Enough with the left brain thinking!



That is what Daniel Pink would say to you if he could. Ok, maybe not completely stop thinking with the left hemisphere of our brains (because we wouldn’t be able to function), but instead condition our right brain to make more contributions in our daily work. Daniel Pink’s new book, A Whole New Mind makes the argument that traditional ‘left-brain’ dominant jobs are moving overseas quicker than you can say ‘India’. With the combination of these three factors:

1. Abundance (of products and choices)
2. Asia (providers of cheap labor)
3. Automation (computers being able to replace humans)

we are facing changing times. With this fact in hand, those who can adapt to a larger ‘right-brain’ contribution to society will sprint ahead in the years ahead. What are some ways to ‘right-brain’ think? Good question. Pink provides six senses we need to develop: design, story, symphony, empathy, play, and meaning. By mastering these senses you will be able to provide value which can’t be outsourced. If you can answer ‘yes’ to any of the question below, this book should be in your queue to read:

1. Can someone overseas do it cheaper?
2. Can a computer do it faster?
3. Is what I’m offering in demand in the age of abundance?

“A Whole New Mind is for anyone who wants to survive and thrive in this emerging world - people uneasy with their own careers or dissatisfied with their lives, entrepreneurs and business leaders eager to stay ahead of the next wave, parents who want to quip their children for the future…” - Daniel Pink, A Whole New Mind

The influx of ‘community-based’ websites are fighting for your attention.

What are these ‘community-based’ websites, you ask?

Over the past year, these ‘community-based’ sites (see reddit, digg, ect.) started popping up soon after the blogging fad had become ubiquitous throughout the web.

Blogging, which has given the average person the platform to voice their opinion, has made ripples in national events such as the 2000 president elections, and uncovering CBS’s ‘Rathergate’. Blogging has transitioned the power from big corporation outlets (Fox News, NY Times, CNN, ect) to the collective population of Internet users.

Soon after blogging hit the scene we started seeing ‘community-based’ websites taking the stage. Reddit, being one of the more popular sites explains in their faq (frequently asked questions for the unaware):

“We want to democratize the traditional model by giving editorial control to the people who use the site, not those who run it.” - Reddit.com

Users submit whatever they feel others would be interested in, and the ‘community’ or viewers of the site vote on whether they like it or not. Higher voted material is displayed on the front page, while material deemed unfavorable gets replaced with new material. It’s simple as that, but powerful enough to give the masses a voice.

Jotzel, a business orientated ‘community-based’ website is definitely worth checking out. It was created after a huge demand overspilling from the Carnival of Capitalists. A carnival is a “blog article that contains links to other articles covering a specific topic. Most blog carnivals are hosted by a rotating list of frequent contributors to the carnival, and serve to both generate new posts by contributors and highlight new bloggers posting matter in that subject area.”*

*Wikipedia.com definition