Brain Waves

There is an interesting article in today's Globe and Mail about advertising juggernaut (they would probably say "media research firm") Nielsen investing in NeuroFocus; a company that specializes in monitoring neurophysiological patterns and phenomena. This is an alternative to focus groups, surveys, and other antiquated methods and metrics that can help organizations gauge emotional response and engagement.

The space organizations like NeuroFocus (and there are others) occupy is primarily for advertising and product development purposes. While this makes indisputable sense, I think it's a narrow view of what we can do with people's brainwaves.

What about meetings? I wax prophetic about the value of audience response nearly every day. But my expertise in that arena would become obsolete as quickly as your brain can transmit signal to your mouth to make you say "unemployable" if the cool little keypads were replaced with non-invasive brain imaging devices, or cool helmets that monitor engagement, emotional response, and other physiologically immaculate indications.

There are obviously challenges to what is a step towards reading minds in a meeting. I would definitely be skeptical of what's being monitored and who would know what about my thoughts and perceptions. Skepticism could be tremendously damaging to the sense of (damn, this soft word again) trust in a meeting. And perhaps there is such a thing as too much truth. I firmly believe that if there are issues that exist in the minds of meeting attendees, then they need to be surfaced, addressed, and discussed. But even as this happens I can mask my irrational disdain for others, that if surfaced, wouldn't help anyone.

I would love to one day be a part of the strategic alignment meeting where the CEO presents the plan, and turns to the screen to see a perfectly clear picture of whether people buy into the plan, and if they think it's feasible. It might not be soon, but we've got to start thinking about neurophysiological science's implications in collaborative efforts. After all, a big reason why physical meetings still exist is that our brains react differently when there is a human being in front of us that our various senses can perceive. We actually stimulate and fire different synapses in our brain than is possible without that sensory engagement.

For now I'm kind of glad. The information - from the smell sense in particular - that would engage those synapses and the resulting opinion if you were experiencing me say this in person today instead of reading it would sabotage the message. That's correct, I was at a St. Patrick's Day party at Steamwhistle brewery last night. The availability of beer would have registered a powerful emotional response with the NeuroFocus technology.