A Whole New Mind

For some readers, like me, this will be old hat. I've felt like the either/or view of right-/left-brained thinking has ben insufficient for years. That being said, this has some great reinforcement of ideas that I held in soft focus previously, and some decent application ideas for become more “whole-brained” (along with a few stinkers. Well worth the read, especially if you are just getting started with these ideas.

If you've been living these ideas, it will still be a good read, but won't necessarily challenge or revolutionize your thinking.

Lots of new somewhat random information that I took away from this book: The combination of automation, abundanc, and Asia has been a death-knoll for American industry. We must change the way we prepare children for the future to teach the new important qualities including play, story, empathy, symphony, and design. Most effective leaders are funny. IQ accounts for less than ten percent of career success. Other important facts are imagination, joyfulness, and social dexterity. Design is “utility enhanced by significance.” The four basics of effective design are contrast, repetition, alignment, and proximity. Choose things, we are urged now, because they delight you not simply because they are functional. Stories are easier to remember because stories are how we remember. We believe that stories amuse and facts illuminate, but this is not true. Symphony is seeing how everything works together to make a whole.