I’m reading an interesting book that’s been on my “to-read” list for quite a while: Daniel Pink’s A Whole New Mind: moving from the information age to the conceptual age. Because the book was published in the spring of 2005, some of its ideas seem a little dated by now — e.g., Pink’s assertion that a large number of analytical “left-brain” jobs are disappearing because they’re either being automated or outsourced to India and China. Ho hum … yeah, we already know that.

But in addition to his emphasis on “Asia” and “Automation,” Pink also emphasizes the impact of “Abundance” — arguing that the enormous abundance of products and services available to today’s middle-class population around the world means that “features and functions” will be overshadowed by design, form, and other right-brain aspects of the product/service. For example, there are probably a couple hundred different cell phones to choose from — from Nokia, Motorola, Samsung, LG, and other manufacturers around the world — and with rare exceptions, they all have pretty much the same features and functions (including many that we never use!). Even with the iPhone, one could argue that what really makes it popular is not the innovative “features” like visual voice mail, but rather the fact that it’s just so damned cool and sexy-looking.

Pink uses this point to help justify the importance of conceptual, right-brain thinking, which he then discusses in detail for most of the remainder of the book. But I think we’re going to see a lot more discussion and analysis of this “abundance” theme in the years to come, especially when it’s combined with the “free” concept that people such as long-tail maven Chris Anderson have been talking about. I haven’t got my thoughts about “free” and “abundance” completely organized yet, and I suspect that there’s already some good information out there on the Internet somewhere (though Googling the two words generated a fairly bizarre list of hits). But here are a few initial thoughts; if you have any suggestions on where I might look for more insights, I’d appreciate hearing from you:

1. While science, engineering, automation, and various other new technologies may enable ever more abundant, and ever less expensive tangible products and services, I don’t see any obvious way to make time more abundant. Maybe we can develop technologies that will make it unnecessary for humans to sleep; but there will still only be 24 hours available in each day.
2. This suggests that there will be more and more emphasis on the trade-offs between increasingly abundant, nearly free “things” and the limited amount of time we all have available. And there will be more emphasis on things that save time, or that act as “time substitutes.”
3. Not everything is becoming abundant instantaneously, and many organizations (and governments, and cultures, and people) are slow to recognize when things have become abundant and nearly free. A simple example: wire coat hangers are so abundant and inexpensive that nobody (at least in developed countries) pays any attention to them. But how many times have you checked into a hotel where the coat hangers have been deliberately designed — like the one shown here — so that hotel guests will be disinclined to steal them, because they won’t “work” in a normal closet? I can steal the hotel’s towels, pillowcases, and probably even the flat-screen TV set in the room; but god forbid I should walk off with one of their cheesy coat hangers!
4. Many of our attitudes about the abundance and cost of today’s products and services were created when we were relatively young, because our parents (who lived in a world of much less abundance) impressed upon us the need to use those products and services carefully and efficiently. When I was a kid growing up in the 1950s, for example, our family had a strict rule of turning off the electric lights whenever we left a room — even if we planned to return in a few minutes — because electricity was so expensive. Ditto with air-conditioning, televisions, or any other appliance that consumed precious electricity. Try imposing that discipline on today’s generation.
5. By contrast, some things used to be cheap, and are no longer so: when I got my first car, gas was only 25 cents a gallon. I’m not sure whether people like Daniel Pink have thought enough about the “natural resources” (which include such things as water and clean air, in addition to petroleum) that are growing more and more scarce… Of course, the optimists might argue that new technologies will help us create energy sources to replace petroleum; and maybe we’ll find a way to desalinate the oceans so that it won’t matter that we’ve drained our rivers and lakes. But I doubt that such scientific advances will happen quickly enough, or that we’ve given much serious thought to the side-effects of such advances…
6. When things are scarce and expensive, it seems inevitable that someone (or some organization, or some government power) ends up owning them and/or controlling them — which, among other things, means regulating who, what, where, when and how those things are used. And when those same things gradually become more plentiful and less expensive, the same individuals, organizations, and/or government agencies often try to maintain control … even when they have less and less ability to do so. In the 1960s and 1970s, for example, computers were so scarce and expensive that only large companies could afford them; and the IT department determined who could use that computing power, and under what circumstances. Today, some 30-40 years later, the IT departments often behave as if they’re still in control — even though every employee, customer, and citizen carries around more computing power in his/her pocket than existed in the mainframe data center a decade or two ago. It’s always a shock when the “authorities” in charge of controlling those scarce resources suddenly realize they’ve become irrelevant…

Well, that’s all I’ve come with for the moment … I’ll let you know if I find some other intelligent thoughts on the subject.