Speaking of Dan Pink, he’s got a new book out now called A Whole New Mind: Moving From The Information Age To The Conceptual Age.
The importance of the concept was highlighted to me yesterday by something a local employer said. He said people come in to be hired without the specific skills he’s seeking but say “But I know how to use a computer…” He said, “That’s like coming in 20 years ago and saying ‘ I know how to use the telephone.’”
Using the computer is now an “ancient” Information Age skill that anyone not digging ditches is assumed to know.
The key to survival and thriving in the emerging Western economy goes beyond the basics of mastery tools’ basic functions into creating new solutions to solve problems. It’s the difference between being able to go to a piano and playing “C D E had a tree” by hitting those three notes repeatedly and creating a symphony which is one of the terms Pink uses to describe the skills needed for tomorrow.
While the book promises alot, it’s value probably lies in getting you thinking. Will you come away with new skills and a solid plan for boosting your business? That remains to be seen. Maybe I’m just a block head. Free Agent Nation was great for documenting the trend but lousy if you didn’t have skills and contacts in place already. Pink doesn’t write “how to” books… at least not yet. Maybe that’s why he worked for the Clinton Administration… high on verbiage but leave it to the blockheads to get things done.
This book’s best contribution is sounding the alarm. One reader on the Amazon site said it best:
To the author’s credit, he is the first that succinctly diagnosed the major problems the Western countries are facing: Abundance, Asia, and Automation. Most people, including intellectuals and high government officials are in the coma state of not sensing the lethal effects of offshore outsourcing of high-tech jobs and R&D to the fundamental wellbeing of U.S. and other Western countries, nor the consequence of automating white collar jobs by the ever more powerful computer hardware and software. This is the first book that I know of that sounded the alarm to the great masses of the coming sea change. For this, the author ought to be congratulated.
American workers (not just entrepreneurs) are battling Abundance vs. Scarcity, Automation vs. Manual Labor, and the masses in Asia used to a much lower standard of living while we and our elected leaders are living in the past and it’s economic glory. American public schools still educate people to work as employees in large corporations as widgets instead of teaching people how to think and act with discipline.
Another Amazon.com reviewer made the telling point that free markets don’t - for long - favor any particular class of worker but the exceptional workers within each class. That’s why “gluts” of MBA’s (for example) exist for a short time. That’s why people are against free markets… it lets them fix prices and drive up their own profits. Think politicians and regulations in most cases. Some laws are just, others are just designed to stifle competition with the big boys who fund political campaigns.
Hopefully Pink’s warning will be heeded. I can’t wait to read the author who takes Pink’s rather broad conceptual principles and puts them into a practical format.
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