There's nothing that captures my imagination more than discovering smart minds who are exploring new frontiers. What's kept me up late recently are some terrific new books and blogs on the workings of the brain.

I believe that the next realm of competitive advantage will be in cognition -- more specifically, meta-cognition, or thinking about thinking. In a global marketplace, it's increasingly difficult to produce any product or service based on price or availability. To secure a leadership role will require fresh insights and new approaches -- and that will take new ways of thinking. Here are three areas where individuals are charting this new "brain terrain":

1. Visual thinking.
Some of us process information more easily in words, others in pictures. Experiments with fMRI (functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) technology have demonstrated that the brain reacts in distinct ways when it encounters text or perceives images. This new research has led to explorations in the field of communications, as individuals accustomed to the world of words learn to think in pictures. Creative exercises can lead to more divergent thinking. (Instead of thinking "outside the box," the box is tossed aside altogether.) Dan Roam's The Back of the Napkin and his companion workbook are valuable resources to strengthen these new modes of thinking, particularly in presenting ideas and selling.

2. Thinking styles.
Just as some of us are naturally left- or right-handed, Ned Herrmann believed that we all have natural thinking styles, too. Herrmann, a talented artist who also served as Manager of Management Education at GE for many years, conducted research and charted the thinking styles of thousands of individuals. His work on "Whole Brain Thinking" was published in The Whole Brain Business Book in 1996, and it's still the best overview of his four-quandrant mode of thinking styles: logician, organizer, communicator, and visionary.

3. Brain science and emotion.
For years, we have heard that we make decisions with either logic or emotion. But the divide is not so clean, explains Jonah Lehrer, in his book How We Decide. Lehrer is a gifted writer who is able to decipher the complexity of scientific research (from his time working for Nobel Prize-winning neuroscientist Eric Kandel) and translate it into delightful prose. Check out his blog and explore why NBA teams who exchange high-fives are more likely to win, how the eyes betray one's inner thoughts, or why the simple layout of a math problem can make it easier or harder to solve. Great stuff, and I feel smarter every time I read Lehrer's posts. And if you're interested in the intersection of the arts and science, be sure to read Lehrer's first book, Proust Was a Neuroscientist.

-- Terri Lonier
Founder, WorkingSolo.com