Deep Understanding: Using contextual intelligence to know people as they are
One of the foundational elements of contextual intelligence is the concept of deep understanding – that is, understanding people as they are.
Here’s a simple example. When someone tells you they feel “fine”, what does this mean?
Without any context, most people will agree it’s difficult to know. Sometimes, it can depend on the person saying this. If it’s a stranger, then “fine” can mean “ok”, or even “good”. Friends may think that “fine” means, “I’m not ok, but I don’t want to talk about it”. Meanwhile, couples could feel that “fine” translates into, “I’m not ok, and I want you to ask me about it”.
But the person saying the words isn’t the only factor here, the environment is, too. In a restaurant setting, a diner telling the waiter that the food is “fine”, could by saying that their meal is “very good”. In another setting, this meaning could be different, once again.
Really, the possibilities are wide open – and properly interpreting what a person is genuinely saying, is only possible with the right context.
For technologists, this presents an interesting challenge. Is it possible to design solutions that can not only understand text and speech, but understand it in the proper context? Importantly, can this be applied to help us understand someone better? (i.e., Beyond what they simply tell us?)
Designing contextual intelligence systems with deep understanding
In contextual intelligence (CI) systems, where a solution needs to process all this information in a human-like way – taking various data points, putting things into context, and delivering insights into an individual’s mentality, present capabilities and readiness – there’s a lot of thinking involved, and this introduces layers of complexity.
For CI-based solutions, everything starts from the solution’s ability to extract and understand information from respondents’ answers. These answers are usually provided in text, although advanced solutions may also allow respondents to share their answers via speech, music, art, images, or other forms of expression.
To keep this conversation easy to navigate, we’ll stay focused on how CI-powered solutions use contextual intelligence to gain insights about a person via their text-based answers. And we’ll use our own technologies to explain this.
Using hermeneutics to unlock deep understanding
At Burgessy, we apply hermeneutics to our CI model to enable this level of deep understanding – which is a methodology of interpreting language (in both written and spoken forms). Typically, hermeneutics is the domain of biblical scholars, philosophers, and literary experts. Today, this field also fascinates developers and CI experts, thanks to its game-changing implementations in tech.
Here’s a simplified look at how our CI solutions (like those implemented in Saindex’s products) use hermeneutics to find context in written and spoken responses, find meaning in them, and offer insights into who an individual really is.
- First, the text/speech is read (or listened to) and understood
- Then, we understand the person’s original meaning for writing the text (or speaking it) – taking into context who the words were intended for (i.e., the person’s target audience)
- The true meaning of the text/speech is discovered, revealing layers of understanding that go beneath the surface of what was originally written/said (or not said)
All this is done by carefully observing the text in its historical, grammatical, linguistic, cultural, rhetorical, contextual, and canonical setting.
Using CI to understand the people around you
By using contextual intelligence in your interactions with people, you too can develop a deep understanding of them – getting to know who they are, what they’re thinking, and why they behave the way they do. And learning how to understand their language with hermeneutics, is a good place to start.