Cognitive Surplus and Its Relevance to the Clinical Lab Industry

Clay Shirky, mentioned in a previous blog note (see: A New Model for Medical Conferences: Broad Choices and No Waiting), has hatched a new concept about the allocation of brain power by individuals. He calls it the cognitive surplus (see: GIN, TELEVISION, AND COGNITIVE SURPLUS). Scroll halfway down the page at this link to watch the short entertaining video of his lecture on this topic.

Here's the basis of his idea in brief. He asserts that the industrial revolution forced a large portion of the population from the farms into cites, leaving many of them bewildered and disoriented. Initially, they turned to gin  to provide solace for their despair. Fast forward to the latter half of the 20th century with shorter work weeks and many people with time on their hands. The population then turned to television and sitcoms to entertain themselves and absorb their excess leisure time.

Because of the web, we have now entered what Shirky refers to as the "architecture of participation." Modern media, better stated as media on the web, has three drivers: consume, produce, and share. This is the reason why people have contributed what he estimates as 100 million person-hours, with no monetary compensation, to the development of the Wikipedia. This is time that participants have carved out of their cognitive surplus and allocated to this collaborative web-based encyclopedia. He also tells the story of the four-year-old child of one of his friends who was watching television with her dad. She then began searching behind the TV for something. Her father asked: "What are you looking for? She replied: "The mouse." Children now expect all media to be participatory.

So what is the relevance of all of this to the clinical lab industry? The lesson is simple and relevant to all sectors of the industry: IVD manufacturers, LIS vendors, and hospital/reference lab personnel alike. Let's say that an organization needs information from its customers or lab professionals at-large about the use of one of their products. Or let's say that the organization is designing a new product and needs input from the marketplace. What's the best way to obtain such input?

The answer to this question is to set up a lab-oriented web site with a participatory component and pose the key questions to participants. They will provide the necessary information if the web environment is entertaining, collaborative, and stimulating. They will provide these answers at no cost by "donating" a small portion of their individual cognitive surplus. Oh, one other thing. Corporate or lab executives who themselves do not spend a couple of hours per day on the web will have no idea how to create such an environment on the web. Moreover, they will probably squelch the ideas of anyone in their organization who actually knows how to do the job because they will be unable to identify such a solution as correct.