Chapter 2:

Abundance, Asia, and

Automation
A presentation by
Lisa Whittington
University of Georgia
Spring 2009

Daniel Pink starts off reflecting in the days of yesteryear when typical advice
from parents was
Go to school, get good grades.
Go to college. Pursue a profession that will give you a decent standard of
living and prestige.

Be a doctor.

Be a lawyer.

If someone was good at math and science they were encouraged to

be a doctor or if they were good at English and history, they were
encouraged to be a lawyer.

When computers started booming, youngsters who were really good at

math and science chose high tech. Many flocked to business school.

M-B-A

Success was spelled

Knowledge Workers
People who get paid
for putting to work
what one learns in
school rather than for
their physical strength
or manual skill.

These are the people who

excelled in Left Directed
thinking and had the
ability to apply theoretical
and analytical knowledge.

Meet your knowledge workers...

Executives
Doctors

Lawyers

Engineers
Accountants

Knowledge workers have shaped the

character, leadership and social profile of
the modern age. They have shaped middle
class America.

Middle class America must pass through these

knowledge booths on the way to the land of knowledge
work. These tests are the gatekeepers into middle class
society.

PSAT

MCAT

SAT
These tests measure Left-Brain thinking. They are left brained
instruments requiring logic and analysis.

GMAT

LSAT

The exercises on these tests are linear,

sequential, and bounded by time.

PSAT

MCAT

SAT
These tests reward test takers for zeroing in on a
single correct answer.

GMAT

LSAT

Daniel Pink calls it the SAT-ocracy

Many nations have devoted considerable time

and treasure into producing left brain workers.

PSAT

MCAT

SAT
Daniel Pink says the SAT-ocracy is in its dying days.

GMAT

LSAT

Left Directed thinking still matters very

much in society.

...but
it is
not
enough.

Today we are
moving into an
era in which
Right-Directed
thinking will
increasingly
determine who
gets ahead.

The Effect. Diminuated relative importance

of Left Directed thinking and the
corresponding increased importance of Right
Directed thinking.
The Causes:
Abundance
Asia

and

Automation

Abundance
America has mega-mall shopping sites everywhere.
We have size, selection, and a wide scope of things
we did not have 30 years ago.
The choices are preposterously more interesting,
more attractive, and more bountiful in everything than
it was back in the seventies.
Throughout malls are acres of good looking, low cost
merchandise.

Abundance

America has all sorts of stores for all sorts of stuff.

Some Best Buys are bigger than a neighborhood
block and have electronic and designer technology.
Best Buy has 39 different varieties of cordless
phones.
Pet stores sell $15,000 a day worth of merchandise
for non-humans.
Anyplace in USA you can find a mall that was not
visible years ago. This is characteristic of modern life.

Abundance
Most of the history our lives were defined by scarcity.
Today the defining feature of social, cultural,
economic life is abundance.

Middle Class America is obsessed with design as

demonstrated in Target. For example-Target and other retailers have sold nearly 3 million units
of Rashids Garbo Molded Polypropylene wastebasket.

Businesses must create products that are beautiful,

unique and meaningful.

Mundane utilitarian products must

become objects of desire.

Abundance

Never before have we had such a wide assortment of goods and products in high
quality and low prices. To succeed in this crowded marketplace, a product must
also be aesthetically pleasing.

Engineers must figure out

how to get things to work.
But if those things are not
pleasing to the eye or
compelling to the soul, few
will buy them.

Left brains have made

us rich and are powered
by armies of knowledge
workers.

$
$
$

Self Storage business is

booming.
Self Storage is a $17 billion
dollar annual business industry in
the U.S.
It is growing faster in other
countries.
When we cant
store our stuff we
throw it away.
USA spends
more on trash
bags than 90
other countries
spend on
everything.

Prosperity unleashed by Left Directed thinking placed a

premium on Right Brained sensibilities-The ironic
result of
abundance
the very
triumph of Left
thinking has
lessened its
significance.

Beauty
Spirituality
Emotion

$
$

Mastery of design, empathy, play, and other soft aptitudes is

now the way for individuals and firms to stand out in a
crowded marketplace.

Meet Americas competition of Knowledge

workers

Asia

The salary these engineers receive

afford them a middle class lifestyle.

Asia

Indias colleges and

universities produce
about 350,000
engineering graduates
per year.

Computer Science
and Engineering
major from
Mumbai India.
Salary:
$15,000 a year

The work of software engineers and left brained

professionals in North America and Europe are
intimidated by programmers and their counterparts
throughout India.
It used to be an almost
exclusive field in the United
States.

White collared American workers used

to earn $70,000 at this job.
Asians earn the same wages as
someone working in Taco Bell doing
the same job.

More than half of the Fortune 500

companies now outsource software to
India.
48% of GEs software is developed in
India. GE employs 23,000 people in
India.
Hewlett Packard employs several
thousand software engineers in India.
Siemans employs 3,000 computer
programmers in India and is moving
another 15,000 jobs over seas.
Oracle has 5,000 employees in India.
WiPro employs 17,000 engineers in
India who do work for Home Depot,
Nokia, and Sony.
Any job that is English based in US,
UK, or Australia can be done in India.

The only limit is the

imagination.

Financial services for Lehman

Brothers, Bear Stearns, Morgan
Stanley, JP Morgan Chase, have
contracted out number
crunching and financial analysis
to Indian MBAs.

In India you will find-Chartered accountants who prepare

American Tax returns.
Lawyers who do legal research for
American lawsuits.
Radiologists who read CAT scans
for American hospitals.

Outsourcing for
white collar jobs is
also migrating to
other parts of the
world such as
Russia, Brazil, and
Poland.

A typical chip
designer in US earns
$7,000 per month. In
India, $1,000 per
month.

Accountants in
US earn $5,000 a
month.
Accountants in
India earn
$300.00 per
month.

Aerospace engineers in US
earn $6,000 per month. In
Russia they do the same job
for $650.

One in four IT jobs will be off shored by 2010.

According to Forrester Research, 3.3million white

collar jobs and $136 billion in wages will shift from
US to India, China, and Russia by 2015.

American jobs
will go overseas.
This is precisely what
happened to routine
mass production jobs
which moved across the
seas in the second half
of the 20th century.

Those factory
workers had to
master a new
set of skills.
Many of todays
workers will
likewise have to
command
some new right
brain aptitudes.

Automation
John Henry, born with a hammer in
his hand was a figure of immense
strength and integrity. He was part
of a team who smashed through
mountains to clear tunnels for
railroad tracks. He progressed and
became the stuff of legend.
One day a salesman came bearing a
steam powered drill he claimed could
outperform the strongest man. John
Henry scoffed. A contest was
proposed: Man vs. Machine. Who
could do it faster?

In the end, John Henry

was exhausted by the
superhuman effort,
collapsed and died.
John Henrys demise
became a parable of
the industrial age:
Machines can do some
things better than
humans. Human
dignity was sacrificed.

Garry Kasparov is the John Henry of the new age.

He never lost a
match.
In 1996 he
defeated the
worldss most
powerful chess
computer.

In 1997 he took on a more

powerful machine. The IBM
computer Deep Blue. The
match was called the brains
last stand.

Deep Blue defeated Kasparov. He arranged

for a rematch against Deep Junior, another
powerful computer from Israel.

Chess is quintessentially a
left brain activity.
No room for emotion.
Depends on memory.
Thinks rationally.
Depends on brute
calculations.
Kapsparov said he could
analyze 1-3 moves per
second. Deep Junior was
able to analyze 2 3 million
moves per second.
Kasparov still believed
humans had other
advantages.

Humans have much to offer but

when it comes to chess and other
endeavors that depend heavily on
rule based logic, calculation, and
sequential thinking, computers are
better, stronger, and faster.
In 1997 Kasparaov said No
computer can beat me. Today
Kasparov says I give it only a few
years.

Last century, machines proved they could replace human backs. This
century, new technologies are proving they can replace humans left brain.

To recap: three forces are tilting the scales in favor of RDirected thinking
1. Abundance has satisfied and over satisfied the material
needs of millions boosting the significance of beauty and
emotion and accelerated the individual's search for
meaning.
2. Asia is now performing large amounts of routine white collar,
L-directed work at significantly lower costs thereby forcing
knowledge workers in the advanced world to master abilities
that cant be shipped overseas.
3. Automation has begun to effect this generations white
collar workers in much the same way it did last generations
blue collar workers requiring L-directed professionals to
develop aptitudes that computers cant do better, stronger,
or faster.

What does America do about this? Has catering to left brained

education created a monster? Is the answer to improving the
American economy in the right brain? How so? What do you
think? What is happening in America? Are you paying attention?
Do you think this will affect your future in America?
3/26/2009 IBM announced they were cutting 5,000 American jobs
and shipping the jobs off to India...

Pink, Daniel, A Whole New Mind,

Berkeley Publishing Group, New York,
NY, 2006, 28-47