A Whole New Mind

Dan Pink’s new book, A Whole New Mind, introduces so many important ideas that I’ll be doing a series of blog entries on it. Consider the next several posts your cliffs notes!

Dan’s premise (and the subtitle of the book) is that we are moving from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age.

The Information Age has been the age of the knowledge worker. We made our living by acquiring and applying knowledge. The activities that brought us success (and an income!) were centered on the left-brain: sequential, textual, detail-oriented, analytical, and focused on the “hard” facts.

In an age when automation can replace the knowledge worker for simple rule-based tasks, outsourcing to Asia can satisfy more complicated activities, and an abundance of facts are available to anyone with a browser, what is the knowledge worker to do?

Enter the Conceptual Age, a time marked by the rise in significance of right-brain thinking. Creativity, context, the “big picture”, pattern recognition, and synthesis are becoming more important than simply knowing and applying facts.

Dan has identified six skills we will need to develop to be successful in the Concept Age: design, story, symphony, empathy, play, and meaning. Defining, identifying, and building these skills will be the topics of my next six posts.

While we explore this book, remember that it isn’t about left-brain versus right-brain. It’s about – A Whole New Mind.