I found Daniel Pink to be a totally engaging speaker. He not only worked for Al Gore as a speech
writer, I thought he looked like Al Gore (or at least a thinner version of Al
Gore) and even spounded like Al Gore.
When I read his book “A Whole New Mind”, it immediately resonated with
me. The implications of the three forces
shaping our future that he identifies – Asia, Automation and Afluence – are profound.
I suspect we’d all thought about Asia – a few years ago,
Business Week had a cover story on Asia round the theme that the four most
feared words in the English language now are:
“The China price is………..”.
When he went on to talk about on-line divorce software I
wanted to tell him about Patent Pro – patent claims drafting for $299. Much closer to home.
Finally, affluence.
This was the first time I’d really focused on the incredible affluence of
American society. I had a reasonably comfortable
middle class English upbringing, but the material posessions we have today is of
a different order of magnitude.
Automation and Asia have brought proces of “stuff” down so much. I bought my first VCR in 1981 when my oldest
son was a year old, and it cost best part of a month’s take home pay. Today, a DVD player is $50.
So I completely buy Pink’s thesis that creativity
is the key to the future of the American economy. But what are the implications for what we do? Will we license more or less in the
future? I suspect that the answer is
more. The peer review system makes our
professors more ingenius and creative than their international peers. They have to be able to sell their science to
their peers and the funding agencies, and that should gurantee a steady flow of
innovation for us to license.