Gee, Think.

A Whole New Mind

Why Right Brainers Will Rule the Future

Daniel H. Pink

ISBN 1-59448-171-7

I love this book. I am a programmer. I work in the financial district of New York City’s Manhattan. I’m constantly flexing my left brain muscle with “L-Directed” thinking. Pink’s book has some real meaning for a guy like me.

In the first part of “A Whole New Mind” Pink discusses three big topics: Abundance, Asia, and Automation. Yea yea yea… Haven’t we all read that in “The World Is Flat” by Thomas Friedman? I read Friedman’s book before I got to Pink’s. I can’t say who inspired who or if the books were conceived independently but I can say that the first couple chapter’s in Pink’s ‘Conceptual Age’ felt like a compressed Friedman. Actually that’s a good thing because not everyone wants to pick up Friedman’s 600 page tome. Pink does a good job of getting the facts and the story of global change across. These first 50 pages are essential to someone looking to learn more about globalization and its potential affect on individuals.

Pink’s Part Two, ‘The Six Senses”, is awesome! As a technical professional I feel a yearning to flex my right brain muscle. I love music & art, but I just don’t make time to enjoy it. I’m not going to guess at the reasons for that, but Pink encourages a guy like me to take the time to learn more about the arts that I love. It’s encouraging to feel like creating or enjoying art is “productive”. Pink discusses the numerous benefits of arts in our lives and even the necessity of becoming more well rounded people. His “Whole New Mind” is a mind that uses both its left and right hemispheres. A whole mind is a mind that exercises analysis and creativity regularly. It’s a mind where logic and empathy coexist.

So far I’ve only read through the ‘Design’ and ‘Story’ Chapters of the book’s second part, ‘The Six Senses’ but I already feel inspired. Yesterday I made a quick still life sketch at work and I’m planning to visit some of the design museums that he mentioned soon.

I highly recommend this book!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 18th, 2006 at 6:35 am and is filed under reading, reflection, review. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.