Beware the AAAs! In his book, A Whole New Mind, Daniel Pink warns that a revolutionary shift from left-brained to right-brained based society is upon us due to 3 factors:
Abundance (we've OD'd on the material and are attempting to medicate with the ethereal)
Asia (analytic, left-brained tasks are being outsourced)
and
Automation (robots are going to steal your job!) .
According to Pink we have moved on from the Industrial Age (where brute strength is the "backbone" of society) to the Information Age (where the brain is now the backbone of society) and are now into the "Conceptual Age" (where "inventive, empathetic, big picture capabilities" are the backbone of society).
The Information Age obsessively rewarded Left-brained thinking and skills with high paying jobs. In the Conceptual Age these types of jobs are at risk of being either outsourced to Asia or automatized and taken over by technology. Pink argues that "a whole new mind" built on the interplay of both left and right-brained skills with an emphasis on previously dismissed "artsy fartsy" R-dominant skills is what it will take to get/keep/protect your job from Asia and robots.
What made the existence of the Conceptual Age obvious and undeniable to me was Pink's illustration of how in today's society it is not enough for a product to be well-priced and highly functional, it must also be beautiful...enter that 'artsy fartsy' right brain;)
I love your picture...it fits this book perfectly! I really like the way you succinctly put the main ideas of Part 1 together, and that you mentioned that there is high demand for design now, because we as a society demand beautiful things now. I think those "left-brain" advocates forget about all of the beautiful things they love, and that it takes right-brain skills to create them!
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