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I love traveling mainly because it gives me a chance to catch upon my readings. One such occasion chanced upon during my visit to chennai this week . I devoured 3 books in three days! You can imagine how book starved I am, since my office work for the past 1 month did not give me any breathing space to read.Now about the books.The first book was by Daniel H Pink titled " A Whole new mind" . The second was a series of articled edited by Seth Godin titled " The Big Moo" and third, another book by Seth Godin - " The Purple Cow". In this post I want to give a overview of what Daniel Pink has got to say in his book A Whole New Mind

The book begins in an unusual way by explaining the right brain and left brain skills of any person and introduces the term Contralaterization. This means that left hemisphere of the brain controls the right side of the body and right hemisphere of the brain controls the left side of the body. The main differences between right and left brain are , left brain is sequential whereas right brain is parallel, left sees the details whereas right sees the big picture, left specialized in text whereas left specialized in context. To be frank, it was rather bizarre to read about right brain and left brain in a business non fiction book.At least I was least expecting it. But as I read through the initial chapters, it all began to make sense. The main point that author says in the book is that the emergence of 3A’s Abundance, Asia and Automation has changed the face of US economy and especially the employment opportunities for people.We are witnessing a new age , Conceptual age where technological edge does not create a sustainable advantage as any technological edge gets quickly commoditized and hence it is important to develop 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 and combine seemingly unrelated ideas in to a novel invention.High touch involves the ability to empathize , to understand the subtleties of human interaction , to find joy in one’s self and to elicit in others, in pursuit of purpose and meaning. The consequence of these forces makes it important for a person to equip oneself in 5 areas . They are

1. Not just function but Design
2. Not just argument but also Story
3. Not just focus but also Symphony
4. Not just logic but also Empathy
5. Not just seriousness but also Play
6. Not just accumulation but also Meaning

The book is organized in such a way that each area has a designated chapter and useful tools and exercises to hone them. The list of resources at the end of each chapter itself makes this book worth buying and referring to in the coming Conceptual age.