OUR APPROACH – THE METHODOLOGY

At InsightNG, our vision is to empower people with the ability to advance all critical thinking and apply previously unforeseen and unimaginable insights.  To enable this to happen, we have drawn on years of experience and various trans-disciplinary areas of research to come up with an understanding of how to foster the formation of human insights in the ever increasing complexity of the 21st Century.

We do this by augmenting and enhancing your 21st Century Learning skills by providing you with a trusted, super-smart, virtual best friend that is always working in the background for you; making sure you are better informed than everyone else with applicable knowledge.

Since knowledge is profoundly social, we have taken a strong and balanced focus on harnessing both a human and technology based approach, which is summarized in the following visual:

Once we had achieved the understanding we needed, we were able to develop the underlying methodology that would drive our platform development and desired user engagement.  We call this methodology our ICE Methodology, which is shown in the image below.

NOTE: You can mouse over each of the blue parts to learn more.

To get started, give the Canvas a name that describes the topic or problem you are working through.

 

This helps you focus your thinking.

Identify and create the visual Elements that form what you know so far (usually nouns).

 

Visually expressing the pieces of the puzzle helps set the context that can stimulate further thinking and help identify potential gaps.

Arrange your Elements on your Canvas and link them together in a meaningful way to give you a clear and structured visual representation of your current thinking and understanding.

Through inquiry, expand your Canvas by adding new content (e.g. suggested Elements) which you feel are relevant and remove anything that you feel isn’t relevant.

 

Doing this both expands and helps refine your understanding.

Add meaning to your Elements to remove ambiguity (e.g. add a description, note, link to a website or visual cues).

 

Doing so enhances an Element’s value to the overall context of the Canvas (the big picture).

Refine your thinking and understanding by adding new Elements and decluttering the Canvas.

 

If necessary, go through numerous iterations of this cycle.

As you continue to refine the context of the Canvas and gain the understanding you need, the “puzzle pieces” will fall into place and new insights will be achieved.

We have incorporated each of the key components of the methodology into our platform, with guiding help along the way to let you get the most out of your learning experience.

To learn more about how to make the most of the ICE Methodology, have a look at the guide on the Best Practice Approach to Creating a Thought Canvas.