A Whole New Mind
The future belongs to a different kind of person with a different kind of mind: artists, inventors, storytellers-creative and holistic "right-brain" thinkers whose abilities mark the fault line between who gets ahead and who doesn't. Drawing on research from around the world, Pink outlines the six fundamentally human abilities that are absolute essentials for professional success and personal fulfillment-and reveals how to master them. A Whole New Mind takes readers to a daring new place, and a provocative and necessary new way of thinking about a future that's already here.
Stats for nerds
5recommend
17mentions
14people
2007–2025years
41% recommend53% neutral6% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Read Daniel Pink: "Whole new mind".
Whatever you do, someone else will be able to do it faster and cheaper.
Also, read up on the "Red ocean" vs "Blue ocean" theories about competition.
Yes, you can compete in the cut-throat red ocean, where all other competitors try to survive by offering roughly the same product or service. Look at basically every AliExpress shop.
But it will only get you so far. Will they survive in the long run? To really succeed, you have to offer something unique. Production efficiency is of course on everyones radar. No company ever said "we dont care about how much it cost to produce our product/service".
Google wasn't unique when they started. There were several other search engines out there, Alta Vista being the largest one. Both offered their services for free - so how can you possibly compete on price in the Red Ocean against all other search engine? No matter how efficient the execution was, they had to attract people. Because that was what they were selling. People are the raw material. So, Google offered a different experience than all other engines. That way, they eventually got more and better raw material (people) to sell.
Apple tried what everyone else did back in the early 2000s; Sell mobile phones. But they did not become the world's second largest handset maker by being the most efficient at developing or producing them. In fact, they deliberately sold their phones at a loss for the first years. They decided that they would provide a completely new experience, and that eventually people would be willing to pay a premium which turned out to be twice as much than an android phone with comparable hardware features and costs.
SpaceX, on the other hand, have gotten the world leader in rocket launcher thanks to outstanding execution ; instead of destroying every rocket once the payload has been deployed, they are reusing the rockets, thus keeping the cost per launch much lower. Noone else have yet been near their reusability and cost per launch - because its litterarily rocket science, not because the competitors are less efficient in their execution.
Thomann and Behringer are some of the world's largest companies in the music instrument business. They have perfected execution to such degree that it is hard to find cheaper alternatives that are comparable even on AliExpress!
Ingvar Kamprad started his first company by buying pens in big-pack, selling them piecewize at a large markup. Later the company decided - similar to Behringer - to copy the design of well-known furnitures, but optimize the logistics, eventually also optimizing the manufacturing process. IKEA is now the world's most famous furniture company. But, even they can't sell the cheapest bookshelf anymore.
- I found that a good exercise for me, was the idea of a “mini-saga,”[0] which I first heard about, in Daniel Pink’s A Whole New Mind.
It helped me to be more concise (which I need —badly).
I have no problem at all, writing a lot of words. The challenge, for me, is writing fewer words.
- > It suggests morning people are usually better at analytical tasks in the morning and creative tasks at night.
This describes me, exactly.
I enjoyed his A Whole New Mind book.
- “to affect my pay” ← totally agree with you here.
This is a big part of why we think engineering metrics are a tough nut to crack: there’s a fair bit of research that suggests tying KPIs to compensation is a huge anti-pattern for certain types of work (chiefly those involving lots of novel problem solving).
Highly recommend Daniel Pink’s “A Whole New Mind” on this topic; it’s pretty fascinating stuff.
- Highly recommend Daniel Pink’s “A Whole New Mind” on this topic
Correction, the Pink title I was referring to was "Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us"
Pink does a great job unpacking research that demonstrates how this type of 'affect my pay' dynamic backfires for engineering.
- Two books which helped me to understand people and to organise my own thoughts:
Applying Psychology to Everyday Life: A Beginner's Guide http://www.amazon.co.uk/Applying-Psychology-Everyday-Life-Be...
A Whole New Mind - Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future http://www.amazon.co.uk/Whole-New-Mind-Right-brainers-Future...
