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Archive for the ‘persuasive technology’ Category

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If Your Company Came with an Instruction Manual You Don’t Need “Strategy to Action in 10 Days”

Saturday, January 23rd, 2010

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By William Seidman

Ever wish your company had come with an instruction manual? Michael McCauley and I have written a book, Advantage Media has published it, and we’re excited. You can buy  “Strategy to Action in 10 Days: Creating High Performance Organizations”  directly from us, in bookstores, or on Amazon. There’s a Kindle edition, too.

Join our Facebook page and come with us as we travel to promote our book.

Ron Nakamoto, CEO of Strategic Financial, has praise:  ”I recommend Strategy to Action in 10 Days to any person interested in creating a high performance organization. It clearly illustrates how to break from the status quo and create a truly sustainable change. It is as much a practical guide as it is a game changer.”                              

We’re as excited about our book as we are about the many people who are using it to create real, lasting, and positive change in their organizations.

Posted in best practices, business, captology, knowledge workers, leadership, management consulting, optimization, organizational assessments, organizational change, organizational culture, persuasive technology, positive deviance, positive deviants, positive leadership, training, wisdom discovery, wisdom transfer | No Comments »

Augmented Reality, Persuasive Technology — and Some Apps I’d Like to Have

Thursday, January 7th, 2010

By Michael McCauley

I’ve been reading a lot about augmented reality  lately. It seems to be everywhere. Augmented reality — the term was coined by Thomas Caudell in 1990 — is a view of the real environment merged with (or augmented by) virtual computer-generated images. It’s likely that you’ve already experienced augmented reality.  Have you watched a football game recently? That thick yellow first down line that they draw on the field is a simple example of augmented reality. Have you ever driven in a car with a “heads up” display where the speed and other info are projected onto the windshield? That’s another example.

More sophisticated applications are currently in production or being developed. For example, there’s an iPhone app which overlays the phone’s camera image with your longitude, latitude, bearing, elevation and angle to the horizon. Another iPhone app uses the camera image and overlays it with information on each nearby bar. Interesting augmented reality apps can be found at http://mashable.com/2009/12/05/augmented-reality-iphone/.  

These are so many forms of persuasive technology, each designed to change peoples’ attitudes and behaviors. Could this concept be applied in other ways? I would love to have an app that lists the contents of my file cabinet when I point my phone at it. Or let’s say that you’re a project manager. What about an app that displays the progress, key risks, costs and punch list for a project when you point your camera phone at the construction site?

It seems to me that the applications are nearly limitless. How could persuasive technology that employs augmented reality be used in your business?

Posted in persuasive technology | No Comments »

Daydreaming and Problem Solving: The Deep Connection

Monday, December 28th, 2009

By Michael McCauley

Clive Thompson, writing for Wired Magazine, recently explored the idea that the act of daydreaming is a crucial part of problem solving. This is an interesting notion, since most work environments are designed to minimize or eliminate daydreaming. Instead, Thompson suggests that tools and applications should be developed to encourage mental drift.

 A recent study by Dr. Michael Kane of the University of North Carolina found that our minds drift away from our tasks fully one-third of the time. His study further suggests that when your mind drifts off, it is actually doing important data-storage work.  Brain scans indicate that, when you are daydreaming,  the mind is actually using the prefrontal cortex –  the part of the brain used for problem solving. Jonathan Schooler, a professor of psychology at UC Santa Barbara, believes that an idling mind is likely doing deeply creative work.

So how is all this related to persuasive technology? Modern productivity software is designed to minimize mental drift. Often we are so focused on completing tasks, checking off to-do lists and scheduling meetings that we don’t have time to just sit and think.

How about designing software that changes our attitude and behavior about drifting — software that actually optimizes daydreaming? I find this to be a truly inspired idea. Using persuasive technology, we could design software that actually encourages people to make notes about their daydreams. What about software that actually encourages daydreaming? In its crudest form, maybe the application pings you from time to time to see if your mind is wandering. If it is, then the application gives you an opportunity to capture what you’re thinking about in a few simple notes. You could then go back and review your notes at a later time. This might spur additional ideas that can be used to enhance your problem- solving ability and actually improve your productivity.

Maybe this represents the next generation of persuasive technology. What do you think?

Posted in neuroscience, persuasive technology | No Comments »

Cerebyte at the ISPI Conference in San Francisco this Spring: Improving Performance

Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009

By William Seidman

We’ll be presenting two papers at the International Society for Performance Improvement’s 2010 Annual Conference in San Francisco April 19-22, 2010.

ISPI is a good forum for people interested in learning how organizations can improve themselves, and its conferences bring in a wide ranging group of organizational development, training, and other professionals, both from inside organizations and as outside consultants.

The topics we’ll be discussing:

Persuasive Technology: A New Paradigm for Maximizing Organizational Performance — on the incorporation of the neuroscience of learning into technology and how this can lead to faster and more far-reaching organizational change on a larger scale than previously thought possible. Mike McCauley and I will present this paper.

The Importance of Courage in Leading Change: Creating Courageous Organizations — on the times and ways that leaders need to be courageous when leading a change effort, and how you can test for courageous leadership before you begin a change. Rick Grbavac and I will present this paper.

We hope many of you will be able to come to our sessions at the ISPI Conference in April.

Posted in best practices, getting change to "stick", leadership, organizational assessments, organizational change, organizational culture, persuasive technology | No Comments »

Using Technology to Initiate and Support Behavior Change

Wednesday, December 16th, 2009

By Michael McCauley 

We at Cerebyte talk a lot about changing behavior to support process improvement and high performance. But  how is that change accomplished?  Can the same approach be used in every situation — or at least the vast majority of situations?

 Dr. B.J. Fogg of the Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab qualifies and categorizes behavior change in his “Behavior Grid.” This grid provides a framework that we can use to think about and plan for change. It distinguishes between the types of behavior changes desired — from starting a completely new behavior to stopping an ongoing behavior —  and the schedule upon which the behavior change will be implemented, for example from a one-time change to sustained, long-term change. 

Organizing and thinking about change behaviors in this way enables us to create specific persuasive technologies that address each type. This is particularly important when creating high performance organizations because large numbers of people will be impacted —  for better or worse. In order to create lasting change as quickly as possible, it is important to match the persuasive technology with the behavior change desired.

At Cerebyte we have primarily focused our persuasive technology on creating what Fogg calls “Row 7 Behaviors,” behaviors that are always performed.  These are behaviors that create sustained change and maximum organizational impact. But can organizational benefits be derived from the other types of behavior change identified in Fogg’s grid? I think they can. What do you think?

Posted in best practices, captology, digital coaching technology, getting change to "stick", organizational change, persuasive technology | No Comments »

Can Persuasive Technology Be Fun? You Bet!

Tuesday, November 17th, 2009

By Michael McCauley 

“Persuasive technology” is technology specifically designed to change people’s attitudes and/or behaviors. But can persuasive technology be fun, too? This is the question that Volkswagen asked. The results are some of the most creative and interesting uses of persuasive technology I’ve ever seen. Their idea was to see if they could change people’s attitudes and behaviors simply by using technology which made the preferred behavior fun.

On their website thefuntheory.com are several examples. At one subway station they made the stairway into a giant piano, with each step being a single piano key. When people walked up or down the stairs they played a tune. The result was an incredible 66% increase in the use of the stairs over the adjoining escalator!  

In another example, a simple bottle recycling bin was transformed into an arcade game. If you dropped a bottle into the hole that was lit then your “score” (displayed on a large scoreboard) increased. Did this approach change people’s behavior? You bet - during one day, this bottle recycling arcade was used 100 times while a similar recycling bin (without the arcade) just one block away was used only twice!

Urbanspoon has taken a similar approach with their restaurant selection app for the iPhone. This persuasive technology is part Magic 8 Ball and part slot machine. To use it, you simply shake your iPhone and it finds a restaurant close to your present location. It’s a really fun and original way to locate a restaurant.

I believe that these examples are pointing the way to an emerging trend in persuasive technology development. Rather than trying to convince someone to do something, these apps simply make the preferred behavior more fun. It’s nice to think that the solution to many of the world’s challenges might be resolved by simply adding a bit of fun into the mix.

Posted in best practices, business, persuasive technology | No Comments »

Welcoming our Guest Blogger, Peter Guttchen, who is Building Healthier Communities via Enhanced Cancer Screening

Wednesday, April 8th, 2009

By William Seidman with Peter Guttchen

Peter Guttchen and his company, ORG, Organizational Resources Group, are long-time partners of Cerebyte. Their program “IdeaNet” was developed for them by Cerebyte.  We asked him to write about his program for screening for colorectal cancer. It’s exciting and has the potential to positively affect so many lives. From Peter:

We work closely with the ACS, the American Cancer Society, to mobilize communities to increase their screening rates for colorectal cancer.

Guidelines call for people 50 years and older to get screened for CRC. In communities where screening rates are high, mortality rates from CRC is much lower.

ORG and ACS are initially targeting communities in Oregon and Washington with the lowest rates of screening.

To be successful, we must bring together community organizers, public health officials, hospitals, insurers, doctors, and others.

We are working on developing a model to support communities to mobilize these diverse (and sometimes competing) interests to take action to increase screening rates.

Once a proven model is developed, and initial results are encouraging, ORG and ACS will use its IdeaNet to support similar initiatives in additional communities.

This effort promises to save lives, reduce health care costs, and improve the quality of life for families and communities nationwide. We’re very excited about it.

Thanks to Peter for sharing with our blog’s readers this information about one of his and Organizational Resources Group’s next big projects.

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Posted in best practices, digital coaching technology, organizational change, personal change, persuasive technology | No Comments »

Cancer Screening: Reaching Underserved Communities

Wednesday, March 25th, 2009

By William Seidman

Cancer screening is a valuable tool for improving the reach of US health care - and yet many communities are underserved. Organizational Resources Group is working with the American Cancer Society (ACS) to remedy this, by building a model using the IdeaNet/Cerebyte approach to successful screening programs.

In the words of ORG, their IdeaNet can “turn strategy into action, close the performance gap, standardize best practices, and support effective succession planning.”

Initial results have been positive - and once the model is proven, ORG will work with the ACS to  promote it nationally.

Orgnizational Resources Group will take a leading role in “coaching” community action teams to deploy the American Cancer Society’s colorectal cancer screening program. The potential for saving lives using this IdeaNet/Cerebyte program is awesome.

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Posted in best practices, organizational change, persuasive technology, team learning | No Comments »

Captology: Organizational Transformation and Persuasive Technology

Thursday, January 8th, 2009

By Michael McCauley

Captology - the discipline of  ”Computers As Persuasive Technology”

Changing an organization can be incredibly difficult. To create lasting transformation, many people must change their beliefs, values, and actions quickly and completely. How hard is that? Very!

But these types of changes are exactly what persuasive technologies are designed to drive, although they have rarely been systematically applied to organizational transformations. Why is that?

We believe that it’s because persuasive technology, which can be great, is not enough by itself. A compehensive change process is required. For 12 years, Cerebyte has worked to develop a proven methodology for organizational transformation that uses persuasive technology to accomplish change faster, more thoroughly, and with more predictability than previously thought possible.

Find out more - read the entire article here, on the Cerebyte website.

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Posted in captology, getting change to "stick", organizational change, personal change, persuasive technology | No Comments »

Pete Carroll and Positive Leadership

Monday, December 29th, 2008

By Michael McCauley

Pete Carroll, head football coach at University of Southern California, was featured on 60 Minutes recently.  You can watch it here. As I watched, it struck me that Pete Carroll is the embodiment of the “Positive Leadership” that Kim Cameron talks about in his book of the same name.

Kim Cameron’s positive climate, positive relationships, positive communications, and positive meaning - as the pillars of positive organizational change - are embodied, really, by Pete Carroll.

Carroll creates a positive climate within his team: “I keep thinking day-to-day that something good is about to happen. I don’t know how to think otherwise.” Carroll prepares his players to win. He believes that “the best players don’t always win - the players that play the best do. That’s why we focus so much on practicing so much better than anyone else has ever practiced before!”

It’s an upbeat and optimistic view - of personal and organizational possibilities, and of the world.

In contrast to traditional coaches, Carroll doesn’t tear down his players; he builds them up. If he gets tough on a player (this is shown in the video), he reengages him almost immediately, taking advantage of what educators know as the “teachable moment” ro reinforce what is positive in the player. Mistakes are used for learning.

Pete Carroll is driven by a higher purpose than merely winning. He believes that his life work is teaching young people to seize every opportunity and make the most of it. He practices this approach with his team at USC and in the Los Angeles community at large. He spends time talking and working with at-risk youth in the poorest parts of LA,  has started a non-profit, “A Better LA,” to create and nurture a climate of meaning for himself and those he coaches and teaches.

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Posted in organizational change, personal change, persuasive technology, positive leadership | 1 Comment »

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