Right Brain-ing It

Daniel Pink is positive- the world will soon rest in the hands (or more appropriately minds) of today's right-brainers. In his book "A Whole New Mind," Pink defines the left brain as the center of logic and information, and the right brain as the complex of emotion and reasoning that puts information in context. It is inevitable that these two sides of the brain must work together in some form for significant output, but how is our society end up being currently left-brained, as Pink puts it? He reasons that the world has gone through several ages which have fixed us in our current state. It began with the agriculture age, where surviving and maintaing land was essential to life. Once land was posessed, we began refining our essential items to make a better living for ourselves, which brought around the industrial age. More recently, we have locked ourselves in an age of information, where, especially concerning the widespread use of the computer, we are thirsting for easily disposable information because it is accesible to us. Although the web is an amazing way of communicating and finding a common ground for the diversities of our world, information has nearly maxed out.

Pink determines that there are three factors that will consume this overload of information and make it mandatory for the rest of us to become creative thinkers: Abundance, Asia, and Automation. Abundance- there are so many various forms and styles of our products today, that it is becoming essential to incorporate more of an emotional or mental connection to the consumer to want your product out of the hundreds available. Asia- there are many phenomenal left brain thinkers in this world, all needed for the same tasks; Pink observes that persons from the middle east and asia who have these brains but lack our well-off lifestyle will be swallowing up the left-brain jobs because they will work for less since it actually is more for them. Machines are being trained to fufill the logic our brains sort. For example, in the 1900s the leading undefeated chess player Garry Kasparov was outwitted by a computer.

Since our success in informational thinking is beign overtaken by these factors, Pink reasons that our society requires a shift into creative thinking to problem solve our way to uphold our individual success. Yet how are we to do so? Pink has laided out six "senses" which he will discuss in the next section of his book: design, story, symphony, empathy, play, and meaning. I will discuss these as soon as I am done reading the section!

Shared Ideas

This past week I shifted focus to extend my involvement in the design world by become familiar with individual designers in the field right now.  Two websites that are really helpful in finding these people are Pop!Tech and TED Talks.  Both of these organizations find individuals from any kind of profession who have captivating ideas; The organization just gives them a time frame and records them talking about whatever interests them.

Here are some of my finds from each website:

TED Talks-

Tony Robbins' discussion inspired me the most.  He discussed what makes the difference in the quality of people's lives, reasoning that the determining factor is not the possession or lack of resources but the resourcefulness of the individual.  He categorizes the human's desires into 6 basic needs: Certainty, Uncertainty, Significance, Connection/Love, Growth and Contribution Beyond Ourselves.  

Clifford Stoll's "18 Minutes with an Agile Mind" discussion was a frantic thought-driven dialogue.  Stoll seemed like he had a lot of cool things to share, but he had trouble sticking to one point which took away from his speaking.  He mentioned that to find out the future, we shouldn't ask the brilliant people of our time, but the kindergarten teachers who are constantly watching our future generations develop, I thought that was an interesting point.  He ended his presentation with a brief experiment that measured the speed of sound.

Beau Lotto had a really clever, interactive discussion about how optical illusions reveal how the mind and our sight work in interpreting colors and light.  I thought that his topic was really amazing; he decoded how our brain learns images and colors that can trick us to think we see something else because it would normally make sense. "The brain didn't evolve to see the world the way it is, but the way it is useful to see, continually redefining what is normal."

Pop!Tech-

In his short talk "Slow," Carl Honore commented on how so many people are focused on doing things as quickly as humanly possible and that we should shift gears to perform as well as possible rather than as fast as possible.

Davy Rothbart spoke about his magazine "Found" which is comprised of objects and text that were left or forgotten and then found by someone who submitted to the magazine.  I think that this continual art form is a really cool idea and i'm inspired to make my own collection! Check out the magazine's website here.

Choreographer Elizabeth Streb introduced her new form of movement art, which doesn't limit the dancer to gravity and instead uses the whole body to make physical relationships to the three possible reference points-earth, water and air.

Done Good.

The rest of Berman's "Do Good" contains instructions and suggestions on how to bring about the improvement Berman is so adamantly stressing for our future.  He recommends methods and materials for producing the least wasteful items and being able to truthfully communicate them accordingly.  For companies that have already been sucked into the hole of deceit, Berman suggests that they begin developing alternative products under their brand name to keep their business going as they start weaning themselves off of the unhealthy product.  He concludes the book with what he refers to as "the do good pledge."  This pledge calls for an immediate shift in one's own:

Ethics - "I will be true to my profession."

Principles - "I will be true to myself."

Effort - "I will spend at lease 10% of my professional time helping repair the world."

This applies to not just designers, but any professional in the world.

If we all make an effort, only good can come from our working together.

I really enjoyed Berman's book; I learned so much about the mask that is put on everything and anything to make it appealing to consumers.  Think about grocery stores shelves- those tricky chip bags that are filled with air, appearing to contain double the amount of chips we are usually disappointed to discover.  And it doesn't necessarily stop at product advertising.  Look at today's fashions- high waisted skirts to elongate legs and push-up bras to create the illusion of fuller breasts.  Our society is centered on illusion.  Even if we are unaware that we are contributing to this mass facade, we each can be guilty of falsely promoting ourselves.

The only thing that I didn't necessarily appreciate about Berman's book is the voice he used.  He constantly spoke with a pushy, ordering voice that irked me a little bit; Who likes to be told what to do?  Yet it makes sense that Berman would choose to use this way of speaking.  The change he is asking for is on such a big scale that polite suggestions and pleading might not cut it.  For me, his message certainly overpowered the way he spoke.  In fact, I was most inspired by his little "Shopping Tips for Agents of Social Change" speil (pg 145), which began with the command, "Have a personal mission. Rethink."  I hope that this book will find its way around the United States and that the majority of its readers will find some insight and compassion within themselves to take Berman's message to heart and try to help reintroduce truth and goodness to our society.