Item #56: 'Elementary' Distributed Cognition

Distributed Cognition. Fancy words. It’s a fancy concept. But in true ‘me’ form, I’ll strive to share it in simplicity.

Distributed cognition can be summarized and understood as 'a series of distributed elements in an environment whereby there is some social component, in that the components have various and different properties but come together to work as a system of memory primarily, but also of knowledge and understanding’ – in order to achieve a cognitive function’.

Even more basically, distributed cognition is a process of thinking, computing and organizing that makes a system work to accomplish a cognitive task. And embedded is the notion that an effective system of distributed cognition makes a system smarter.

It can get very intricate; there are lots of moving ‘factors’: engineered usage of the environment; socially accessible information; physical representations of information or memory; adaptable or flexible forms of information i.e.: visual, kinetic or auditory; symbolic physical elements i.e.: altars, activity centers and artifacts.

But here instead I’ll provide a real-world example in hopes that tangibility explains better than any theory.

THE HOME-SCHOOL COMMUNICATION SYSTEM A.K.A. ‘ELEMENTARY’ DISTRIBUTED COGNITION (PARDON THE PUN)

My daughter’s school has a system of distributed cognition to manage communication between the school/ teacher and home/ parent. This home-school communication system works to ensure that my daughter is in control of and responsible for communication between home and school, however it is a system that supports her in that process, providing information to teacher and to parent without relying exclusively on her as the sole conveyor or the sole memory source. There are three key components of this system: The Red Folder, The Schoolbag and The Lunchbox.

The Red Folder is a plastic coated folder with two interior pockets, one on the left and another on the right. This Red Folder has spatial references that indicate the role of different kinds of information: the left side of the folder holds documents routing from school to home, while the right side of the folder holds documents routing from home to school. Because of this spatial reference, without having to rely on reading skills, my daughter is able to immediately discern whether there is an action she needs to take i.e.: provide information to parent or teacher, simply by noting whether a side of the folder holds documents. This spatial component of the system also allows parent and teacher to immediately be able to determine whether documents that were intended to be routed were successfully routed. If a document remains in the Red Folder for longer than a day, it becomes an alert to the routing party that communication has not been successful and that investigation is needed. This Red Folder provides social access to information, which accommodates family systems that are varied. In my daughter’s case, she spends half her time with me (mother) and half her time with my ex-husband (father) and his new family (step-mom); she also has a day-time caregiver. The Red Folder serves to make all parties aware of information being transmitted without interrupting its primary role to route information between home and school.

With the Red Folder, my daughter is unequivocally the center of the communication system; while it’s protocols create awareness for the larger group and ensure communication flows across many parties, her involvement is central.

The Red Folder interacts well with another important component of the Home-School Communication System: The Schoolbag. The Schoolbag serves as an important component of this Home-School Communication system. The Schoolbag also carries information between School and Home, by transporting the Red Folder as outlined above, but also because it transports The Lunchbox.

The Lunchbox conveys messages to the student each day when it is accessed, whether that be via a loving note from Mum or the implicit message conveyed by providing a fruit snack instead of cookies. It also conveys information to the lunch room monitors; the level to which it might be considered a healthy or well- packed lunch informs the monitors regarding the level of care being delivered by the home environment and an observed change in the standard of lunch by the monitors might prompt a need to investigate. For the parent in the home environment, The Lunchbox contains artifacts to be viewed at end of day which provide information to the parent: is she eating well, is she eating all components packed, are quantities being packed sufficient.

There are more factors in this system of distributed cognition (but I don’t want to bore any further if that’s a risk factor): there is an activity center in the school environment as well as the home environment and an altar in the home environment, all which bring spatial and time-oriented cues to the system, meaning they indicate spaces and cue to times where and when activities occur and transfers of information happen.

I suspect the school is unaware of the factors they have built into this system or the degree to which they have, perhaps unintentionally, created a system of distributed cognition. But it’s a great system: functional for all parties and supportive of the central user. Some individual teachers at the school have started employing technology to facilitate Home-School Communication – and, while there are clear benefits, I already see risks that may end up degrading the strengths of the ‘low tech’ system that is currently functioning.

This is the potential value of this understanding for you, reader: awareness of these systems functioning in your everyday. What distributed cognition systems are currently functioning in your life? In your workplace? What is driving their effectiveness? Where is the room for improvement? And what risks might be at play with the integration of technology? Awareness is the first step to understanding, change, growth…most of anything good that happens in life.

Item #55: Ode to the Imagination

Oh morning minutes,

When the eyes peek open,

And shut again as quick.

For the time is not yet,

For the day to begin.

Not yet to wash the night away,

Not yet to mask the markings,

Or taste the drops of starting.

No return to slumber,

The unconscious wasteful place.

Here to rest in respite,

In empty random space.

Here to rest in white land,

Where the mind becomes the canvas,

The sky has different colours,

The stars come out in day.

The leaves have blades between them,

Reflections that can sing.

The drapes blow words in poet form,

And church bells signal wonder,

His bark says hi, good morning,

Her smile says I am gold.

Her sighting is the first one,

His glance in 40 degrees,

Cars cease in clearing.

Situation mere detail,

Alteration a welcome demise,

Future is dotted with daisies,

Time is to arise.

Item #54: Recalibrating Perspective

When I go away on vacation, I look for a reset experience: to relax, to down-gear, to chill-out. My most recent vacation was none of those things. It was hectic, unfamiliar and stimulating, even over-stimulating. I visited about 19 places in 14 days. I jockeyed between English, French and Italian, drove a rented manual shift car up steep hillsides and on extended suspended Italian coastal highways. I ate new foods, saw new places, drove new streets and swam new waters every day. I loved every minute of it, but a reset was not my experience.

My experience was a recalibration of perspective.

Universally Human

What became very apparent to me amidst all the unfamiliarity was the clear similarity of the worlds we humans have built for ourselves in almost every corner of the world. The same key cornerstones of daily life define us all. Interactions with people: talking, smiling, laughing, yelling, hellos and good-byes, pleases and thank yous, regardless of the language. Eating and drinking: sometimes a cheeseburger and a Coke, sometimes a pizza and a beer, sometimes baguette with cheese and a glass of white wine. Sleeping: whether it be perched on a hillside with windows the size of doors, or looking over a town square where blinds are drawn to protect against the harsh sun, or in an expansive brick construction inside a gated community. Driving: tiny cars up steep terrain, roaring sports cars on sweeping mountainous highways, or sports utility vehicles along spacious suburban streetlight-laden roads.

This is the daily life that defines us all: people, food, shelter, transport. And there’s more. But this is universal. And in the hierarchy of life, these indicate the deepest, most fundamental, most authentic, most important needs of humans.

Creators of 'Work'

Somewhere along the way, we must remember that we – humans – created something that we believed would improve the experience of this daily life I’ve just outlined. We created a tool that we believed would contribute to a betterment of this daily life: we created ‘Work’. ‘Work’ provided a number of outcomes: something to occupy our time, the creation of products and services that we believed would improve the experience of our daily lives, and ultimately through the development of this ‘Work’ into a structured system of activity, an economy. With the creation of Work, we believed we would create greater prosperity for ourselves, a more prosperous daily life.

Prosperous = Success or Economic Well-Being (Mirriam-Webster)

Let’s stay connected to the hierarchy I am clarifying here: we – humans – created Work i.e.: the manufacturing of products and the provision of services – and the consequent system of an economy - in order to occupy ourselves, provide the things we wanted or needed to improve our daily experience of life, in order to achieve greater prosperity. A human creation, Work and The Economy was intended to be a tool in our service, in service of improvement of our daily life experience.

The Recalibration

And that was the recalibration of perspective experience of my vacation. It struck me that we have lost sight of a) the original role and purpose of Work and The Economy in service of our human daily life experience and b) the hierarchical place that Work and The Economy were originally intended to play in this experience of our daily lives.

We – humans – the creators of this tool - need to raise our awareness around both of these things in order to recapture, reframe and recreate the original intentions of Work: manufacturing, services and The Economy. We – humans – the creators of this tool – need to recall that Work was created to be a tool to serve us, not the other way around. We have let the machine (The Economy) enslave us, to take on a life of it’s own, removed from its role and its purpose. We have let the machine (The Economy) separate us further from the things it was originally intended to bring us closer to. We have let the machine (The Economy) be taken away from it’s real master – everyday people – and be controlled by elites who want to abuse and manipulate it for means that are excessive and unnecessary.

We are all essentially and universally human. We talk, love, yell, eat, sleep, drink, travel and more. Work and The Economy is our creation, and we must be it’s master, not vice versa. Its role is to occupy us, to manufacture products and provide services that will improve our daily life experience so that our lives are more prosperous i.e.: successful defined by well-being.

I recalibrated my perspective over the last two weeks. And determined that this is what our economic system requires as well. A recalibration of perspective.