Whole New Mind Techtuneup

Are we Are we preparing preparing

children for children for their future?their future?

The World is Changing (and has changed)in radical ways

AsiaAbundance

Automation

AsiaBy 2010 India becomes the country with the most English speakers in the world

Developing nations continue to graduate millions of extremely capable knowledge workers, the professional lives of people in the West will change dramatically.

If number crunching, chart reading, and code writing can be done for a lot less overseas and delivered to clients instantly via fiber-optic cable, that's where the work will go.

AsiaAccording to Forrester Research, 1 in 9 jobs in the US information technology industry will move overseas by 2010.

Visit India's office parks and you'll see chartered accountants preparing American tax returns, lawyers researching American lawsuits, and radiologists reading CAT scans for US hospitals.

Pink even shared the story of a programmer making $70,000 a year who outsourced his job to a young Indian programmer for $15,000 year….slashing his workload by over 90%.

AbundanceOwning a car used to be a grand American aspiration. Today, there are more automobiles in the US than there are licensed drivers - which means that, on average, everybody who can drive has a car of their own.

Self-storage - a business devoted to housing our extra crap - is now a $17 billion annual industry in the US, nearly double Hollywood's yearly box office take.

In an age of abundance, consumers demand something more.

Abundance

$546 for a Whitehaus toilet brush

Check out your bathroom. Do you have a toilet brush designed by Michael Graves or a Karim Rashid trash can that you bought at Target?

Electric lighting was rare a century ago.

Candles are a $2 billion a year business - for reasons that stretch beyond the logical need for light to a prosperous country's growing desire for pleasure and transcendence.

Abundance

Santuario di Bellezza Candle, $180

Abundance

Automation

Last century, machines proved they could replace human muscle.

This century, technologies are proving they can outperform human left brains - they can execute sequential, reductive, computational work better, faster, and more accurately than even those with the highest IQs.

AutomationIndustrial Age

Information Age

Conceptual Age

Agrarian Age

Conceptual Age

The Industrial Age was built on people's backs.The Information Age on people's left hemispheres.The Conceptual Age is being built on people's right hemispheres.

We've progressed from a society of farmers to a society of factory workers to a society of knowledge workers.

And now we're progressing yet again - to a society of creators and empathizers, pattern recognizers, and meaning makers.

Questions to Ask

Yes = Trouble

No = Trouble

Yes = Trouble

To flourish in this age, we'll need to supplement our well-developed high tech abilities with aptitudes that are "high concept" and "high touch."

High concept involves the ability:• to create artistic and emotional beauty• to detect patterns and opportunities• to craft a satisfying narrative• to come up with inventions the world didn't know

it was missing

“High Concept" & “High Touch"

High touch involves the capacity:•to empathize•to understand the subtleties of human interaction•to find joy in one's self and to elicit it in others•to stretch beyond the quotidian in pursuit of purpose and meaning

“High Concept" & “High Touch"

In the Conceptual Age we need to complement our L-Directed reasoning by mastering six essential R-Directed aptitudes.

DESIGN – function is no longer enoughSTORY – with the glut of information a compelling story is still heardSYMPHONY – individuals can no longer specialize, they need cross domainsEMPATHY – logic is important but we need to know what makes each other tickPLAY – health and professional benefits of laughter and humor have been shownMEANING – food and shelter is readily available (for most) so now people can pursue spiritual fulfillment

Six Senses of the Conceptual Age

DesignWhat we make has to be more than just functional we have to make products that are appealing.

We don’t make automobiles. We make moving works of art that express the driver’s love of quality.”Chris Bangle, BMW

Design

StoryOur brains are wired for stories, not text.

“Scratch the surface in a typical boardroom and we’re all just cavemen with briefcases, hungry for a wise person to tell us stories.”Alan Kay, Hewlett-Packard executive

Learning to listening to their patient’s storiesis become more important to the training of new doctors.

Popularity of scrapbooking is combination interest in story and design.

SymphonyThe ability to look at the big picture

The ability to synthesize, not just analyze

The ability to put together the many varied pieces

Seeing seemingly disjointed relationships

Drawing on the Right

Side of the Brain

Seeing in Different Ways…

Negative Space

Symphony

Empathy

Sympathy is feeling bad for someone, empathy is feeling with someone else.

Empathy is the act of climbing into another’s mind to experience the world from that person’s perspective.

Yawning is contagious….we are wired to imitate it.

Facial expressions are universal not based on culture

EmpathySpot the Fake Smilehttp://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/mind/surveys/smiles/index.shtml

Mind in the Eyeshttp://glennrowe.net/BaronCohen/Faces/EyesTest.aspx

Overheard websitesA Humorous look (sometimes inappropriate) Look at Empathyhttp://www.overheardeverywhere.com

Play

People rarely succeed at anything unless they are havingfun doing it.Southwest Airlines strategy

The opposite of play isn’t work. It’s depression.Brian Sutton-Smith, University of Penn

Play includes games, humor, and joyfulness.

Games are the most elevated form of investigation.Albert Einstein

Play

“All work and no play makes Jack (or Ramses) a dull boy” is a proverb that dates back to ancient Egypt.

Computer games appeal to the right side of the game – via imaginative vicarious experiences.

The gaming industry has grown bigger (more revenue) than the entire motion picture industry. The Mario Bros. series of games has made more than twice as much as all of the Star War movies combined.

When USC started a film school 75 years ago, there were many skeptics. Games are the literature of the 21st century. The pieces are in place for this to happen.Chris Swain, USC game design instructor

Play

Four decades of study by various researchers confirms some common-sense wisdom that humor:

•used skillfully greases the management wheels•reduces hostility•deflects criticism•relieves tension•improves morale•helps communicate difficult messages.

Fabio Sala, Harvard Business Review

Play

Play

Play

MeaningAbundance has given people more time to wonder about their purpose and meaning.

People have enough to live, but nothing to live for; they have the means but no meaning.Ronald Inglehart, University of Michigan political scientist

Inglehart confirms his findings among multiple industrialized countries that we are moving from “materialist” values to “postmaterialist” values that emphasize self-expression and quality of life.

New Age warning…

suspend doubt for a few minutes

New Age warning…

suspend doubt for a few minutes

Two practical ways to begin searching for meaning are to begintaking more seriously spirituality and happiness.

Scientists have run MRI brain scans of monks as the meditate to see how different physical regions of the brain are used.

Spirituality and religion are connected, but not the same. Spirituality is the more broadly defined concern for the meaning and purpose of life – it is a fundamental part of the human condition.

Meaning

Attending religious services cuts people’s risk of death from heart disease, suicide, and some cancers.Johns Hopkins study

Stress, heart disease, and other maladies – can be allayed by attending to the spirit. People who pray regularly have been shown to have lower blood pressure than those who don’t.Duke University study

Meaning

http://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu

A pleasant life can be obtained by having experiences that bring you pleasure in your daily life. Attending to your needs and doing what you enjoy day in and day out can afford you a pleasant life – hanging out and having fun.

A good life is attained by engaging in the pleasant life, but also continually stretching your skills, challenging your abilities, and gaining new knowledge. It comes from knowing your strengths, using them, and improving upon them, or being capable, competent, and continually striving.

A meaningful life is one in which the person engages in the pleasant life and the good life, but also uses their life in to contribute to something beyond, and larger than, themselves.

"There are three roads to happiness: the Pleasant Life, the Good Life and the Meaningful Life. People who enjoy all three have the most life satisfaction."Martin Seligman, author of Authentic Happiness and Learned Optimism

Meaning