Wait until you see what’s in store for North Carolina
by Tom Campbell

February 11, 2010

Those attending this week’s Emerging Issues Forum got a glimpse into the future. For some it was exciting and filled with possibilities, while others were no doubt threatened by what they learned. The theme for this year’s event was Creativity, Inc. and while there were many outstanding presentations, one in particular caught our attention.

Daniel Pink, author of A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers will Rule the Future, mesmerized the audience talking about left brain, right brain thinking. We all use both sides of our brain but one side tends to dominate the way we operate our lives. Left-brainers are more analytical, sequential and task oriented. Those dominated by their right brain are more creative, empathetic, observant and open to possibilities. Pink says there are three reasons why the scales are tilting toward right-brain abilities: Asia, automation and abundance.

There are one billion people in India alone. In two months India will be the world’s largest English speaking country. Fifteen percent are easily capable of competing in the global economy with skills like accounting, operations and engineering. That’s 150 million people, more than the entire population of Japan and more than the current U.S. workforce of 139 million.

Routine physical labor like textile machine and furniture lathe operators moved from North Carolina and the United States years ago to where labor was cheaper. Now routine intellectual work is following the same path. Pink says a good engineer in America earns about 65,000 dollars per year. In India they earn 25,000. Capital will always move to the cheapest labor.

Then there’s automation. In the last century, machines replaced our backs and muscle. This century software is replacing our left-brain linear, rule-based thinking. No longer do we write letters by hand or with a typewriter. Last year 23 million Americans did their taxes using TurboTax instead of employing someone or filling out forms manually. We will continue to relegate routine work to software whenever possible.

We are a country of great abundance. 99 percent of us have color televisions, even most of the 13 percent in poverty. 85 percent have mobile phones. In fact, we discard 460,000 mobile phones every day in the U.S. Our standard of living is the highest in history and greater than the rest of the world.

To stay competitive we must maintain our leadership in innovation and creativity. Pink suggests three ideas to achieve this. We must begin measuring what matters in our schools and workplaces. Most schools measure left-brain skills. We must stop turning children only into vending machines that spout dates, figures, and processes, instead teaching them how to see and understand, to think outside the box and use arts to communicate and learn differently. We need scientists who think like artists as well as artists who can think like scientists.

Daniel Pink’s last suggestion was that we need to include arts in our schools. Eliminating them is a “fool’s errand,â€