A Whole New Mind: Moving from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age | 
 enlarge | Author: Daniel H. Pink
Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
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Rating:  202 reviews
Sales Rank: 8616
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 260
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.2 x 0.8
ISBN: 1573223085
Dewey Decimal Number: 158
EAN: 9781573223089
ASIN: 1573223085
Publication Date: March 24, 2005
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Product Description
Lawyers. Accountants. Radiologists. Software engineers. That's what our parents encouraged us to become when we grew up. But Mom and Dad were wrong. The future belongs to a very different kind of person with a very different kind of mind. The era of "left brain" dominance, and the Information Age that it engendered, are giving way to a new world in which "right brain" qualities-inventiveness, empathy, meaning-predominate. That's the argument at the center of this provocative and original book, which uses the two sides of our brains as a metaphor for understanding the contours of our times.
In the tradition of Emotional Intelligence and Now, Discover Your Strengths, Daniel H. Pink offers a fresh look at what it takes to excel. A Whole New Mind reveals the six essential aptitudes on which professional success and personal fulfillment now depend, and includes a series of hands-on exercises culled from experts around the world to help readers sharpen the necessary abilities. This book will change not only how we see the world but how we experience it as well.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 197 more reviews...
 A Whole New Mind November 2, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
An overwhelming wake up call for the "go to school, get good grades, get a good paying job" thinkers. I want to give this book to my kids especially my youngest who is interested in getting her MBA.
The new staple for a changing educational and economical future.
If you don't read this book, you are limiting yourself.
 Conceptualization November 2, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
The author begins by describing how the spheres of the brain
operate. The left hemisphere controls the right side,
recognizes serial events (sequentially), manages text,
siphons details and performs logistics. The right hemisphere
controls the left side, manages simultaneity and context,
looks at the big picture and knows the world from the experiential
dimension. The back of the book has a large bibliography of
scientific and journalistic references. The reader would be
helped by cross-referencing some of the brain inferences to
the scientific literature which supports the various statements
made by the author.
There are some fallacies in the inferences made by the author.
For instance, people need a firm grounding in both spheres.
Some examples will highlight the disparities. For example,
too many children graduate grammar school and they cannot
do simple arithmetic compilation. No amount of arts programs
will make up for deficiencies in early childhood education
in mathematics.
Computer software engineers are not merely analytically
inclined. Many practitioners design graphics software
which is quite creative. Others design artificial intelligence
algorithms which emulate brain function quite ingeniously.
Lawyers are advocates and they must learn to negotiate and
empathize instead of engaging in sum-zero tactics.
Accountants must operate within the confines of considerable
global principles of the profession. These are
conservatism ( not being overly optimistic), materiality,
the ongoing concern concept of operation and judgmental
sampling to detect and confirm inadequacies in the
accounting control or design thereof. Scientific
sampling is more analytically determinable.
Engineers must master principles of non-linearity; such
as, sweeping motions of rotation, the Mohr's Circle of
forces, multi-direction, shear and balancing chemical
redox equations using both inference and analytics
in combination with knowledge of the Periodic Table
of Elements. Engineering is by no means a linearly
based profession.
The author does mention some important sensual skills
which could be developed during the education process.
These skills are creative design, synthesis, role
playing, aesthetics in addition to functionality
and the dynamics of story-telling. This section of
the book could be invaluable to educators if
developed in early education, middle school , high
school and collegiate curricula.
The book has some excellent ideas but there should be
fewer generalizations. Overall, the volume would make
for good reading. Superlearning by Ostrander and Schroeder
would complement this book nicely.
Compelling Read October 28, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
A senior colleague of mine recommended this book, and it really is a great read - easy and fun, but substantive at the same time. Pink's argument's flow logically and the porfolios at the end of each chapter are a great resource, I found myself looking up all the websites and jotting down notes for activities to try.
 Kort Amerikaans: welvaart boven welzijn October 25, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Met de subtitel Moving from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age en een aanbeveling van Wired 'Why right-brainers will rule the future' en aanbevelingen op de achterflap van Tom Peters, Po Bronson en Seth Godin die de auteur onder meer positioneren als wonderdoener en 'Copernicus for the brave new age' worden enorme verwachtingen gewekt en kritische antennes geactiveerd. Een boek dat inmiddels in de VS in de 8e hedruk zit en gewoon erg populair is, moet toch wat te bieden hebben?
En ja, dat klopt. In de lijn van simplificaties en hapklare brokken als The World is Flat en de boeken van Covey past A Whole New Mind perfect in de tijdgeest, waar we opnieuw zoeken naar houvast in een turbulente wereld. En dus zijn de platmakers van Friedman gereduceerd tot een drietal verschijnselen Abundance, Asia en Automation bij Pink. Als je geen toegevoegde waarde hebt ten opzichte van al die andere aanbieders, veel goedkopere vakbroeders in China en India en je werk minstens net zo goed door een computer gedaan kan worden, dan zit je binnenkort werkloos toe te kijken. Tenzij, tenzij je 6 nieuwe zintuigen ontwikkeld die je eigen, bevredigende plek in de wereld geven:
1. Design (weg met alleen een functionele blik op middelen, schoonheid van ontwerp geeft meerwaarde)
2. Story (een goed verhaal bij een persoon of product verkoopt gewoon beter)
3. Symphony (alles heeft een context, overzie het geheel, focus niet op een detail)
4. Empathy (voelen wat de ander voelt)
5. Play (leve de gamers!)
6. Meaning (logisch slotakkoord, wat is het doel van wat je doet? Geef je leven betekenis en richting)
Naast veel betekenisvolle woorden, punten om over na te denken, bevat Pinks boek ook veel zwakke plekken. Waar hij zelf een verdeling zoekt in 'meer linker hersenhelft gericht' en 'meer rechter hersenhelft gericht', oog heeft voor het complementaire van onze hersenhelften en in het begin van het boek nog pleit voor een 'volledig gebruik van de hersenen', gaan diverse voorbeelden, te beginnen met de Wired aanbeveling op de voorkant met te stringent links/rechts en daarmee bij herhaling aardig/veel beter implicerend, de mist in. Wanneer ouders hun kinderen liever artiest laten worden dan wiskundige, ziet Pink dat als bevestiging van zijn argumenten, terwijl het juist wel 'links' georiënteerd zijn van de tienduizenden jaarlijks in India en China in exacte vakken, Informatie e.d. afstuderende jongeren een bedreiging vormen die je niet alleen met de 6 zintuigen kunt opvangen. Sterker: wat moet je als meester in de genoemde 6 zintuigen, als er geen voedsel wordt bereid, geen wegen worden aangelegd, geen veilige auto's worden geproduceerd, geen huizen worden gebouwd, etc.? Anders gesteld: dit boek gaat volledig voorbij aan de samenleving, het milieu, de grote uitdagingen die de wereld zich gesteld ziet, zoals bijvoorbeeld Planeet India wel durft aan te snijden.
Pink husselt slim wat herkenbare thema's als Flow, Emotional Intelligence, storytelling, hersenonderzoek, spiritualiteit (waarbij alle uitingen, behalve christelijk geloof hip zijn), zelfhulpboeken en testjes tot een eigen mix, waarbij de rode draad immaterieel lijkt te zijn. Op de laatste pagina ontkracht Pink dit echter rigoreus: "China and India are becoming economic behemoths. Material abundance in the advanced world continues to grow. That mean that the greatest rewards will go to those who move fast. The first group of people who develop a whole new mind, who master high-concept and high-touch abilities, will do extremely well. The rest - those who move slowly or not at all - may miss out or, worse, suffer." Dus toch welvaart als maatstaf voor succes en een afstandelijk 'jammer dan' voor degenen die niet zo snel mee kunnen komen: kort Amerikaans!
A hole in the mind October 8, 2008
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
Pink starts with the inarguable premise that we live in a changing economy. The smokestack industries moved overseas long since, and white-collar jobs are fast following. Countries with low labor costs, compared to the West, have growing pools of highly skilled technical workers. As a result, things like programming, accounting, and circuit design have changed from specialty skills to commodity tasks, just as happened with material goods like toasters, toys, and sneakers. Pink declares that the new differentiators include aesthetics, design, and the human experience. His examples include car manufacture considered as an art form, holistic legal services, and the medical value of doctors' empathy.
Although I agree with many of Pink's points, the logical, left-brained underpinnings of his argument just aren't strong enough to support the weight of warm feelings piled onto them. For example, he notes that good product design has value to the product owner. Then, as a counter example, this book's front cover includes a die-cut that leaves little tongues of paper pointed out into the cut's opening. Those tongues catch on things, fray, and even tear into the cover around them. Mr. Pink: good design does not unintentionally self-destruct.
Elsewhere, Pink notes the established fact that mothers commonly carry infants in their left arms. Because of a crossover in neural wiring, Pink asserts that this puts the child in contact with the woman's right brain. Well, maybe. It also frees the mother's right hand to stir the pot or do other work at the same time as kid care. Even left-handed mothers often carry their children on the left side, possibly because the heart is on the left and its rhythm tends to soothe the child. But no, Pink has taken the right-brain bit between his teeth and runs with it. As a result, he gently sweeps aside little things like the basic fact that right/left brain duality has always been stronger in men than in women, and that Asian researcher sometimes have trouble reproducing the results at all. It might, in fact, just be an artifact of Western males.
I have an engineering degree, but art school training as well. At least one of the algorithms I developed was hard to describe, but physically obvious once my listener experienced it in her own hands - leaving her with the problem of explaining it to others. I understand the importance of the human terms in engineering equations. Unlike Pink, I also know that science and engineering are intuitive practices, and expressions of deep human feeling in themselves. I actually agree with Pink on many points. I just don't agree with his one-sided approach to two-sided problems, with his selectivity about facts friendly to his case, or with his weak logic in making the case that we need more than just logic.
-- wiredweird
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