Group Mind Mapping - The Fourth Portal
Years ago a group of NASA scientists in the Apollo program were working on how to land people on the moon. But when the program was first announced in the early sixties, there were whole new technologies that had to be developed, because no one had done anything like this before. So there were devilishly complex problems that these scientists and engineers had to solve.
There was one group that had brainstorming sessions that looked like this: A bunch of scientists sat in a conference room and were presented with a complex problem. And for a while there was complete silence. Then they would start chattering about rather inconsequential things, like sports, the weather, what movies they’d seen. Then the chatter would die down, and there would be 20 minutes of pure silence. Then– some scientist would yell Aha! I have the answer! And others would chime in and improve whatever he or she had said. And before you know it they would have solved this difficult challenge. There's something there about right-left brain integration, and letting the resting brain find emergent solutions.
We want to re-create that kind of group brainstorming. It’s much easier noawadays with AI, especially when you have a shared onscreen focus group, all creating and expanding a mind map together.
One of our favorite AIs for this task is generateideas.ai. It is ideal for group sessions, wherein each human member bats ideas back and forth with other people and with AI. When everything clicks, it feels like biological intelligence and artificial intelligence have morphed into one gigantic, super-capable mind.
Let's look at a project that came directly from one of these AI-assisted group Mind Mapping sessions. This is what we call the Tigray protocol. In 2022 there was a Civil War in Ethiopia between the national government and the Tigray region. Both sides suffered atrocities, and this photo by Eduardo Soteras of AFP documents the aftermath of one of them.
These are women whose husbands have just been killed by the Ethiopian army. Our group was considering using this photo as a way to share the plight of these people and raise money for refugees through UNHCR.
Then we asked a mind mapping group using generateideas.ai for the best way to to this.
Here's what it suggested. We found that by applying various filters to this photo, we could evoke different moods. And even more fascinating, some versions generated more interest among the public and brought in more donations when used in public appeals.
Can you guess which versions moved people the most, so that they gave more?
Actually, the images are displayed in descending order, with the ones that garnered the most donations at the top.
We are at the very beginning of the history of group mind mapping assisted by AI. We can't wait to see what the future brings.
