Daniel Pink’s “A Whole New Mind” Gets It
Happy 2009, everyone!
In the spirit of kicking off the New Year on a positive note, I am just going to scrap the follow-up missive I was writing to my previous post about US Airways and their ongoing frequent flier miles swindle (based on further experience over the holiday break, it continues to get more bizarre, and their underestimation of the intelligence of their passengers/customers is mind-boggling).
Instead, I am going to focus on something that was inspiring and uplifting – Daniel Pink’s book “A Whole New Mind”. The book was recently recommended to me by our friend Todd Marrone, who said, “hey, this book seems to really parallel what Think Brownstone is all about” – and after finishing it on the plane coming back from New Orleans a few days ago, I take that as a very high compliment indeed. I’m glad others (particularly accomplished right-brainers such as Todd) see these qualities in our work.
Checking out the listing on Amazon will give you the basic gist of the book, so I won’t reiterate here – but this was a fun, quick, and exciting read that made me more pumped than ever to hit the ground running in 2009 and add some of these new tips and techniques to our arsenal for crafting the best user experiences. I’m hereby suggesting that this book be added to the Think Brownstone bible (along with MUST reads like this) – and to quote the Fort Worth Star-Telegram: “If its likely that someone in China or India can do your work more cheaply than you can, of if a computer can do your work faster than you can, READ THIS BOOK.”
A few nuggets that I dog-eared because they struck a nerve with me and echoed the way I talk about what we do:
“…because of abundance, businesses are realizing that the only way to differentiate their goods and services in today’s overstocked marketplace is to make their offerings physically beautiful and emotionally compelling.”
“As (overseas outsourcing) takes over the routine work of software fabrication, maintenance, testing, and upgrading, Conceptual Age software types will concentrate on novelty and nuance. After all, before the Indian programmers have something to fabricate, maintain, test, or upgrade, that something must first be imagined or invented. And these creations must then be explained and tailored to customers and entered into the swirl of commerce, all of which require aptitudes that can’t be reduced to a set of rules on a spec sheet – ingenuity, personal rapport, and gut instinct.”
“Design is a classic whole-minded aptitude. It is, to borrow (John) Heskett’s terms, a combination of utility and significance. Design has become an essential aptitude for personal fulfillment and professional success for at least three reasons. First, thanks to rising prosperity and advancing technology, good design is now more accessible than ever, which allows more people to partake in its pleasures and become connoisseurs of what was once specialized knowledge. Second, in an age of material abundance, design has become crucial for most modern businesses – as a means of differentiation and as a way to create new markets. Third, as more people develop a design sensibility, we’ll increasingly be able to deploy design for its ultimate purpose: changing the world.”
Changing the world. I’m in. How about you? Let’s hit it!
P.S. To have your mind completely blown, follow up this read with Kurt Vonnegut’s “Player Piano” (as I did, completely by chance) – written in 1952 and, amazingly, the embodiment of so many of Pink’s observations in fictional prose. I become more of a fan of KV with each passing year…
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By Todd Marrone, January 4, 2009 @ 4:47 pm
So it goes.
By Lauren Sullivan, January 5, 2009 @ 4:55 pm
Interesting blog article and book. I think I’ll go pick that one up at the bookstore. Thanks for recommending.
By PRIMER, January 5, 2009 @ 5:20 pm
This is the tome we discussed at the movie premier of Snowbeast! I will have to check it out. Nice to hear that i won’t need my left brain in the future. Maybe i will keep it to operate simple tools like the toilet handle or use it to prop our studio door open. Thanks for the recommendation. looks interesting.
By Sacha, January 8, 2009 @ 11:51 am
Love this post. Everything I’ve heard about the book lends itself to writing (my tool for changing the world) as well. And when design+writing are done right and well, inspiration and, ultimately, change usually follow. Happy 2009!
By russ, January 8, 2009 @ 12:56 pm
Thanks for your comment, Lauren. HG looks like a great organization – a very crisp and clean site, too – very nice. Hope to cross paths soon!
Brian – exactly – in between watching 1970′s ski bunnies get attacked by a Yeti in your living room last weekend, this was the book I was telling you about. A fantastic read! And yeah, I’d hang onto the left brain for tasks like that, too. =) Actually, to be fair, Pink advocates a whole-minded approach that places equal emphasis on both hemispheres of the brain – but the tag-line on the cover probably moves more product.
Sacha – thanks for your comment as well – so cool to have someone with your background reading and posting on the blog. Your resume is really interesting and your site is great – keep in touch!