I received an email from Gautum Ghosh that contained an excerpt from Daniel Pinks’ A Whole New Mind. I will not repeat it all but here is an excerpt of the excerpt.
"The last few decades have belonged to a certain kind of person with a certain kind of mind – computer programmers who could crank code, lawyers who could craft contracts, MBAs who could crunch numbers. But the keys to the kingdom are changing hands. The future belongs to a very different kind of person with a very different kind of mind – creators and empathizers, pattern recognizers and meaning makers. These people – artists, inventors, designers, storytellers, caregivers, consolers, big picture thinkers – will now reap society's richest rewards and share its greatest joys.”
“This book describes a seismic – though as yet undetected – shift now underway in much of the advanced world. We are moving from an economy and a society built on the logical, linear, computer-like capabilities of the Information Age to an economy and a society built on the inventive, empathic, big picture capabilities of what's rising in its place, the Conceptual Age.”
With a Nerd Score of 6 out of 100 perhaps there is hope for me. I would like to think that Pink is right. Events in the world have, in my mind, indicated that the analytical are not always right and we need people who can conceptualize.
Daniel has a nice blog on his book site. It contains posts that support the ideas in his book. I liked one about Larry Lessing’s new wiki. Larry is inviting anyone who wants to participate, help him revise his book, Code and other Laws of Cyberspace. The only problem with Pink’s blog is that you cannot find individual links for the posts. Perhaps he is too conceptual to understand how permalinks work. Either that, or like some department stores, he wants you to go through the whole thing on the way to what you want.
I found a reference to the TV show, Indian Idol, on Gautum’s blog. I followed up and here is the story from rediff.com.
“Abhijeet Sawant is the Indian Idol. After seven gruelling months and competing against hundreds of contestants, the Mumbai lad was crowned Indian Idol, at around 3 pm at the Famous Studio, Mahalaxmi, south Mumbai. The result brings to an end one of the most awaited outcomes of a talent hunt in Indian television history. Sony Entertainment Television had bagged the exclusive rights from the makers of the US serial American Idol and turned it into one of the biggest television events in India.”
Gautum’s post said that The Apprentice is the next US import for the Indian TV market. Is this what Pink means?
Bill, I sent an email to Daniel when his blog first appeared. he is cognizant and apologetic about the missing comment/trackback/permalink features in his blog.
He has assured me and others that he will get this corrected.
Like you, I beleive that the coming economy will need a different skill set. I spoke with a very close friend of mine yesterday and he believes a good base undergrad degree in Communications with a minor in Philosophy will be an advantage in the coming years.
With increasing offshoring of even high level technical skills, it's more important than ever to possess the ability to conceptualize based upon logic, then communicate that concept.
Since my oldest is a freshman in high school, this issue is high on my priority list.
Posted by: jbr | April 21, 2005 at 11:27 AM