SecondPresentation

Today I want to recommend a book that I have read recently. It’s “A Whole New Mind” by Daniel H. Pink. Subtitle is “Why right-brainers will rule the future”, and this is the very essence of the book.

You may have asked yourself what makes the economy tick and if people will always continue to earn money the way they did in the past. Daniel Pink says “no” this will not be the case in the future. He has several arguments why the economics will change in the future and work will not be like the work you are used to in the past.

He says that people in the past were working with their left half of the brain which is dedicated to logic, mathematics and organization. But nowadays we live in a world of abundance and we have too many people who can do this type of job faster and less expensive. Companies are outsourcing left-brain work to asia for example, where high-tech programmers develop software for a North American bank for a salary of not more than $15.000 a year. We are now connected to the whole world and left-brain workers (like computer programmers for example) can be hired for little money somewhere on the globe.

According to Pink, we started with the agricultural age in the 18th century, moved on to the Industrial Age in the 19th century to the Information Age in the 20th century. Now we are facing a new challenge with the Conceptual age in the 21st century. Pink’s solution seems very straightforward and logical: We must stop being left-brain workers and we need to be right-brain workers in the future.

In the second part of the book, Pink describes the six senses that we need to develop as the new right-brain workers: Design, Story, Symphony, Empathy, Play and Meaning.

Designers are usually right-brain workers and we need more people like these in the future. Look at Apple and their products. Most of them are sold so well because of their exceptional design. Design is difficult to outsource or to automate.

You have the same situation with story. Good storytellers are hard to find and good stories are key in the industries of the future. Think about advertising. Nobody buys a product because it’s ads are interrupting your favorite movie or TV-show. Only few people watch these ads in the first place and for the web browser most people have installed ad blocker software. But a good story can sell any product. Viral ads on youTube work so well because the story is good or the video is funny, so that everybody wants to pass it to their friends.

The book contains a lot of examples and explanations why we should improve our right-brain thinking and it also gives good clues how to do that. Each chapter in the second part has a special section called “portfolio” that is filled with website links and book recommendations that gives you more information and resources into each of the six senses that he describes in the chapter.

I can really recommend Daniel H. Pink’s book to everybody who wants to survive the upcoming century. So it’s especially useful for all entrepreneurs and freelancers who currently have to compete with an army of cheap service providers in lower-wage countries like Asia or Eastern Europe.

You can use this link if you want to buy it from Amazon.com:

It’s also available for the Kindle eBook Reader:

These are both affiliate links, so I will get a few cents if you buy via this link. But you can also just put the book title in the amazon search box if you don’t want to use my link. The price for the book will be the same though, as long as you buy it from amazon.

If you have any comments, if you have read the book and want to add something, feel free to contact me at heddesheimer@gmail.com or post a comment right here after this blog post.