Do we need competition to bring it about?
Or can we find reward in the social advantage of meeting our non financial incentives?
Can we not get excited about seeing people living healthier, happier lives?
Why is that not enough to force us into thinking creatively - really creatively?

There is a world full of social entrepreneurs out here.
People working at community level that can draw on the strategic overview, but translate it into useable services for individuals.
People that are not stupid - that can differentiate between causation and correlation
People that can design, as well as deliver, the services at the point of need.

As the money dries up in the public sector, are those with shrinking budgets prepared to relinquish their hold over them? Or do we have to take it for ourselves?

Cameron Gordon

Changing Cafe (owners) Culture

If you go to any bar, pub, cafe or restaurant in Germany, there is no standing at the bar waiting to be served.
Simply take a seat and a professional waiter will come and take your drinks order.

This is obviously better for the customer - but we believe it is also much better for the pub / cafe owner.