Does the future belong to right-brained humans?

When Stanford University gave Oprah Winfrey an honorary degree earlier this year, she brought a gift for the entire graduating class: 4,500 editions of a particular book, to be exact.

The book was A Whole New Mind: Why Right Brainers Will Rule the Future by Daniel H. Pink. On its back cover, Thomas Friedman, the New York Times's big-picture, global-trotting columnist, calls it "his favourite business book."

Now Oprah, the Empress of Talk, has many talents. One of them is for making grand gestures. She also bought copies of this book for her entire business and production staff. (Add up these gifts and you'd have pretty much a bestseller in Canada.)

But what's the message of Pink's book? In short (and this may surprise Prime Minister Stephen Harper): the best way to survive in the 21st century is to become an artist!

Well, not quite an artist in the conventional sense. You won't have to apply for a Canada Council grant or terrorize conservative supporters by going to swanky, arty cocktail parties in a foreign embassies. It won't help to write novels that nobody wants to read either.

Pink is talking not about artistic pretension or a sense of superiority. He's talking about a style of mind, a way of conceiving the world in a right-brain fashion.

The bicameral brain

Now, much popular muck has been written about the new field of neuroscience and the fact that the human brain is divided into two hemispheres, the left and the right.

You've undoubtedly heard the mantra before in a simple-minded way: dull, stick-in-the mud accountants are left brainers while poets and creative types joyously swoon from their right cerebral hemisphere.

Pink acknowledges that he's using brain hemispheres as a metaphor. We all operate out of both spheres. But there is enough evidence to suggest that the division between left and right brainers is real.

Pink likes the word "directed" to get at what he means. In his analysis, left-directed thinking is "analytic, logical and literal" while right-directed thinking is "holistic, intuitive and non-linear."

The left side of the brain examines the details, the right side thinks about the big picture. The left brain gives us a sequential, close snap shot; the right brain a simultaneous, sweeping movie.

The left brain bias

So far, schools and businesses have tended to emphasize the dominance of left-brain thinkers, says Pink. Think finance, law and engineering. In straight economic reasoning, wealth flows from the left side of your head.

But that's all changing, says Pink. And that's why Oprah gave 4,500 copies of his book to students who graduated from an elite university.

Thomas Friedman, in the words of his best seller, tells us "the world is flat," meaning the rise of middle classes on all continents is reshaping the competition for knowledge and resources.

At one time, large Western corporations outsourced blue-collar jobs to China, India and developing countries. Today, they are sending high-value, higher wage jobs offshore as well. Why pay a computer programmer $70,000 in Dallas or Toronto when someone in Mumbai can do the work for $15,000 and live comparatively as well.

If you want a mantra for success (which is great for business books and staff retreats), Pink suggests asking yourself three questions:

1. Can someone do it overseas? 2. Can a computer do it faster? 3. Is what I'm offering in demand in an age of abundance?

The conceptual age

So, you may ask, where the heck does being an artist fit into this?

Stand back for a moment. Pink has a more grand theory to help us to understand the times.

He divides world history into four stages. We moved from agriculture to the industrial age, then to the information age. Now we're entering what he calls the conceptual age. It's staffed with "creators and emphathizers." In other words, right brainers.

In selling products and services, it is the skills of the artist — design and emotion, intuition and aesthetic value — that will rule.

Think of the iPod. Many MP3 players compete for the market. But the iPod is beautifully designed and is backstopped by an electronic store, iTunes, which makes it easy to select what you want to download. I own an iPod, though I could have bought a cheaper facsimile at half the price.

Another industrial revolution

We're entering what Pink calls the third industrial revolution. Forget about getting an MBA. Get an MFA (a masters of fine arts) instead and scare the hell out of your family when you tell them it will be practical.

The new conceptual workers are those who create and also feel the pain and the needs of the market. They offer us more than products: they tell stories, they engage emotionally. If you think that many of these principles are used in design and advertising now, you'd be right.

Pink has all sorts of advice on how to cultivate right-brain skills to make yourself more attractive in the new conceptual marketplace. Among them, tell stories, don't just recite facts. Create experiences not just products. Cross boundaries and synthesize.

Pink calls this "creating a symphony" by playing and forging relationships.

His is an uplifting, even comforting vision. Who can argue with brilliant designers with artistic merits, whether you find them in Silicon Valley, Italy or an industrial high-tech park outside Ottawa?

We Canadians have a lot of right-brain work to do, mind you. The Conference Board of Canada reports that Canada earned a D on an innovation report card. Out of the 17 advanced economies, we were number 13.

Our inner creator

So, we all think, OK, let's harness our inner creator. We're all potential artists (and geniuses). Don't beat the sense of play out of our kids. They might grow up to be Einsteins. (Einstein, by the way, employed right-brain thinking as he thought in images.)

Educate. Cultivate. Encourage. Let's create a nation of conceptual workers. Turn Stephen Harper's fear of artists on its head. The new conceptual artist will pay the bills.

It's an exhilarating idea. But my left brain has a few quibbles.

For one, it may not be that difficult to become an artist. But remember, there have been plenty of middling ones throughout history.

Take the case of the composer Antonio Salieri, as portrayed in the 1984 movie Amadeus. He used musical right-brain skills. But he still was just an arts functionary who envied Mozart his genius.

There's plenty of schlock art to go around and more than enough unreadable novels filling our collective shelves.

Is the call to change our brains, to change our way of educating and thinking, going to employ millions of Canadians?

Recently, I heard a man who had returned from a trip to Asia. He was stunned by the work ethic, the raw competitive streak, the fanatic discipline, the long grueling hours people put in.

In the flat-world competition of tomorrow, these things may be more important than focusing too much on right-brain thinking. Still, while we can thank Oprah and Pink for pointing us in another direction, my analytic left brain has to ask: is this just another way of comforting ourselves as we're outfoxed and outpaced?