Forget SMS...Brain to brain communication is here!

Imagine

Imagine if we could communicate with one another simply by using thought; a two way brain-to-brain messaging system.

Well, according to neuroscientist Miguel Nicolelis, his particular experiments and the world of neuroscience have made some pretty epic recent breakthroughs.

In the words of Miguel, the possible implications of his experiments will "go to the limit of your imagination".

Imagine...

Do we really only use 10% of our brain?

The short 5 minute video below is a really cool animation which discusses the common myths about humans only accessing 10% of their brains potential. Fascinating stats, cleverly scripted and convincing narration, and some slick animation makes this short video well worth watching. It certainly is a long shot away from the other points of view on the subject of humans' mental capabilities, which have been exploited by recent Hollywood movies such as Limitless and Lucy.

Enjoy.

 

About the author
Si Muddell is a Digital Strategist who has worked extensively both agency and client side. Si is fascinated about marketing, psychology & what motivates people, and loves guitar, surfing and travelling.

Get connected with Si on Google+, Twitter, LinkedIn & Facebook

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Imagine if your brain could connect to the cloud (TED Talk)

Imagine a world where you don't need to study to learn, where you don't need to remember information to recall information, where you can go from knowing nothing about something to knowing everything about something in a moment - now imagine!

The common debate / narrative that has been portrayed in recent films such as Limitless and Lucy is that humans only use 10% of their brains capacity - where even a small increase to this could arm us humans with literally 'limitless' mental processing potential.

If you are like me then after watching these kind of films you find yourself in an exciting headspace where for a few brief moments of intense day dreaming you imagine a world where so much more is possible.

10 Ways to Use Psychology to Help Increase Customer Conversion

Let's start with creativity & data 

Often when we think about digital marketing, or any marketing for that matter, we talk about two key things; creativity and data. In my mind creativity and data are at their best when they are working cohesively.

Holistically speaking, creative messaging from the consumers perspective is that tangible, end result execution or executions of a message that drives initial and repeated consumer interest and engagement amongst the quagmire of every other message desperately trying to get the consumers attention. Creativity may be effective because it resonates with the consumer on an emotional level (E.g - makes you laugh, is fun, is sad, makes you happy, shocks and horrifies you etc), exploits a truth, and/or solves a problem.

On the other hand we have data, which if used properly seeks, identifies, measures and optimises opportunities to drive acquisition, customer centricity and product development; all of which then feeds back into helping creative be 'creative' and effective.

Meditation - The what, why and a little bit of how

Need some headspace?

Meditation is something that as I get older I hear more and more about. The reality is I probably haven't really 'heard' about it more, I've just become a lot more receptive to it. It's something that I become increasingly aware that I should do and would likely benefit from. Sure, meditation in some circles has become the hip and cool thing to do and its benefits have in recent years become more mainstream through it's amplification across digital channels, but let's not forget that in no way is it a new thing. Some of the earliest references of meditation date back to the 6th to 5th centuries BCE.

If the pure monetary size of the self help industry is anything to go by (apparently worth $11 billion in 2013), which includes books, seminars, life-coaches and endless guides to 'a happier life', it would be fair to conclude that a lot of people feel unsatisfied, overwhelmed and in need of clarity and a helping hand with their lives.  From the compounding and often damaging pressures of a hectic work and social life, it's easy to feel that we are 'always on'. We lack the mental downtime we so badly need and get caught up with being focused on focusing on everything; at once.

Think about it....when was the last time you deliberately sat on the floor still, closed your eyes and focused on a single minded thing as simple as the air moving through your nostrils for 5 minutes, whilst blanking every other thought from your mind. Could you even do this without getting bored or distracted? Most of us (including me) find this extremely difficult.

From ultra successful business leaders such as Steve Jobs, to sport stars like Lionel Messi who are at the absolute top of their game, to the average working Joe who against all odds seems to be successfully balancing work and life commitments. These people understand that taking some regular time out or 'headspace' is hugely beneficial to their quality of life and success within it.

For many of us training ourselves physically is quite easy and normal, and increasing knowledge aka learning is also pretty normal in work and life, but training our minds to consciously focus on something whilst blocking everything else out is something that is pretty new and alien to many of us.

Well, this is where meditation comes in. This post is a brief look at what meditation is, what leading authorities say it's benefits are, a few simple exercises to start you off, and a few tools that I have recently found. It is written from my perspective of a beginner.

4 steps to making 2014 a year of action

Goodbye 2013 & hello 2014

Firstly - Happy New Year.

For me personally, 2013 was amazing. My partner and I travelled around the world for 10 months, visiting 19 countries, learning (some) Spanish along the way, meeting endless interesting people, being immersed in old cultures and traditions, and reaping memories and experiences that will be with us for the rest of our days. The fella on the left is a shot I took in Borneo, Malaysia.

That, however was 2013 - this is 2014 where I have new goals, dreams, ambitions, and experiences to be had.

This is a short post to help inspire you to set and achieve your goals, and to make the most out of life and the moment, without wasting valuable time and energy on unfounded beliefs and negative thoughts.

Having literally just moved back to Sydney, and looking for a new challenge myself - this post is as much for you the reader as it is for me the author; we are on the same boat, and our actions and beliefs will determine the consequences.

7 tips to keep yourself energised

Yawn.....Grab me a coffee - I need something sugary - I don't have the energy - I am too tired.....

Sound familiar?

Being energised doesn't always seem to an easy task, especially when we have such busy lifestyles where multiple multi-tasking is the norm. Our addiction to energy quick-fixes like coffee, energy drinks, and general sugary stuff would indicate that we are well aware that our energy levels are often running in the red, and so we seek that magic quick fix. 

But how effective are these quick fixes, and wouldn't prevention be better than the not so effective short-term 'cures'? 

I reckon so. 

Below are seven healthy general lifestyle tips to help you feel more energised. The tips within this post are very much inspired by Oliver Gray, who is a former professional tennis player, and now author of the book 'Energise You'.

The Psychology of a Great Athlete

Luck is where opportunity meets preparation

I once heard a saying - "Luck is where opportunity meets preparation", and how true. We live in a world where less fortunate people can be successful, and a world where fortunate people often fail. Maybe they get complacent, don't try as hard, or just don't realise how fortunate they actually are.

Success, winning, 'luck' are a direct result of your preparation, practice, endurance, tenacity, willingness to learn, and failing....often! One of my favourite ad campaigns was Michael Jordans 'Fail Harder' ad for Nike where it goes through all of his failures, yet despite these failures he was still arguably the best basketball player the world has ever seen.

The inspirational ad copy was "I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed." - Michael Jordan

From sports stars and business leaders, to our family and friends; there are many people we can learn from.

What motivates us to work?

What motivates us to work? A lot of people would argue that the answer to this is simple; its money.

But is this truly the key long-term factor that maximises motivation and yields the best results from ourselves and others around us?

Short answer; no, it isn't.

Imagine if we had all the money we could possibly have, what would make us work then? How we motivate people around us? "Throw them a big bonus if such-and-such targets are met" some would say, but does this really yield the best long-term results and ensures employee satisfaction and retention?

Contrary to common belief, money is not actually the key driver. Money is just the means, it's the short-term fix, in normal standard life practice it's a necessary 'reward', but it is certainly not the whole reward. Some may argue that 'joy' is the greatest motivator for work, (which is also very important), but that wouldn't be right either.

The Psychology of Choice & Illusion

Choice - "An act of selecting or making a decision when faced with two or more possibilities" .

What makes us choose right from left, or one offer from another? Did we ever really have a choice, or was it the result of some marketers clever strategy of influence and illusion?

So many choices!

We are presented with many 'choices' every single day, many of them delivered to us through the mask of marketing, and calculated data driven decision making. A great example of 'choice' and clever data driven product placement is in Supermarkets. From the size of the offers signs, the number of offer 'choices', to the placement of the products throughout the store. There is often a fairly solid rationale in the decision making for the above.

Ever get to the checkout at the Supermarket and you end up buying more unnecessary yet conveniently placed items and offers, while you wait impatiently to be served? Yep - I do!

The Psychology of Social Commerce

Twenty five years ago, if you wanted to buy something, anything, you had a few of options:

1. Go to a shop / face-to-face with the buyer
2. Order via a catalogue / respond to a classified ad
3. Order via the phone

There was no internet, social media, and therefore zero ecommerce going on. Want to reminisce on evolution of Digital - take a look at this previous post of mine Digital evolution infographic. 

A customers decision to buy was based upon (in retrospect) fairly limited information, whilst the masses perception of the brand/product was largely based upon the advertising dollars pumped into the marketing, or 'pushing' of the product. 

Sure word-of-mouth influence occurred but only within a persons immediate network of friends, and the friends would have to know that the person was thinking about purchasing a specific product/service to know whether to give up their knowledge and opinion.

Colour: A Marketers tool of influence

Colour; something that a lot of us may take for granted, and fewer understand, yet something that can have a huge influence on so many of the decisions we make. Colour can influence our emotions and our mood, it can influence the things you take notice of and the things that you miss, and it can affect us physiologically.

For most of us, colour is simple; something is red, something is green, yet just like the majority of the Beatles songs, simple things if used and understood properly can go a long long way. Colour has the potential to be a very powerful string not just to the marketers bow, but also in everyday life and social perception.

Here are eleven popular colours with a brief description of what they stand for, the emotions they evoke, and the known physiological responses.

10 mindful minutes for a better life

What a busy world we live in. Watching, listening, texting, talking, driving, working, gyming, cooking, socialising, shopping, eating, drinking, sleeping.... When was the last time you did nothing? As in absolutely nothing apart from simply breathing. Can you even remember?

Well, there are some real benefits to putting some regular time aside 'to do nothing', or in other words to meditate. Below is a great and short TED Talk by Mindfulness expert Andy Puddicombe, delivered in a charismatic, down-to-earth manner; plus the use of juggling balls as visual props!

Are gadgets before bed affecting your sleep? (Infographic)

"When I go to bed I use my ipad/phone to:"

- Browse the web / Use social media
- Watch a film or something on Youtube
- Stream music via an online service like Spotify
- Read an ebook
- Play a game (words free / chess.com etc)
- Text / Call

Sound familiar?

I think the above is an accurate account of many of our pre-sleep habits, definitely is for me and apparently is for 95% of the population!

Online Psychology Degree have put together a fantastic infographic called 'Getting in Bed with Gadgets - Your Technology is keeping you awake' and it's about, well, what it says on the tin really! Using technology just before you go to sleep is detrimental to a) getting to sleep and b) actual sleep loss; all of which affects your mental well being, in a bad way.

Does the anonymity of the internet encourage dishonesty?

For some the Internet can be an escape from reality, a place a person and their actions can largely remain anonymous, where one can have a different name or names, a different persona, a place where reality can be distorted into; well anything. For others the internet is a place to extend offline influence, a place to connect with like-minded people, a place of opportunity and learning. And for others, (arguably the majority), it is a place somewhere in between the two extremes, oscillating between them for the many different uses it has.

Stay in the moment...you just might be happier

What is happiness? Is it subjective? Is it external like getting a brand new car or house - maybe; many brands, magazines, and advertising would have you believe this, and definitely 'push' this philosophy, is it more aligned with the Buddhist mentality, that happiness is internal. Maybe it's a bit of both.



Well happiness has been the subject of many a book, course, therapy, philosophy, religion, culture, and science, and is not going to be answered in this short article! But maybe there is a small takeaway from this TED Talk by Matt Killingsworth. A short biography and synopsis of the TED Talk "While doing his PhD research with Dan Gilbert at Harvard, Matt Killingsworth invented a nifty tool for investigating happiness: an iPhone app called Track Your Happiness that captured feelings in real time. (Basically, it pings you at random times and asks: How are you feeling right now, and what are you doing?) Data captured from the study became the landmark paper "A Wandering Mind Is an Unhappy Mind PDF"

Body language Shapes who you are

Wouldn't it be great if when we felt down, depressed, anxious, unconfident or generally not quite as sharp as normal we could train ourselves to get through it? I think it would be great.

To some, it may seem obvious that you can train / prepare yourself to get through hard times, or up your game from where you currently are, but to many the obvious is often clouded when emotions are involved.

OK, so contrary to what some people would have you believe, there isn't a magic potion that requires minimum effort that will transform us with positive long term affects. There is however, compelling evidence to suggest that not only can we 'fake' our body language to change others perception of us (think Politicians), but overtime we can train ourselves physically to become the thing we are faking. To coin a phrase from Amy "Fake it 'til you become it' I.E Genuinely feel powerful, confident, more in control, less anxious etc.

Inspire: Growing Old Quote by Samuel Ullman

#Quote I really like:
Nobody grows old merely by living a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. – Samuel Ullman

How true.... 

Temple Grandin talk on Autism: 'The World needs all kinds of minds'

Although a couple of years old, I wanted to share this really inspiring TED talk I found from Temple Grandin about Autism.

Born with Autism herself, Temple discusses how she thinks in images, how this has helped her achieve/see things that perhaps other people who are wired differently don't and how we can nurture autistic children.

"Temple makes the case that the world needs people on the autism spectrum: visual thinkers, pattern thinkers, verbal thinkers, and all kinds of smart geeky kids." via Ted.

Autistic children (like any children) need role models, inspiration, mentors and dreams. Key to the success of an Autistic child maximising their skills is to teach them in a way that they understand. (This is key) If they are visual then use imagery, if they like cars and need to learn mathematics ask questions relating to cars. Great talk.

47 Mind-Blowing Psychological Facts You Should Know About Yourself

Found a great and informative article on Business Insider by Susan Weinschenk this morning all about the 100 psychological things people should know about people. There are loads of videos, and the article is really well considered / written. All in all, a great post.

Obviously, there is a general life benefit of understanding people, but aside from this the focus here is about understanding people for marketing purposes; so website design etc. This very much ties into my recent blog post Digital Marketing & Social Media - My thoughts on todays landscape where I state my belief that 'People' should be key to all marketing (and indeed a life philosphy) 

Here is the intro to wet your appetite:

"I’ve decided to start a series called 100 Things You Should Know about People. As in: 100 things you should know if you are going to design an effective and persuasive website, web application or software application.

 Or maybe just 100 things that everyone should know about humans!"

Full article here:47 Mind-Blowing Psychological Facts You Should Know About Yourself