Virtual Mindfulness

Mind streams. Even when we sleep, a bunch of stuff is going on in our brains. When we dream, we notice dreams have a certain amorphous or fluid quality. When we are awake, most of us have a running commentary that we often don't pay attention to, but it's there. Mind streams.

Digitized information flows stream as well. Sometimes we are not tuned in to various streams, so we aren't picking up anything meaningful. At other times, the information comes in faster than we can handle. This analogy between digitized technology and "information biology"--the ways our nervous systems and brains work--fascinates me.

Marx brought up the interesting relationship between humans and their modes of production. Essentially, we shape how we do things, and the ways we do things shape us in turn. In a little over one hundred years in America, we have moved from a primarily labor-based agricultural mode of production to industrialized to consumer-oriented to information production. We are currently working on moving into a more integrated-virtual sense of what is going on economically and socially.

As modes of production changed, training for jobs has changed, and management styles have changed. Management used to focus on getting the most out of unskilled agricultural laborers, then training workers to mechanical means and streamlining the mechanized processes, then to integrating a consumer focus, and most recently, the business writers are talking about "knowledge workers"--workers whose primary output has less to do with their physical activity and more to do with training and know-how. As modes of production have changed, workers' needs, demands, and desires have changed as well. What do knowledge workers need in order to do well? What increases functionality and innovativeness in brain functioning and productive output? It's fascinating in its complexity. How are you, your company, your nation doing with information biology and cultural technology (the insides of technological change)?

With information management, we are especially dealing in selection, organization, presentation, and communication. How we do that is important for knowledge workers, and this has been recognized from the beginning. With increasing virtual access and integration, not only are we dealing directly with massive amounts of information and people with similar areas of specialization to ourselves, but we increasingly have to integrate specialized work in one field or area with specialized information in another field. The human or cultural technology of collaboration is now being economically driven in advanced areas of the economy. So how do brains and people function best in collaboration?

While these massive amounts of increasing streams of information (various fields of expertise) can seem like intimidating Goliaths, the interaction changes when we stop trying to slay Goliath and learn how to work together. As an enemy, no one wants to fight the giant. But as collaborators, giants are good to have around. These streams of information that are fields of expertise are no more or less threatening or fruitful than what happens in your own mind constantly. The fact that we tend not to be aware of all that potential for good or harm does not make it more or less relevant. (What would it take to send you into a panic attack or a catatonic numbness? We don't usually fear these things, but most people don't understand them either. What could happen if you worked near optimal mental-feeling input and output every day of your life?)

I've diverged into at least two topics now--collaboration/communications and virtual mindfulness. Back to mindfulness. While mindfulness has been described in many ways, I prefer to see it as a quality of awareness that exhibits a balance between focus and relaxation. I disagree with the idea that mindfulness is the opposite of multi-tasking; focus is the opposite of multi-tasking, but mindfulness is not just focus. Mindfulness can be applied to one thing at a time. When this happens, it may feel like focus. But we also eventually become aware that mind streams, and it is quite possible to be mindful of that streaming. When we can remain focused on this stream as a singular thing, I would call that mindfulness as well. People often talk about being in "flow" or "in the zone", and this can happen more or less mindfully.

When people watch TV, they veg, not flow. That's fine, relaxation is good for everything that lives. But when we deal in interactive mediums, we have a sense of centeredness or self or purpose that allows a mix of passive receptivity and action. What's more, with digitized, electrical media like the Web, we can feel a little space from our own emotional reactions and comparisons with other people if we choose to. The ability to remain focused without a massive amount of effort--which usually happens when people are interested in what they're doing--is that balance between focus and relaxation that I mentioned. Usually, positive emotional energy feeds psychological performance, and avoiding negative psychological energy outputs can also feed performance.

The potential for virtual mindfulness to increase in a collaborative context is fascinating, and this could only happen with a massive amount of options. If there were less options, less information involved, people would spend less time focused on what interests them in the moment. What we do know, concerning innovative knowledge "production", is that people need a rich context to draw from and a sense of personal interest. When interest wanes, attention suffers, production suffers, people get bored or agitated.

In dealing with information coming over the Web, we recognize that it may be coming from a computer, a person like us or different in impressive ways, child molesters, hackers, nearly anyone. This encourages a certain deliberate point of view where we take the information basically at face value and decide whether we can create with it. Rather than face-to-face emotional reactivity and status/power comparisons, we can more easily try out a balanced point of view. Virtual reality becomes an interesting practice arena.