A Whole New Mind – Chapter 3
High Concept, High Touch
Pink starts off chapter 3 by talking about the last 3 years: the Industrial Age, the Information Age, and the Conceptual Age. He basically showed us how we have progressed from a society of farmers to a society of factory workers to a society of knowledge workers. Back in the Industrial Age, L-Directed thinking was preferred. Now, as North America, Western Europe, Australia, and Japan evolve once again, R-Directed Thinking is beginning to achieve social and economic parity – and, in many cases , primacy. He believes that L-Directed thinking is no longer sufficient.
Pink poses three questions that we must ask ourselves to survive and work in this age:
1. Can someone overseas do it cheaper?
2. Can a computer do it faster?
3. Is what I’m offering in demand in an age of abundance?
He believes that to survive in a job today depends on being able to do something that overseas knowledge works can’t do cheaper, that powerful computers can’t do faster, and that satisfies one of the nonmaterial, transcendent desires of an abundant age. We now need abilities that are high concept and high touch. High concept involves the ability to create artistic and emotional beauty, to detect patterns and opportunities, to craft a satisfying narrative, and to combine seemingly unrelated ideas into a novel invention. High touch involves the ability to empathize, to understand the subtleties of human interaction, to find joy in one’s self and to elicit it in others, and to stretch beyond the quotidian, in pursuit of purpose and meaning.
A master of fine arts is the new MBA. Because of Asia, many MBA graduates are ending up being people who entered a workforce full of promise, only to see their jobs move overseas. Also, because of abundance, businesses are realizing that the only way to differentiate their goods and services in today’s overstocked marketplace is to make their offerings physically beautiful and emotionally compelling.
He then goes to talk about how IQ exams, such as the SAT, which measures L-Directed thinking, does not account for much of your future career success. More important qualities that are tougher to quantify are imagination, joyfulness, and social dexterity. High-touch abilities, the capacity for compassion, car and uplift, are becoming a key component of many occupations in the Conceptual Age.
Sunday, March 25, 2007
Monday, March 19, 2007
A Whole New Mind - Chapter 2
A Whole New Mind- Chapter 2
Abundance, Asia, and Automation
In Chapter 2, Pink discusses the three topics of his chapter: Abundance, Asia, and Automation. He said these topics are the causes of the diminished relative importance of L-Directed Thinking and the corresponding increased importance of R-Directed Thinking. With abundance, he started off talking about growing up in the seventies and shopping at a small mall with stores that featured products that were pricier than today’s products. There was also less of a selection of products. Now-a-days there is so much more selection and things are cheaper to buy. The prosperity abundance has unleashed has placed a premium on less rational, more R-Directed sensibilities – beauty, spirituality, and emotion. Businesses now must create a product that’s also beautiful, unique, and meaningful. In an age of abundance, appealing to only rational, logical, and functional needs is very insufficient. Abundance has brought beautiful things to our lives, but that bevy of material goods has not necessarily made us much happier. This prosperous country has a desire for beauty and transcendence.
When discussing his topic of Asia, he started to discuss the outsourcing of jobs from the United States to other countries over seas. In other countries, people will do the same work that could be done in the United States, just for cheaper pay. Many of today’s knowledge workers will likewise have to command a new set of aptitudes. They’ll need to do what workers abroad cannot do equally well for much less money – using R-directed abilities such as forging relationships rather than executing transactions, tackling novel challenges instead of solving routine problems, and synthesizing the big picture rather than analyzing a single component.
Last century, machines proved they could replace human backs. This century, new technologies are proving they can replace human left brains. Any job that depends on routines – that can be reduced to a set of rules, or broken down into a set of repeatable steps – is at risk. Automation is also changing the work or many doctors. Computers can process the binary logic of decision trees with swiftness and accuracy humans can’t begin to approach. A similar pattern is unfolding in the legal profession. Dozens of inexpensive information and advice services are reshaping law practice.
Basically, these three topics are more in favor of R-Directed Thinking. There is a huge abundance of products out there now that help individuals search for meaning. Also, Asia is now performing large amounts of L-directed work at lower costs. Also, automation has begun to affect this generation’s white-collar workers by requiring L-directed professionals to develop aptitudes that computers can’t do better, faster, or cheaper.
Abundance, Asia, and Automation
In Chapter 2, Pink discusses the three topics of his chapter: Abundance, Asia, and Automation. He said these topics are the causes of the diminished relative importance of L-Directed Thinking and the corresponding increased importance of R-Directed Thinking. With abundance, he started off talking about growing up in the seventies and shopping at a small mall with stores that featured products that were pricier than today’s products. There was also less of a selection of products. Now-a-days there is so much more selection and things are cheaper to buy. The prosperity abundance has unleashed has placed a premium on less rational, more R-Directed sensibilities – beauty, spirituality, and emotion. Businesses now must create a product that’s also beautiful, unique, and meaningful. In an age of abundance, appealing to only rational, logical, and functional needs is very insufficient. Abundance has brought beautiful things to our lives, but that bevy of material goods has not necessarily made us much happier. This prosperous country has a desire for beauty and transcendence.
When discussing his topic of Asia, he started to discuss the outsourcing of jobs from the United States to other countries over seas. In other countries, people will do the same work that could be done in the United States, just for cheaper pay. Many of today’s knowledge workers will likewise have to command a new set of aptitudes. They’ll need to do what workers abroad cannot do equally well for much less money – using R-directed abilities such as forging relationships rather than executing transactions, tackling novel challenges instead of solving routine problems, and synthesizing the big picture rather than analyzing a single component.
Last century, machines proved they could replace human backs. This century, new technologies are proving they can replace human left brains. Any job that depends on routines – that can be reduced to a set of rules, or broken down into a set of repeatable steps – is at risk. Automation is also changing the work or many doctors. Computers can process the binary logic of decision trees with swiftness and accuracy humans can’t begin to approach. A similar pattern is unfolding in the legal profession. Dozens of inexpensive information and advice services are reshaping law practice.
Basically, these three topics are more in favor of R-Directed Thinking. There is a huge abundance of products out there now that help individuals search for meaning. Also, Asia is now performing large amounts of L-directed work at lower costs. Also, automation has begun to affect this generation’s white-collar workers by requiring L-directed professionals to develop aptitudes that computers can’t do better, faster, or cheaper.
A Whole New Mind - Chapter 1
A Whole New Mind – Chapter 1
Right Brain Rising
Daniel H. Pink starts off his first chapter of the book by describing his experience getting an MRI. He says that he is volunteering to be part of a control group for a project at the National Institute of Mental Health, outside Washington D.C. The study involves capturing images of brains at rest and at work. His first task was to choose certain pictures that showed the same emotion. Then the researchers showed him forty-eight color photos and he has to decide if the scene takes place inside or outside.
He then goes on to discuss the brain. In history, the left side of the brain was always superior to the right side. Caltech professor Roger W. Sperry studied brains and discovered that, “the so-called subordinate or minor hemisphere, which we had formerly supposed to be illiterate and mentally retarded and thought by some authorities to not even be conscious, was found to be in fact the superior cerebral member when it came to performing certain kinds of mental tasks.” Basically the right hemisphere wasn’t inferior to the left, just different.
After discussing misconceptions about the brain, he goes on to discuss “the real stuff.” The left hemisphere of the brain controls the right side of the body and the right hemisphere of the brain controls the left side of the body. Basically if you have a stroke on the left hemisphere of your brain, your right side won’t function and vise versa. The left hemisphere is sequential and the right hemisphere is simultaneous. The left hemisphere excels at processing sounds and symbols in sequence. The right side of the brain has the ability to interpret things simultaneously. The left hemisphere specializes in text and the right hemisphere specializes in context. The left hemisphere handles what is said and the right hemisphere focuses on how it is said. The left hemisphere analyzes the details and the right hemisphere synthesizes the big picture. The left hemisphere participates in the analysis of information and the right hemisphere is specialized for synthesis. It is particularly good at putting isolated elements together to perceive things as a whole.
Pink says that humans somehow seem naturally inclined to see life in contrasting pairs, i.e. east versus west. Yet, in most realms we usually don’t have to pick sides and it’s dangerous if we do. In our brains, both sides work together. Our culture has put left hemisphere thinking higher than right. Pink says it is changing. It is an inspiring change.
Right Brain Rising
Daniel H. Pink starts off his first chapter of the book by describing his experience getting an MRI. He says that he is volunteering to be part of a control group for a project at the National Institute of Mental Health, outside Washington D.C. The study involves capturing images of brains at rest and at work. His first task was to choose certain pictures that showed the same emotion. Then the researchers showed him forty-eight color photos and he has to decide if the scene takes place inside or outside.
He then goes on to discuss the brain. In history, the left side of the brain was always superior to the right side. Caltech professor Roger W. Sperry studied brains and discovered that, “the so-called subordinate or minor hemisphere, which we had formerly supposed to be illiterate and mentally retarded and thought by some authorities to not even be conscious, was found to be in fact the superior cerebral member when it came to performing certain kinds of mental tasks.” Basically the right hemisphere wasn’t inferior to the left, just different.
After discussing misconceptions about the brain, he goes on to discuss “the real stuff.” The left hemisphere of the brain controls the right side of the body and the right hemisphere of the brain controls the left side of the body. Basically if you have a stroke on the left hemisphere of your brain, your right side won’t function and vise versa. The left hemisphere is sequential and the right hemisphere is simultaneous. The left hemisphere excels at processing sounds and symbols in sequence. The right side of the brain has the ability to interpret things simultaneously. The left hemisphere specializes in text and the right hemisphere specializes in context. The left hemisphere handles what is said and the right hemisphere focuses on how it is said. The left hemisphere analyzes the details and the right hemisphere synthesizes the big picture. The left hemisphere participates in the analysis of information and the right hemisphere is specialized for synthesis. It is particularly good at putting isolated elements together to perceive things as a whole.
Pink says that humans somehow seem naturally inclined to see life in contrasting pairs, i.e. east versus west. Yet, in most realms we usually don’t have to pick sides and it’s dangerous if we do. In our brains, both sides work together. Our culture has put left hemisphere thinking higher than right. Pink says it is changing. It is an inspiring change.
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