 |
|
Daniel H. Pink
A Whole New Mind: Moving from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age
Riverhead, 2005
ISBN: 1573223085
General
|
Author
|
Daniel H. Pink, former White House speechwriter, is author of the
bestseller "Free Agent Nation" and pioneer of the "Me, Inc." movement
in USA. He is a contributing editor at Wired magazine. His articles on business and technology have also appeared in The New York Times, Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, and other publications.
(From book biography, adapted)
Dan invites you to visit him at his website www.danpink.com.
|
Review
In the first part of the book, Daniel Pink examines our Western
society – with dominant professions in the area of information
technologies – and identifies three major forces:
- Abundance: Never before we had such a wide assortment
of goods and products in high quality and low prices. To succeed in
this crowded marketplace, a product must also be aesthetically pleasing.
- Asia:
Tasks like computer programming, financial services, and technical
engineering are increasingly outsourced to countries like India,
Philippines, and China. This will influence jobs in USA and Europe:
"tackling novel challenges instead of routine problem solving, and
synthesizing the big picture rather than analyzing a single component."
- Automation: Routine functions such as making medical
diagnosis by following a series of decision trees, and providing basic
legal forms are increasingly being turned over to machines. These
professions are changing "away from routine, analytical, and
information-based work and toward empathy, narrative medicine, and
holistic care," to more counseling and mediation.
So this is the situation, but what's happening next? The author
takes a closer look at the schemes behind society's changes: "We've
progressed from the Agriculture Age (farmers) to the Industrial Age
(factory workers) to the Information Age (knowledge workers), and will
move on to the Conceptual Age (creators, empathizers, pattern
recognizers, and meaning makers)." To point out the difference the
author uses as a metaphor the two sides of the brain and their
integration to a whole new mind – the psychologists among you will know
what is meant.
But how can we prepare ourselves for the Conceptual Age? The second
part of the book is devoted to six aptitudes (or "senses") that the
author has distilled as essential. Each chapter of these aptitudes
offers a portfolio such as magazines and books for further reading,
Websites, everyday tips, experiments, and exercises to develop your
abilities.
- Design. The author observes a sort of democratization
of design issues: For example 25 years ago fonts like Arial or Times
New Roman weren't known outside the domain of typesetters and graphic
designers, but today almost everyone who can use a computer understands
them. Provoked by this common knowledge and mainstreaming, producers
have to use design as a competitive factor. Car industries can't
compete with the pricing structures and lower costs of the Far East. As
the author quotes BMW's chief of design, Chris Bangle (and this is one
of my favorite bon mots in this book ;-)
"We don't make 'automobiles'. We make moving works of art that express the driver's love of quality."
- Story. As the author explains, humans
understand the world not as a set of logical propositions but as a
pattern of experiences. Storytelling is the "ability to place facts in
context and to deliver them with emotional impact". This is why a
movement called "organizational storytelling" is coming up, which aims
to use the organization's stories that exist inside their walls in
pursuit of organizational goals.
Tidbit from the portfolio: Visit a
storytelling festival to "sample the incredible diversity of stories
and storytellers in the world." For example: www.dstory.com.
- Symphony.
In the sense of "symphony thinking as the ability of composers and
conductors to corral a diverse group of notes, instruments, and
performers and produce a unified and pleasing sound," symphony means
the ability of putting together the pieces to a big picture. As the
author points out, "seeing the big picture is fast becoming a killer
app in business." This offers opportunities to "multi-people," as he
calls them, having expertise in multiple spheres, speaking different
languages, and crossing boundaries.
- Empathy.
The author describes empathy as "the ability to stand in others' shoes,
to see with their eyes, and to feel with their hearts" – those who can
empathize with their clients will succeed.
Tidbit from the
portfolio: Experience the set of 51 Method Cards that IDEO, one of the
world's most respected design firms, has developed: www.ideo.com.
Want to learn also how to distinguish between a fake smile and a real one? Read the book...
- Play.
According to a Harvard Business Review research, "the most effective
executives deployed humor twice as often as middle-of-the-pack
managers." To emphasize the significance of humor and play the author
refers to cognitive studies as well as to a new executives training
technique called "Serious Play," a technique that uses Lego building
blocks.
- Meaning. As the
last "sense," the author identifies people's search for meaning in
their lives: "People have enough to live, but nothing to live for; they
have the means but not the meaning." And he proposes two ways to start
this search for meaning: "start taking spirituality seriously and start
taking happiness seriously."
Résumé
This book is said to mark a turning point – maybe it does.
Compelling and enjoyable to read, it offers plenty of insights and
inspiration. It doesn't teach a specific method that you could follow
in your daily work process, but can be of great value in strengthening
your abilities in project management, presentation, creative design, or
product planning.
 |
Inspiration 
Subscribe to this comment's feed
