I stayed up until 1:00 a.m. last night finishing Dan Pink’s fantastic book, A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the World.

I’ve had this book since I won it at the 2006 HOW Conference (along with Chip Kidd’s book, The Cheese Monkeys). I’d heard lots of great things about it, but for whatever reason, I never got around to reading it. Since I’ve got some reading time on my hands, I thought I’d give it a shot.

The basis for Pink’s book is that we are no longer in the Information Age, but have moved on to the Conceptual Age, where information-based work can be replaced by computers and cheap laborers. The challenge for this age is “high-touch” and “high-concept” thinking, also known as “right-brained thinking.”

Pink states that the new crop of workers need to develop six essential skills in order to succeed in the new Conceptual Age – Design, Story, Symphony, Empathy, Play, and Meaning. (To understand what each of those mean, you’ll have to pick up the book.)

I was really fascinated by the book because I found that my own personal skills and abilities really lined up with Dan’s essential skills. That doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t continue to develop them, but it means that I’ve developed skills over the course of my career that will be useful in this next age.

Now if I could just find a job that would recognize those talents instead of ruling me out the instant that I try to apply for something that I’m qualified for…