The next time you go to the doctor, I think the stethoscope might best be placed on your head and not your heart.  Because, there's an epidemic out there and it's a serious problem!

Brain Fat. The emerging clinical, social and cognitive condition caused from lack of use.

Here's my concern:  We spend so much time talking about aerobic exercise, fat-free and BMI that we are missing the most essential organ that needs exercise--the BRAIN!!!!

Thinking hard...

An active brain is more healthy and drives synaptic development.  A brain that is less active is more likely to be associated with dementia and Alzheimer's disease (my theory).  Simply stated, use it or lose it!  Recent data from the journal Biological Psychiatry explains it:

Researchers used data from the Cognitive Function and Ageing Study, a large population-based study in the United Kingdom that has been following over 13,000  elderly individuals prospectively since 1991.

At the time of this study, 329 brains had been donated and were available for analysis. Brains were compared based on the individual's dementia status at death (yes or no) and cognitive lifestyle score, or CLS (low, middle, or high).

The three CLS groups did not differ among multiple Alzheimer's disease (AD) neuropathology measures, including plaques, neurofibrillary tangles, and atrophy. This means that cognitive lifestyle seems to have no effect on the brain changes typically seen in those with Alzheimer's disease.

However, an active cognitive lifestyle in men was associated with less cerebrovascular disease, in particular disease of the brain's microscopic blood vessels. An active cognitive lifestyle in women was associated with greater brain weight. In both men and women, high CLS was associated with greater neuronal density and cortical thickness in the frontal lobe.

"These findings suggest that increased engagement in stimulating activities are part of a lifestyle that is, overall, more healthy," commented Dr. John Krystal, Editor ofBiological Psychiatry. "Rather than specifically protecting the health of activated circuits, it seems that a more active lifestyle has general effects on brain health reflected in greater neuronal density and preservation of the blood supply to the brain."

"Overall, our research suggests that multiple complex brain changes may be responsible for the 'use it or lose it' effect," Valenzuela added.

With a globally aging society and the risk of dementia increasing significantly with age, dementia-prevention strategies are of rising importance. Understanding the mechanisms of cognitive enhancement through research such as this can help support and inform the development of effective strategies to enrich cognitive lifestyle and potentially reduce dementia risk.

More information: The article is "Multiple Biological Pathways Link Cognitive Lifestyle to Protection from Dementia" by Michael J. Valenzuela, Fiona E. Matthews, Carol Brayne, Paul Ince, Glenda Halliday, Jillian J. Kril, Marshall A. Dalton, Kathryn Richardson, Gill Forster, Perminder S. Sachdev, for the Medical Research Council Cognitive Function and Ageing Study (doi:10.1016/j.biopsych.2011.07.036). The article appears in Biological Psychiatry, Volume 71, Issue 9 (May 1, 2012).

And not thinking at all.

Exercising the brain is not just expanding language skills or playing chess.  There is another, even greater aspect to this story--grooming consciousness and the evolution of mind.  Now, take a deep breath, because this is important.  SYSTEMATIC INTROSPECTION (LIKE PRAYER AND MEDITATION) IS AN ESSENTIAL ASPECT OF HUMAN GROWTH AND TRANSCENDANCE.  Contemplation is a powerful tool that is well established in great religions of the world and helps us up the ladder of personal growth--moving into a full-established sense of self (the ego) and then moving higher up to trans-personal levels.  Introspection and meditation are hot topics in acedemic research too:

A study, published in the May 2011 issue of Neuroimage, suggests that one effect of all this focusing and refocusing is increased brain connectivity. Researchers at the University of California-Los Angeles compared the brain activity of volunteers who had finished eight weeks of mindfulness-based stress reduction training with that of volunteers who did not do such training. Functional MRI scans showed stronger connections in several regions of the meditators’ brains—especially those associated with attention and auditory and visual processing. Unfortunately, the study didn’t scan the volunteers’ brains before mindfulness training, so no one can say for sure that mindfulness training was responsible for the differences.

At Massachusetts General Hospital, researchers used MRI scans to document before and after changes in the brain’s gray matter—the “processing” neurons—associated with mindfulness meditation. The density of gray matter increased in regions governing such distinctly different activities as memory, self-awareness, and compassion, and decreased in the amygdala—the part of the brain associated with fear and stress.  More on  this intriguing research is in the April issue of Harvard Women’s Health Watch.

At the moment, scientists can only speculate about the relationship between these brain changes and the health benefits associated with mindfulness meditation. But the research adds to growing evidence that meditative practices can alter the body at a fundamental level—even, it turns out, at the level of our genes. Meditation elicits the “relaxation response,” a state of deep relaxation first described more than 35 years ago by mind-body pioneer Dr. Herbert Benson, currently emeritus director of the Benson-Henry Institute of Mind-Body Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital. Since then, Benson and his colleagues at Massachusetts General Hospital and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center have discovered that relaxation techniques (including meditation and yoga) turn certain sets of genes on and off in people who practice them regularly. Benson, who is the medical editor of Stress Management: Approaches for preventing and reducing stress.

So, next time you go to the gym,  fuss with your hair or spend hours searching for that perfect suit, think about grooming the very thing that defines you in a way Armini can never do--your brain.

"Hey--do I look fat in this brain?!"

Today's new star is YOU.

You can thank social media for that!  The old days of backroom PR machines cranking out publicity is long gone.  The publicity machines of today are FaceBook, Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube, to name just a few.  The typical "message control" has been replaced by social media "influence".  And we all know who drives that electronic press release--YOU!

So you want to be a STAR?

It's still a struggle, but today's world allows some new and interesting steps to gain your star on the digital walk of fame.    Here are the top ten steps along that path!

Top Ten Steps to Digital Stardom

1. Pick your topic.  You can make noise in almost any space in the digital world.  But if you pick your battle in a smaller market or area, you have a better chance at success.  Pop music might be your ultimate goal, but if you narrow the down the topic to something like live acoustic guitar performance, your chances increases significantly.  Simply put, you need to compete on terms that give you an advantage.

    

2. Focus. Find your specific "area of greatness" and STAY THERE!  The temptation to chase stardom is great and that will often lead you off task.  It's essential to own your specific turf!

    

3. Connect with like-minded people.  Social media is social.  You can use it to build a great network of friends who become your fans.  Start small and build!  You'll be surprised at the number and quality of people you can connect with.

    

4. Be original.  Whether you're a writer working on a novel or a singer trying to find an agent, your voice and content should reflect your own unique style.  Every element of your commmunication--from tweets to Facebook posts build your brand.  Make them stand OUT!

    

5. Be consistent.  Say it.  And say it again.  Social media is immediate, but also requires a consistent voice to provides an real impact.  Build a schedule or timeline to make certain that you remain active and involved.

    

6. Be patient.  Overnight success happens.  But it usually happens after a long trial of work, failure and missteps.  It only looks like it happened overnight!

    

7. Look for the "heat".  Aside from making your brand stand out, you can also attract attention by following the hot stories, ideas and issues around your topic.  Be a part of this dialogue!!!  Jump in an provide your perspective.  It's amazing how many "experts" are really people who just showed up and provided a sustained engagement in a topic or idea without any specific expertise.

    

8. Connect with powerful people.  It's OK to reach out to celebrities.  A sincere approach that adds value is the best way.  Don't be a stalker--contribute to the dialogue.

    

9. Wait to be arrogant!  Acting like a celebrity when you're not is a sure path to failure.  While your "brand" might require some bravado, be careful not to "jump the shark" when you're not quite Arthur Herbert Fonzarelli!

    

10. Accept gradual success.  Set some goals along the path to stardom.  Simple things like building a Twitter following of 1,000 or 1 blog entry a month is a great start.  Incremental success will build that basis for your achievement.

Like never before, the ability for an individual to tell a great, personal story is here.  All the tools are at your fingertips.  It's no longer about access to the convoluted and protected path to celebrity but more about YOUR individual efforts to break through the digital chatter and step onto the walk of fame.  And you can always follow me @JohnNosta for advice along the way!

Sound familiar?

These are the fundamental elements of marketing interactions. Furthermore, they establish the very essence of human communication. But wait a second. Are they really?

Malclom Gladwell knows. In his "modern classic" BLINK, he points out how visceral or gut feelings can drive our opinions and decisions. And these decisions live "beneath the surface" of our conscisouness. They lurk in our minds--twisting and turning primal thoughts, fears and desires only to emerge on their own and inexplicable terms. And in his words:

[Blink] is about rapid cognition, about the kind of thinking that happens in a blink of an eye. When you meet someone for the first time, or walk into a house you are thinking of buying, or read the first few sentences of a book, your mind takes about two seconds to jump to a series of conclusions. Well, "Blink" is a book about those two seconds, because I think those instant conclusions that we reach are really powerful and really important and, occasionally, really good. You could also say that it's a book about intuition, except that I don't like that word. In fact it never appears in "Blink." Intuition strikes me as a concept we use to describe emotional reactions, gut feelings--thoughts and impressions that don't seem entirely rational. But I think that what goes on in that first two seconds is perfectly rational. It's thinking--its just thinking that moves a little faster and operates a little more mysteriously than the kind of deliberate, conscious decision-making that we usually associate with "thinking." In "Blink" I'm trying to understand those two seconds. What is going on inside our heads when we engage in rapid cognition? When are snap judgments good and when are they not? What kinds of things can we do to make our powers of rapid cognition better?

Tor Norretranders is a Danish science journalist, who attempts to tie together the results of several scientists into an explanation of how consciousness works in his book THE USER ILLUSION. He comes at it from an information processing point of view, treating the human brain as a computer, while pulling in results from all over the world of science. It's a challenging, but great read!

The basic premise that he puts together is that consciousness, the actual thought process where we think about what we are doing, is a very slow inefficient process. His estimate, based on several experiments, is that consciousness is limited to processing about 20 bits/second. Compared to the chips of today which are up in the gigahertz range (billions of bits/second), it seems like a truly paltry number. How can we reconcile this with our known ability to outperform computers at many tasks?

Norretranders postulates that most of the work is done at a subconscious level. Nothing too surprising, there. But what was interesting to me was the approach he used. In his theory, the whole point of the subconscious parts of the brain is to reduce the information flow into and out of the brain down to a rate which our feeble 20 bits/sec consciousness can handle. He points out that we perceive about 12 million bits/second (10 million from vision, 1 million from touch, and the rest scattered among the other senses). That's an enormous amount of information to process. But when we look around, we don't see 10 million pixels. Looking from my computer chair, I see my computer, my desk, the windows of the room, etc. He calls this phenomenon chunking information into symbols. To quote him, "symbols are the Trojan horses by which we smuggle bits into our consciousness."

So, where does the real driver of action live?

Our brain is really a series of "perceptive compartments" that have evolved over time. As we have "advanced" our cognitive abilities, the nature of processing information has changed. But here's the central fact: THE ADVANCEMENTS ARE NOT INDEPENDENT, BUT BUILD UPON EACH OTHER. AND PRIOR LEVELS OF PRIMITIVE THOUGHT ARE STILL ACTIVE AND OFTEN, IN CONTROL. So, our high-level cognitive function--that we hold so near and dear--is really held hostage by our mammalian and reptilian brains!

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Language: a corruptuted surrogate for what's really happening!

Don's ask your customer what they're thinking. This verbal response will be filtered and corrupted by evolution and higher processing. It might be better to measure direct neural function, facial coding, eye-tracking (including pupil action) and other biometrics that can help disconnect the "external" response from the more relevant "internal" driver. "Words and language" don't provide the entire picture - in fact, verbal is only 23% of typical communication so it makes one wonder why 90% of research metrics focus on it!

Traditional market research focuses on the verbatim and conscious aspects of the brain whereas neuromarketing highlights the subconscious response to stimuli. Neuromarketing’s raison d’être derives from the fact that the brain expends only 2 percent of its energy on conscious activity, with the rest devoted largely to unconscious processing. Thus, neuromarketers believe, traditional market research methods — like consumer surveys and focus groups — are inherently inaccurate because the participants can never articulate the unconscious impressions that whet their appetites for certain products. (More great information can be found at http://www.revealingengagement.com)

References:

1. The Reptillian Brain: http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sumer_anunnaki/reptiles/reptiles14.htm.

2. The User Illusion. http://www.nehrlich.com/book/userillusion.html

3. Emonalytics. http://www.emonalytics.com/#! ]]> http://www.johnnosta.com/2012/05/the-fundamental-marketing-dilemma-language-is-a-lie/feed/ 1 http://www.johnnosta.com/2012/05/slackers-meets-activism-slacktivism-but-is-it-really-a-bad-thing/ http://www.johnnosta.com/2012/05/slackers-meets-activism-slacktivism-but-is-it-really-a-bad-thing/#comments Thu, 03 May 2012 18:03:04 +0000 John Nosta http://www.johnnosta.com/?p=984 OK, I'm guilty. At least partly guilty.

I've jumped on the bandwagon of support for certain causes based upon a very superficial understand of the facts. I found this very telling and interesting infographic that helps build the story! http://www.onlyinfographic.com/2012/the-rise-of-the-slacktivist/

And Wikipedia adds to this story. Slacktivism (sometimes slactivism or slackervism) is a term formed out of the words slacker and activism. The word is usually considered a pejorative term that describes "feel-good" measures, in support of an issue or social cause, that have little or no practical effect other than to make the person doing it feel satisfaction. The acts tend to require minimal personal effort from the slacktivist. The underlying assumption being promoted by the term is that these low cost efforts substitute for more substantive actions rather than supplementing them, although this assumption has not been borne out by research. ^[1]

Slacktivist activities include signing Internet petitions,^[2] joining a community organization without contributing to the organization's efforts, copying and pasting of Social Networkstatuses or messages or altering one's personal data or avatar on social network services. Research is beginning to explore the connection between the concept and modern activism/advocacy, as groups are increasingly using social media to facilitate civic engagement and collective action.^[3]

But is it all bad?

I'm not really sure...and I'm hoping that it's not. Could this "light" form of activism be the gateway for a higher level of responsibility? There are many pitfalls to engaging in a cause based more upon emotion than reason. But then again, I'm reminded of various protest movement that were driven from the heart. Movement that engaged with a visceral connection that moved millions. Vietnam, the civil rights movement, woman's suffrage, the peace movement of the 1960's are all part of activist movement that resonated, often times, from the emotional reality that "this is just right". The foreign policy implications of a war or the local protest impact on small businesses were lost of the "urgency of the moment". Today, that urgency is often expressed electronically. And the peace signs of yesterday are the Facebook and Twitter posts of today!

Tread lightly and think about what you're doing!

The simple reality is that people and movements need to do their home work. The rapid gain of popular support as seen in slacktivism comes with a significant risk. This mainstream popularity will also drive significant public scrutiny that could just as easily kill a cause as invent one. Simply put, nothing can crush an invalid or phony cause faster than social media. So, I'm hoping that there is a element of optimism in slackitvism and the social movements of tomorrow aren't compromised by lazy minds and lazy bodies.

Here it is...

If this were a beer commercial, John would be The Most Interesting Man in the World,” He may be, but he’s almost certainly “The Most Interesting Man in Modern Advertising.” To borrow from another current consumer campaign, John seems to know what’s going to happen 30 seconds before it does. Or 30 minutes or 30 days. Because John is second to none when it comes to staying on the cutting edge of advertising, technology, social media, and health-related advancements. If I don’t run into John sometime during the day, I seek him out to get 3 minutes of insight and inspiration, all served up with the inimitable bundle of creative genius that is John.

During creative concepting, John uses his experience, insights and scientific acumen to get inside the head of the physician or the patient. To paint a picture of not simply what a therapy does, but what makes it new, better, innovative and relevant in a crowded marketplace. And nobody helps paint the picture like John. He brings out the best in his writers and art directors to conjure up concepts that bring the “ah ha!” moment to life again and again. It’s a process that reminds us of why we got into advertising: to create riveting communications that bring and keep brands at the agency.

If you take one person with you on a pitch, make it John. He is a truly gifted presenter; perhaps the most natural speaker I’ve ever heard. He offers prospective clients a glimpse of the past, a snapshot of the moment, and a glimmer of the future. His intimate knowledge of science and medicine, coupled with his understanding of strategy and tactics and the market into which a product is entering, is more than impressive. It’s prescient. He’ll discuss the brand and its science, tie it to a strategy that will advance the brand in the marketplace, display the team’s spot-on creative in his own animated, motivating way, and wrap it all up with a pertinent quote from David Ogilvy, or Leonardo Da Vinci, or Winston Churchill. Brilliant. A renaissance man.

Now that you’ve seen the stars, let’s bring you back down to earth. John is respectful, team-oriented and loyal. All of the qualities you’d want in a friend or teammate, wrapped in a package of excitement, energy and wit. He makes Ogilvy CommonHealth a better place to work, to learn and to grow.

John is the man.

Thanks Doug, right back at you!!

Some of you might remember grade school when the teacher told you that you could NEVER have a zero in the denominator of a fraction. You just can't. Later...maybe in high school or college you might have heard that the "equation blows up" if the bottom part of a fraction is zero.

Hum. I guess we should blame the ZERO! But this over-simplification hides a wonderful and rather profound concept...

OK--A side bar. The actual number zero was introduced by the early Indian culture around the year 600. The first discussion of zero was in the Brahmagupta and was very cool indeed. This text captured many advanced mathematical concepts and was entirely in verse!! Its translated name is "The Opening of the Universe". Wow! Dose that conger up some thinking that can easily put someone on the fast track to Divinity?!

Now, let's get back to nothing. Ahhh...I mean zero.

0/x = 0 (as long as x isn't zero).

Consider n/x, where n is any number great than zero and we let x approach zero, but never quite get there. For example: 1/2, 1/1, 1/.5, 1/.1....etc. What's happening is that the value of the fraction is getting larger and larger. The smaller we make the bottom of the fraction, the bigger the result! We can go as small as we like...and the result is a bigger and bigger number....a number that approaches....ready....infinity!!

So we see, dividing by zero allows us to have a mathematical articulation of the infinite! The equation certainly blows up...but in a rich, intellectual way.

Talking about infinity...well, is conceptually infinite. The association with time, distance, and the metaphysical is a very accessable path to touch the hand, dare I say, of the Creator.

Infinity is the biblical concept of eternity.  Our eternal "life" is not "of time" but "beyond time". Simply put, infinity is that timeless sliver of now that lives between the past (only a memory) and the future (not here yet).

So, divide by zero and experience the wonder of mathematical divinity.

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Here's the idea.

Success path #1. Straight and focused.

Success path #2. Whimsical and and playful (although some might call it random and misdirected).

But at the heart of this commentary was the notion that creativity lives in the more random pattern and that the path to success is never a straight line. Ok, so much for that.

THE ENDPOINTS ARE THE SAME!

The magic of the unbridled path is really two fold. First is the path itself. This magical journey takes you to the Disneyland of imagination with stops along the way that include a bit of hell and a bit happiness. But along this uncharted course you can often find new insights, unexpected learnings and even unimaginably wild endpoints that were never on your map! So revel in the journey...it's often better than the destination itself.

The second, and most bothersome error in this graphic, is the sad expression of result. Both paths find their way to the very same spot. Yikes! The bean counters would love this and leverage this "pathway" as proof positive that all the creative musings are just a waist of time!! They would argue that you simple just need to get from A to B and the straight forward approach is both economical and efficient! Heaven help creative thinkers who clearly understand the role of imagination and contemplation.

Ready, Fire, Aim!

My inclination is to jump off the ledge and build wings on the way down. And while most rational thinkers will tell you that the flight from that ledge is predictable--straight down, I beg to differ. My cognitive wings come in all sizes and shapes and help me take flight far from that ominous bottom where bean-counters stand and look up with disdain and confusion. Watch out below!!!

Robert Frost knows...

The Road Not Taken

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Does Moore's Law apply to advances in the biological sciences?  Will advances like artificial hips, cardiac pacemakers and spinal stimulators for pain be only the beginning of the realization of how humanity will be "re-engineered"" to take fuller and richer advantage of what science offers us?

Ray Kurzweil certainly thinks so.  So does the venture capital industry and many other thinkers, companies, physicians and patients. A quick trip to Wikipedia fills us in.

 Kurzweil's technological "singurlarity advances the idea that life is changing at a rate that will soon change the very notion of humanity Technological singularity refers to the hypothetical future emergence of greater-than-human intelligence through technological means.  Since the capabilities of such intelligence would be difficult for an unaided human mind to comprehend, the occurrence of a technological singularity is seen as an intellectual event horizon, beyond which events cannot be predicted or understood. Proponents of the singularity typically state that an "intelligence explosion  is a key factor of the Singularity where superintelligences design successive generations of increasingly powerful minds.

For some, the future looks like this...

Simply stated, will the capacity of medical technology surpass the intellectual capacity of caregivers and patients to make the emotional leap embrace this change?

What emerges is The Frankenstein Syndrome

And Mashable, it a recent report, advances the "horror":

Technophobes beware — the Eccerobot may be your worst nightmare. A team of scientists have created arobot inspired by the human build, so it can act more like living, breathing people

The Eccerobot team aims to create robots with bones and joints, making movements more rounded and not so robotic. The idea behind the project is that human capabilities stem from the intricacies of our skeletal and muscular systems.

The Eccerobot, having muscles and bones — forearm rotators and shoulder blades — will allow for complex movements. Copying the mechanics of our intricate bodies, the scientists helped relieve some of the limitations of robotic bodies.

Typical robots are built with standard engineering techniques with stiff parts. Their Eccerobot counterparts with muscles and tendons will be able to walk and move their arms with more speed and rhythm.

“You can use the passive compliance to make it absorb the energy in the right way to allow for safe interaction and to store energy in the muscles to produce fast movement,” explained Hugo Gravato Marques with the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory in Switzerland, in a YouTube video.

The completed robot model now is a half-torso that sits on a mobile platform. It has arms with numerous parts that detect strain. Bones are made from a thermoplastic material that morphs into shape with heat. It can hold objects, shake hands and lift its arm smoothly

Other parts include high-speed, high-definition cameras for eyes. For ears, the robot is equipped with an audio-detection system that allows for voice commences. Thinking touch sensory is impossible for robots? Not quite — the researchers have even equipped the Eccerobot with “force-sensitive-resistors” on its fingertips and palms.

The creators of the Eccerobot include the University of Sussex, the Artificial Intelligence Lab of the University of Zurich and the University of Belgrade.

The next step is to improve the robot’s movement, interaction and controlled manipulation. The scientists believe that this will pave way for a new era in robotics, according to Eccerobot.com.

Perhaps the reality is that we two curves to consider.  The first is the rapid--almost exponential--growth in technology and solutions to health.  The "Fantastic Journey" that many watched as a science fiction movie, establishes a real blueprint for today's practice of medicine.  The implantation, injection and ingestion of technology makes us well...and makes us...bionic, to use another word that is a throwback to a  TV show's of yesterday.

The second curve might even be more complicated than the technology itself--the human mind.  The capacity for our emotional thinking to change and adoption is real, but often slow.  Issues such as fear, ignorance, superstition and cultural biases drive action in ways that defy logic.   And add health and illness to this issue and emotion often leads the way.  The sick, those in pain, those who care for loved ones who are ill are all subject to emotional drivers that complicate the decision process.  What's left is the profound element of the self. The me.  The humanity that, after all, defines us.

But technology isn't the monster

The reality is that Frankenstein is a myth.  But some medical technology still exist in this context.  And in the final analysis, the monster is the myth itself. Innovation is path forward. However, that path may be obstructed by our fears and ignorance.  It's time that the technology we embrace and hold in our hands (yep, your smart phone) becomes the mainstream reality of clinical care.  Yet the paths of innovation and emotional adoption may keep these two apart. Only time will tell...

We are no longer pushed a message in a linear fashion. Today, we communicate and learn in a vibrant, two-way, (three-way, four way, etc...) interactive dynamic which touches our lives in ways like never before.

But one aspect of human communication--gesturing remains an essential and enduring component.

Enter E-TICULATION, the e-version of gesticulation.

Gesticulation is the act of gesture...and now this notion of the computer gesture is emerging; living in technology like the Wii and further driven in part by the ipad. Touch, push, move, stretch, and point are now becoming part of the body language of the computer. It's applications in real life are significant. From teaching a child, to professional one-on-one selling; this will become the new standard of interactive communication.

The interesting thing is that this new method isn't just a step forward in technology, but a step back to humanity. It integrates the device with the individual. It's the Internet that you hold like a pet. It's an extension of yourself and establishes a direct neural connection with the way your brain works. This is not to be underestimated!!!

It is here and it's here to stay. It is called e-ticulation, and it touched you here first!

Fast.

The equity that will matter most isn't green (as in money) but is grey (as in grey matter).  As the world emerges from the decades of over-spending and over-indulging we will see that what really establishes us as winners is our mind.  And it's that ability to process information...to think...that will be the currency that will drive innovation and change. 

Not the dollar.  Not the pound.  Not the peso.  Not the dinar.  Not the yuan.

The currency of the future will be our cognitive ability.  And as technology shrinks the globe and reduces borders, all we have left is the stark reality of intellect.  So, while it might be cool to drive the hot car, or even cooler to be an empty-headed cast member of a reality show--cars rust &  fashion changes and an empty-headed reality star...well...generally stays empty headed.

So, think on my friends.  Your survival depends on it...