Why TeamBoard Works

The TeamBoard has an intuitive connection with all people who use it.

Something simply feels right when drawing or writing with your finger or blank stylus on what is effectively a giant canvas.

Scientific research seems to confirm a deep hand/mind connection that is only just being understood.

More than 10 years ago Professor Giaccamo Rizzollati and his associates at Parma University (Italy) made a discovery about a specialised group of motor neuron cells in the Macaque monkey.

He recorded from the ventral pre-motor area of the frontal lobes of monkeys and found that certain cells will fire when a monkey performs a single, highly specific action with its hand: pulling, tugging, grasping, picking up and putting a peanut in a mouth etc.

Different neurons fire in response to different actions. One might be tempted to think that these are motor command neurons, making muscles do certain things: however, the astonishing truth is that any given mirror neuron will also fire when the monkey in question observes another monkey (or even the experimenter) performing the same action, e.g. Tasting a peanut! With knowledge of these neurons, you have the basis for understanding a host of very enigmatic aspects of the human mind: mind reading empathy, imitation learning, and even the evolution of language.

Anytime you catch someone else doing something (or even starting to do something), the corresponding mirror neuron might fire in your brain, thereby allowing you to read and understand another's intention, and thus develop a sophisticated theory of other minds.

(See http://static.userland.com/gems/cdmilligan/mirrorneurons.rtf for full story)

These mirror neurons and brain cross wiring helps explain the connection between touch, our hands and our minds.

The user and observers of a TeamBoard all gain experiential learning. When we touch, the brain mechanisms seem to attempt to ensure maximized sensory involvement and reference.

If it is assumed that whatever is displayed on TeamBoard represents bigger ideas, these ideas are best displayed directly by a person. By working with a TeamBoard all participants anticipate the result.