Rich Carr: Founder of Carr Knowledge & Author, Brain-centric Design: “It’s Not Clever. It’s Science”

Rich Carr is the founder and mind behind Carr Knowledge, a consultancy for professional learning, development, and information delivery. He’s the author of Brain-centric Design: The Surprising Neuroscience Behind Learning with Deep Understanding. Using the Brain-centric Design model, Carr and his team work with everyone from fortune brands to instructional designers to help them present and deliver information with deep understanding and acceptance on the receiving end.

Rich’s Original Story: “It’s Not Clever. It’s Science”

Our story began in 1999 when I decided to step down as the Director of Digital for the Paul Allen-owned Rose City Radio broadcast & internet properties and go out on my own as Carr Knowledge Interactive Advertising & Marketing.

Back then, we were an advertising & marketing firm with a stable foot in both new & old medias and the savvy to deliver the message to generate engagement.

Today, we are privileged to deliver sustainable, unmatched performance gains serving institutional clients from the hyper-growth development space to the biggest fortune brands in the world with their Cognitive Shift for learning & development. Our clients range from Fortune 100 to instructional designers.

Celebrated in the book, Brain-centric Design: The Surprising Neuroscience Behind Learning with Deep Understanding (BcD), we work with individuals who present new information to others who engage & fully understand its purpose, acting accordingly.

There is also a separate 501C3, Neural Education, immersing thousands of teachers, schools, and administrators within the BcD model, globally producing astounding results.

We facilitate the shift to a cognitive purpose and organizational resilience through thought-partnership and consultancy on a range of exceptional options. Wise leaders take the opportunity to reset or rebuild their business models and operations for a new reality.

Because this is a ‘learning science,’ our results are predictable. Engage BcD as an L&D practice, and you’ll have better, engaged learners, present the material in less time, and stay focused on the most high-value work your time can provide.

Saving business millions and igniting engagement online, blended, or face-to-face, we’ve been featured in Forbes, Columbia University’s Teachers College, fifteen published papers on the BcD pedagogic model.

We also train BcD Mastery globally via our Education Engine LMS 12-week Certification through a network of Brain-centric Instructional Designers (BcID).

The results are always jaw-dropping when you understand that placing your content in a model is guaranteed to present the way the brain processes information.

If you know what you want out of what you present, you’ll get it!

As for me, I was born in Texas, raised an ‘Air Force Brat’ through fifth grade, then on a small farm in the foothills of Mt. Rainier in Washington state. I was the youngest raised in a beautiful, completely adventurous, family of five.

Beautiful because no matter where we were, my parents made that the place to be. And in that place, anything was possible. If I wanted to be an astronaut, I had all the emotional support to explore the possibilities unrestricted. If I wanted to be a firetruck, my parents would celebrate the sounds I made while ‘sirening’ through the living room on my way to save the day. They collaborated on my adventures, be it high school football or changing the oil on my Honda 550.

The first time I DJed a junior high after-school dance, I had an intense desire to engage people profoundly and benefit all. Everything I’ve done since has further supported the sheer desire to understand the ‘recipe’ for engaging an audience for self-benefit.

In high school, my AP English professor convinced me that after reviewing and grading a comparison and contrast paper I penned on KISS versus the Bee Gees, I could get paid for writing like that. Within a year, I was getting paid for writing album reviews for SPIN magazine! I was literally getting paid to engage millions in one of rock’s biggest LPs!

I’m still that kid heading into my sixth decade… eyes wide open, always seeking another perspective.

I received a BA degree in Mass Communications from Central Washington University and graduated with honors. According to The Police song, “Zenyatta Mondatta,” what I learned from that experience is “poets, priests, and politicians have words to thank for their positions” and that the message, not the media, carried the weight of engagement. If the message is right, it’s purpose will be fulfilled. Since that time, I’ve been researching what ‘right’ actually means. The answer is how the brain processes new information. That recipe is Brain-centric Design.

I’ve been fortunate that for more than 20 years, the passion for guaranteeing engagement with benefit has led to incredible partnerships on every corner of the earth. The challenges throughout have had nothing to do with that passion, but the initial presentation of ‘a different way of presenting new information.’ We all, unconsciously, present new information the way we were given new information in school. Prepare a presentation, yammer throughout the aids you use to deliver, test for understanding. School and the last training, seminar, workshop, or sales pitch you endured presents new information this way. Helping people ‘feel’ this paradigm without experiencing it was a challenge at first.

What’s important to remember is this: Data has no agenda. You need to understand how the organ you’re attempting to engage processes new information. It’s not clever. It’s science.

Find more from Rich Carr at Carr Knowledge.