Book 2 Post 4

In my fourth reading of A Whole New Mind written by Daniel Pink, Pink began his break down of the six senses. Starting off with Design, Pink is devoting a chapter to each of the six senses in which he describes how you can work towards adapting to these senses. Pink talked about how design is a way for humans to shape their environments to give meaning to our lives. Design is a classic whole-minded aptitude. It is a combination of utility and significance. A graphic designer must whip up a brochure that is easy to read. That’s utility. Her brochure must also transmit ideas that words themselves cannot convey. That’s significance.

I think this idea is very cool and something that I had not really considered until reading this chapter. People use a large variety of tools for very brief periods of time. Say 1% of the time a person is judging how well the toaster works, while 99% of the time a person is judging it purely based on its appearance.  If you want success from an idea or product, it needs to have some visual appeal to the customer.

After Design, Pink continued on with Story. To find success in storytelling, Pink really recommends listening. The best way to master story telling is to hear great storytellers. Pink is all about this idea that stories exist where high concept and high touch intersect. Story is high concept because it sharpens our understanding of one thing by showing it in the context of something else. Story is high touch because stories almost always pack an emotional punch.

It will be interesting to see how Pink continues to describe the other four senses and what tips he gives to achieve them.

Book 2 Post 3

            In my third reading of A Whole New Mind by Daniel Pink, Pink transitioned from giving background on his ideas to really diving into them and showing what it takes to keep up in the right-directed thinking world. This also made the book more exciting because he is starting to get into his own analysis.

            The first thing that Pink brought up in this section was the six senses that are essential to succeed in this new era of thinking. Design, story, symphony, empathy, play and meaning are needed in an idea or product for it to find success in today’s world. An item not only needs to function, but also be visually appealing. Data isn’t enough anymore. You need to be able to tell the story of your product, put the pieces together to see the big picture, have empathy to understand your customer, and in the end have meaning and happiness in what you are doing. When I first read through the six senses, I was skeptical because these are not the six attributes that came to my head when thinking about trying to be successful in the business world. However, as Pink developed his analysis further, I could see why he put each of these six senses on that list. These six are really the hook moment in a deal that can make or break you. If you are missing just a single piece, it can cause a large downfall.

            I am excited to see what the rest of the book is like, as Pink will be breaking down each of the six senses into it’s own chapter. Hopefully, he will help the reader understand the points he is making about each sense and connect them back to the business world.

Book 2 Post 2

In my next reading of A Whole New Mind written by Daniel Pink, Pink continues to discuss how society’s changes affect the way we use our brains. Pink continued on his idea from the last reading that humans obsession with abundance causes a change in thinking. In this age of abundance, appealing only to rational, logical and functional needs is very inefficient.  People these days require all of their goods to not only work effectively but also be appealing to the eye.

Pink seems to make point all basically stating that left-directed thinkers are no longer key components to society. Not only are people not interested in things that focus on left-directed thinkers, but also technology seems to be replacing all of the old left-directed thinking jobs. Many of these jobs included using logic, sequence and analysis partnered with some sort of manual work, but now the computers can come up with a solution and fix the problem in less than half the time it was taking humans.  

Although Pink focused on abundance, a big part of this reading was discussing the breakdown of human history. Pink broke the last 150 years into three 50-year chunks: the industrial age, the informational age and the conceptual age. The part that I took away from this is Pink’s analysis of the conceptual age, or the last 50 years. He discussed how the main characters are the creator and the empathizer, whose distinctive ability is the mastery of right-directed thinking. Society is moving more and more towards being a right-directing thinking world and Pink is making points to prove it.

Book 2 Post 1

The book I choose for the second semester is called A Whole New Mind written by Daniel Pink. Initially, I was skeptical about this book because it wasn't my first choice and I wasn't too sure what it was going to be about, but as I dove into the book, I feel like I made the right choice after all.

Pink starts off the novel simply by breaking down the brain. He explains the differences between the right and left side of the brain and helps the reader differentiate between the two. The left side of the brain is focused more on details while the right side of the brain works to see the bigger picture. The left handles logic, sequence, literalness, and analysis. The right takes care of synthesis, emotional expression, and the big context.

I think Pink’s breakdown of the brain assures that all of his readers have the same base knowledge about the brain that you need before reading this book. I think this was a good way to start the book, especially when covering such an intellectually deep topic like the way the brain works.

After breaking down the two sides of the brain, Pink continues on to discuss abundance and how the world’s obsession with abundance has changed society. Pink talks about how abundance is the defining feature of social, economic and cultural life in much of the world. In turn, this has made Left-directed thinking much less significant. People are more focused on the broader context of their lives rather than the day-to-day text. I didn’t finish the reading on abundance during this post, but I’ll have more on it in my next post.