Saturday, March 06, 2010

Using the Web in a right brain way



Pivot is a bit like how the right brain sorts and compares data, looking for patterns, anomalies and relationships. Like the right hemisphere, Pivot relies on global processing and dealing with generalities. I suspect as it becomes more used, Pivot will also specialize in finding patterns that can be described visually, but are difficult to describe in words. And like the right brain, Pivot arranges visual stimuli by appearance, using stored data to arrange parts.

Our right brains take simultaneous streams of information and created a master collage of that moment, using images, sounds, tastes, smells and feelings (both tactile and emotional). It manipulates those streams of information in ways not unlike Pivot's algorithms. What is amazing is that the right hemisphere is better at catching errors than the left. It is easier to prime, benefiting from even the weakest association. It is also easier to update with new information.

The "Dawn of Reason" gave humanity the opportunity to hone many left-brain dependent processes. I foresee this as the "Dawn of Global Analysis", which will hone many right-brain dependent functions in the decades and maybe centuries to come. I look forward to the other data analysis tools that will be spawned by this.

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