Johnnie, I love the idea of “!” and “?” in your comment under the last post. David Weinberger’s idea reminds me of the movie What the Bleep Do We Know!? It uses both points in the title of the movie. Have you seen it? If not, it’s worth checking out. The movie explores the connection between quantum mechanics, neurology and human behavior in an interesting alchemy.

One of the segments that really struck me was how our neural networks in our brain work. As we all know, the human brain is able to function with a high level of complexity. We can react to numerous stimuli in our environment at the same time, and can be incredibly intuitive, making decisions on the fly about what things mean and what should be done about them. Hence, our intuition is fueled by repeated experiences, from which we form associations. Learning from our experiences, our responses become programmed for new situations.

The movie suggests that the neurological basis for this kind of learning can be understood in terms of a process can called “long-term potentiation.” This new age sounding idea means that connections between nerve cells are strengthened when stimulated repeatedly.

So, if you have a meeting every Monday morning at 10:00 AM at which donuts are available, your stomach will trained to start to grumble soon before ten. (remember Pavlov’s dogs?). A neural pathway linking the meeting and donuts is established and strengthened through repetition. This is classical psychological conditioning. The problem develops when we become trapped with the habituated activities of our lives, going to meetings, answering emails, etc. making it much more difficult from breaking with your routine and get out of our offices to interact with others.

It’s hard to change anything, let alone co-create, if we are physically addicted to our routines. Maybe companies and brands also suffer from long-term potentiation, making it more difficult to change and evolve with the environment around them.