Daniel Pink’s “A Whole New Mind” argues that three current economic forces — abundance, Asia, and automation — are pulling us away from our love affair with left-brain directed thinking and towards right-brain directed values.
Left-brain thinking is responsible for the abundance of material goods we have, but the value added now is right-brain directed design. Electric lighting, for example, is ubiquitous: but that has not stopped a candle business from booming because the right-brain aesthetic calls for the unrivaled beauty of glowing fire.
Asia — India, in particular — is the home of thousands of highly educated workers who do for American companies the left-brain-directed work that American white collar workers here once did for far more money per hour. The American workplace now puts a premium on such right-brain directed activities as forging relationships, solving novel problems, and synthesizing the big picture rather than analyzing its components.
Automation has been changing the workplace since the 19th century. First machines replaced human muscle; now they’re replacing human brains. So making it this changing economy means becoming conversant with practices which are at root narrative, empathetic, and holistic.
I feel the right-brain magnet. I want to change the way I use my office space. I want it also to art-friendly. I want to marry narrative and analysis — as I’m doing in ”My Brain by Me”; I want to ask Pink’s three questions:
a. Can someone overseas do it cheaper?
b. Can a computer do it faster?
c. Is what I’m offering in demand in an age of abundance?
I commit to exploring his “six senses”: design, story, symphony, empathy, play, and meaning.