Daniel Pink - A Whole New Mind

Pink views a number of changes that are increasingly affecting how we work, play socialize and act as productive citizens. As children parents told us that to be sucessful in life we should become programmers, software engineers, accountants etc. What they didn't realize, and that manys still don't today, is that rapid technological advances in computer-based (Ray Kurzweil refers to these as Information technologies) the speed of computers, the sophistication of programming etc. are making aspects of those jobs obsolete. Whether change is caused directly by computer programs that now supplant the accountant, or telecommunication which allows accountants in India to do the same work for a fraction of the pay, the end result is that those professions which consist of repetitive tasks and within an area of computer science which has sufficiently modelled the requirements of the job, those are in jeopardy. Pink's message is twofold: society needs to wakeup and realize that those jobs which brought us through the Information age, are precisely those jobs that are vulnerable to technology and job loss. The second major point is to emphasize that it is the right-brained, creative endeavors that will pave the path towards a sucessful future period which he terms the Conceptual Age.

It is the creative side of people that will hold increasingly greater value as we enter the Conceptual Age. It's not that programmers, engineers, accountants, and factory workers are no longer valued. It's just that they will increasingly be marginalized as technology improves and jobs are either absorbed by computer programs directly, or the jobs will be shifted overseas as telecommunications continues to increase the labor market available to corporations. Pink lays out a convincing argument that creativity should share equal status with the emphasis the Information Age has placed on logic. He does so partly by sharing newfound discoveries into the importance of the right-hemispher of the brain which has largely been the poor stepchild of the left hemisphere. He cites research that shows that the right-hemisphere is responsible for creativity. It provides the "big picture" view which integrates the logical observations of the left into a whole where context plays an important role. It is this creative side where value is created and increasingly valued by society and corporations. It is this creativity that computers (so far) have difficulty in achieving, largely because creativity does not necessairly arise from logic and following linear steps. It is an intuitive leap forward in design and vision.

I do agree with Pink that we are moving from a largely left-brained world into one in which creative vision will be necessary for humans to keep ahead of the encroaching tide of automation technology. It isn't difficult to see examples of automation replacing the need for human workers. The automated check-out machines in supermarkets are a good example. It is a repetitive task where items are scanned and bagged and payment is made. The automated checkout machines don't need medical coverage, sick or vacation time, hourly pay or breaks. It is a more efficient means of dealing with high volume. Many jobs are potentially lost due to automation. The advantages to the consumer are large: it takes far less time for me to check out grocieres at the automated check-out than it is to wait in line for a human cashier. A potentially larger issue is facing warehouse workers, where companies have replaced workers with automated machines that move inventory from trucks into warehouses and then deliver the products automatically when inventories run low. The warehouses are run in low-light to no-light situations where heat and airconditioning are turned-off and warehouses run 24 hours/day 7 days per week. Sports and financial investments stories are being well written by algorithms that are posed to replace humans, driverless cars on the horizon, will threaten taxicab and trucker jobs in the near future and the examples go on and on. In order for us humans to be competitive we'll need to do things that computers (and overseas workers) find difficult to accomplish: apply previous and new technologies in creative ways to problems that face us. While prefab technologies may bring some manufacturing back to this country, it will be the creative designs that we can create or purchase that bring value to our creations.