Cognitive Boxes

How does the structuring and categorization of knowledge promote and/or hinder innovation and creativity?

How does the structure of educational systems help and/or hurt new developments across multidisciplinary solution spaces?

What are the most effective processes that we can apply to allow us to expand upon our understanding of nature and society across many specialized fileds of study?

To better understand and/or solve complex problems that may not fit within the purview of any one discipline or field of study we must look across disciplinary boundaries from both inside and outside the perspectives created by our own structuring of information.

Imagine applying systems theory and systems engineering principles to centers of knowledge.

Imagine using computers to unleash us from own cognitive boxes.

Distributed or Networked Computing

Recent article in MIT Technology Review discusses use of donated compute time from thousands of individuals to help in cancer research. Project at University of Washington follows lead of SETI project in trying to harness the power of idle processors.

Does Telecommuting Hinder Creativity?

Does telecommuting hinder creativity among groups?
This is a question that must be answered as industries allow more and more work to be moved from central offices to the home based agreements or other individualized off-site arrangements. Creativity sparked from face to face interaction among small teams is the hallmark of many types of knowledge industry activities. From journalism to design to software engineering to advertising, many categories of work that require continuous streams of new ideas and innovative approaches often do better when small groups interact in such a way as to aggregate and then distill multiple perspectives. Is this done more effectively in person? My opinion: probably.