Tweeted it at @DEFINEforum and then thought it’d be really interesting to hear other colleagues’ thoughts on how they, as parents, non parent (or parents to be!) think about this issue.

Is it on the radar? If so, how does it affect us?

Does traffic congestion piss us off?

Assuming there is an issue.  What should/could be done to resolve the problem? What’s the cost to society/environment/the individual?

Are we concerned about the way people drive,?  How do we feel about fellow road users – drivers, cyclists, bus users or pedestrians?

I know what we do at our house – we do a bit of car sharing with other parents for football training and matches, albeit with the proviso that certain kids are strictly out of bounds, because they’re such a pain in the ass…

Occasionally I pick up a kids straigth from school and walk them to and from footie training – it’s a bloody long way, with proper Hovis-like traipsing to the training pitches without the steep cobbled streets or scenic Pennine back-drops).

In the summer we try to bike it to cricket training and elsewhere as much as possible.

There’s no doubt about it, however you get to your destination, there’s some considerable organisation required where others are involved – lots of texts to and from other parents (do texts have carbon footprints?).  And forever sending kids off to school with provisions which they invariably forget to bring home – mostly sports kit, occasionally pack lunch bags, water bottles etc.

And, as with anything involving other people, there is always more time required, more planning, more pfaffing, loading and unloading, waiting for shoe laces to get tied, match attax cards to be exhanged, GoGos to be examined, discussed and traded…

Naturally many of these debates centre around a core concern, borne perhaps from unease about the pace of change or a disquieting sense that our relationships with new networks and technologies may not be as benign as they appear. Even a cursory glance over recent publications and articles reveals a range of anxieties: that our ‘false’ cyber-relationships are replacing ‘real-life’ support networks; that our attention spans and cognitive capabilities are being altered by being plugged into several gadgets at any one time; that our physical and verbal communication skills are being stunted as we spend more and more time interacting with screens and gadgets rather than real people; that depriving people of the internet and media channels can actually lead to alarming ‘withdrawal’ symptoms or that our sense of self-worth and personal success might be skewed from heavy Facebook use[1].

One recurring theme however, is exploring and talking about our relationship with social media and IT through the prism of addiction. One study, widely reported and due to be published in the Journal of Psychological Medicine, explored the compulsive relationship that people seem to have with social networking sites[2]. Led by Professor Wilhelm Hofmann, researchers gave Blackberrys to a sample of 205 people aged from 18 to 85. Over the course of a week respondents were required at seven points over each day to send a text message describing the urges they had experienced in the last half an hour, as well as an assessment of the strength of those urges. What the results showed were whilst people appeared relatively successful at resisting compulsions to spend money, drink coffee or alcohol – they typically gave in to urges to check their Twitter, Facebook or other social media accounts. And yes, a study like this does help to illuminate the habits to which we are blind, but beyond that it only seems to show the difference between the social acceptability of having a shot of tequila in one’s lunch break or checking one’s Facebook account.

Another study[3], called the Unplugged experiment, asked students in ten universities worldwide to abstain from consuming any media at all over a 24hr period; this included email, internet and phone use. The effects from many of the respondents were reported as akin to symptoms associated with withdrawal from drugs or alcohol. As covered in the Telegraph[4], lead researcher Susan Moeller explained how surprising the results were to the students themselves, who had not realised the extent to which these technologies are embedded into their social lives and day-to-day physicality:

“Students talked about how scary it was, how addicted they were…they expected the frustration. But they didn’t expect to have the psychological effects, to be lonely, to be panicked, the anxiety, literally heart palpitations”. Dr Roman Gerodimous who ran the project used the same language of addiction/withdrawal to explain the results they were seeing: “[Students are] reporting withdrawal symptoms, overeating, feeling nervous, isolated and disconnected, they don’t know what to with themselves or their time.”[5]

It certainly makes for interesting reading, but is it really appropriate to talk about our relationship with social media or IT in terms of addiction? Mark Fabbri, director of the Psychology degree at South University, does not think it a fitting term to use. If addiction is defined as “a compulsion to consume something or engage in a set of behaviours to the point that it significantly interferes with a person’s life” [6] there are clearly limits to applying this term to the vast majority of social media users, who are able to maintain relationships, hold down jobs and basically get on with their lives. And within that argument is another more basic point – these technologies and virtual networks do not prevent us from getting on with our lives, rather they are one of the main ways we actually do get on with our lives: we text our families to find out when and where to meet them; we tag ourselves and friends in photos to bond with others and shore up relationships; we use smart-phones and email to perform our jobs. No wonder that people have regular urges to interact with social media sites or that if you deprive people of communications technologies they feel lost, lonely and anxious!

The kind of studies above only go to show that not being embedded in these networks is becoming increasingly abnormal,  rather than their day-to-day use being a sign of pathology. Certainly there is much important and interesting work to be done on how new media and technology are changing our societies and our psychologies, but for a whole new generation talking about being addicted to social media sounds as outdated as saying we were once addicted to posting letters.

Lucy Bush is a Research Manager at Define

By 2050, here in the UK, 88% of our 64 million population will be living in urban areas (compared to 77% in the 1970s). Unicef’s Urban World Map illustrates this is a worldwide trend, so clearly one that merits discussion.

Originally, it was assumed this urbanisation process would entirely destroy the concept of community which would make for a short article here; the case would already be closed. However, this decree was challenged as early as the 1957 (by Young and Wilmott) and litigation on the matter continues today. Recent and impending changes in the worldwide urban make-up warrant an examination of the latest evidence.

That said, the concept of ‘community’ remains one of the ‘most difficult and controversial in modern society’ (Lowe, 1986) so wish me luck as I submit to you my take on things.

Ed Glaeser is a prominent urban economist, a Professor at Harvard and known most recently for his publication ‘The Triumph of the City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier and Happier’. In this, Glaeser describes cities as:

‘The absence of physical space between people and companies. They are proximity, density, closeness. They enable us to work and play together, and their success depends on the demand for physical connection’

Using examples over the last 500 years across most of the continents of the world, Glaeser demonstrates how these features are fertile ground for creativity and economic development. They also provide the space for social, religious or occupational groups to meet, connect and reside within a fixed locality; ergo to establish and maintain a community.

A recent example to support these findings springs to mind in the case of Stokes Croft, Bristol. This area is a centre of art, music and independent shops and its character has given rise to a group of activists – The People’s Republic of Stokes Croft who are seeking to revitalise the area through community action and public art (most notable for their involvement in the April 2011 Tesco Riot). Glaeser provides the example of the Mormon community in Salt Lake City and other commentators add London-based ‘urban anglers’ (Amin and Thrift, 2004) and a whole range of other contemporary communities centring around food, gender, animals, vegetarianism, DIY and crafts (Urry, 2000). You only have to look at the recent resurgence of the urban Women’s Institute and its cocktail parties and belly dancing classes to see their point.

So, the growth of cities doesn’t sound to me like the termination of community. In fact, if anything, it appears to facilitate the development of productive and thriving communities of interest. Cities enable individual members of the human race to be greater than the sum of their parts by finding other pieces in the jigsaw of life, rather than remaining incomplete when limited to the geographic confines of one’s birth place.

In thinking this through I likened it to one big card game of Happy Families. Once the cards have been shuffled and distributed, the objective is to bring together the family members and their respective skills so that they can operate to their optimum.

Ideological perhaps. But it does help illustrate my point.

To temper my newly evolved (and sophisticated!) model of community I thought it best to peer outside the parameters of my neat paradigm and give thought to the possibility that urban community does not in fact exist. An article in The Times provided the perfect opportunity – Rob, a relatively recent migrant to the hills near Abergavenny in Wales puts forward the case against. Though conceding that cities do offer the above discussed communities of interest, his central argument focuses upon the singularity and lack of choice in community membership which somehow make rural communities more authentic. He explains ‘In the countryside, your neighbours are your only community‘. Yes, factually accurate, but I reject the notion that this definition of ‘community’ is somehow supreme by the nature of its concentration and can only assume that Rob’s nostalgic and romanticised image of community (his trump card in advocating country living) is one that has not existed for centuries, if ever (Lewis, 1960).

In summary, I think it’s clear that urbanisation has not led to the demise of community as predicted and in fact has helped invent new notions of the concept. Though of course I can’t say this with absolute certainty as the definition of community remains a can of theoretical worms, this is reassuring given the trends on urban sprawl outlined at the outset.

Taking my Happy Families Community Model to its logical end point, maybe we could help the universe’s master plan come to fruition with more haste? The field of modern dating, for instance, would certainly have some principles to lend (think match.com and speed-dating). Though then again, perhaps life is indeed a journey rather than a destination and we should enjoy the ride while we can.

Sarah Salisbury is a Senior Researcher at Define

Bibliography

• Amin, A. and Thrift, N. (2004) Cities Reimagining the Urban. Polity Press in association with Blackwell Publishing Ltd
• Lowe, S. (1986) Urban Social Movements: The City after Castells. Macmillan
• Lewis, O. (1960) Tepoztlan: Village in Mexico. Harcourt Brace College Publishers
• Urry, J. (2000) The Sociology beyond Societies, Routledge, London
• Young, M. and Wilmott, P. (1957) Family and Kinship in East London. Harmondsworth: Penguin

TKO was born out of three friends’ disillusion with the average Joe’s self absorption and the notion that people only do kind things to make themselves feel better. To test their hypothesis, David, Benny and James took to the streets. But their research failed to confirm their expectations. In fact lots of people had great and simple ideas for helping others. Their optimism reluctantly rekindled, the three pals concluded that random acts of kindness were possible and worthwhile – and if doing them makes the doer feel good too, that’s just fine!

The Kindness Offensive was created.

In addition to a raft of altruistic activities, the Kindness Awards began.

TKO volunteers posed as lost tourists in need of help. Passers by who took the time to assist were surprised by an impromptu street party in their honour. Members of the TKO crew who’d been hiding, bedecked in fluorescent TKO flack jackets and hard hats, magically appeared to present the winner with a bottle of champagne and a medal in thanks for their act of everyday kindness.

TKO won a nationwide competition for a Routemaster. The competition, the brain child of clothing company White Stuff, was to give the bus to whoever came up with the best use for it. TKO suggested delivering presents in it – food, toys, clothes etc – to the young, the old, the needy. And deliver they did – almost 30 tonnes of gifts!

So there we have it – a brief tale of arbitrary altruism. Research and experience suggest that through kindness and human connection we may well live longer, healthier and happier lives. How great would it be if kindness became the new health fad? Kindness is more than just a nice ideal; it’s a viable way to exist in the world. Go on; commit random acts of kindness today!

Dr Hannah Henry Smith is a senior researcher at Define and has a PhD in planning, delivery and management of children’s projects.

thekindnessoffensive.com

The argument for ‘ego-socialism’ is based upon a few fundamental premises. The first of which is that it’s a result of the current economic recession. The austere environment fostered by the recession has made people more aware of the finite nature of much that we had previously taken for granted.

It has grounded people.

Consumers, investors, lenders and producers have been smacked in the face with a healthy portion of ‘reality pie’, which has brought to the forefront of their consciousnesses that speculation, no matter how affirmed with confidence and hope, is built upon incredibly shaky foundations.

The second premise is that within this austere economic environment people are unwilling to adapt their previous needs and desires; but are willing to adapt the ways in which they obtain them. The counter-intuitive concept of ‘ego-socialism’ refers to the grouping together of people to form a cohesive, powerful, social entity capable of exerting considerable pressure for the purpose of personal gain.

With this comes the third premise – people are no longer satisfied with buying into a product in itself, but rather want that product to stand for something that is meaningful to them – a symbolic representation of the way in which they construct their social and cultural worlds. By inscribing our consumerism with a deeper meaning perhaps we feel more assured that it is not merely based upon something tangible and perishable, but something more enduring, collectively experienced and ultimately greater.

For me, behind ‘ego-socialism’ lies a call for identity. In a world with such an overwhelming amount of, well, everything – philosophies, ontologies, religions, anti-religions, spiritualisms, opinions, products, new versions of old products which themselves will soon become defunct – it is no wonder that we seek solace wherever we can find it. It is also not surprising that as humans we look to group together around products, brands and, increasingly, the ideas and life-styles they stand for. After all, we are a highly gregarious species. Importantly though, we are also a gregarious species that loves stuff! It is in no doubt that many of us in the ‘Western’ world (and, increasingly, beyond) are heavily materialistic in our ways of life. Given the ubiquity of ‘stuff’, and the high economic and socio-cultural value we place on and in it, it is somewhat natural that they come to represent increasingly significant proportions of our identity, ideology and expression.

But, is this really such a new phenomenon? Anthropologists for some time have suggested that to try and understand the world and the attitudes and behaviours of those in it, without an explicit consideration of the significant influence objects exert, is impossible.

Take, for example, two of the founding fathers of social anthropology as we know it today.

Branislaw Malinowski and Marcel Mauss, researching and writing in the early 20^th century, were among the first to explicitly emphasise the social, cultural and political influence of objects. Their ethnographic studies were based in Melanesia, where they took great interest, amongst other things, in how certain people’s lives were dominated by objects called ‘Kula valuables’. These hugely valuable items of reciprocal exchange often saw men travel hundreds of miles by canoe to fulfil their obligations of reciprocity, where items were exchanged in ceremonies which observed exacting and long-held customs and traditions. It would be an understatement to say these objects heavily impacted the lives and social structures of those they came into contact with. The valuable objects were a symbol of identity, personal and kin status and a material manifestation of a larger world-view. I am sure MRs today would come to the same conclusions!

In his edited volume, ‘The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective’, Arjun Appadurai draws attention to the fact that objects are heavily entwined with our ways of life – in fact, to such a degree that they can be seen to adopt a ‘social life’ in themselves. Perhaps a rather abstract concept for some, but it is worth bearing in mind that it is not only humans that inscribe objects with symbolism and value, but also that objects powerfully inscribe our lives with structure, meaning, focus and motivation.

How does this relate to ‘ego-socialism’?

Well, it suggests that humans have been attaching themselves – their symbols, values and identities – to objects for quite some time and in a huge number of ways. I don’t think there is anything particularly new in this. Of course, the current context provides a wealth of differences compared to that of Melanesian Kula valuables! But that people want to buy into an idea and identity alongside a physical entity should not come as a surprise – the two are, and have been for some time, inextricably bound (have a look into ‘Actor Network Theory’ for a suitably confusing account of this!!).

But I can’t help feeling that as useful as the notion of ‘ego-socialism’ is, it is bound only to be a relatively fleeting one, at least as far as it’s destined to revolutionise the way brands and consumers shape consumption (and the way MRs understand it). If it is ideals, ideologies and deeper meaning that we as humans seek to ‘buy in to’, it will only be a matter of time until objects take a backseat.   We’ve started to see it already. The current economic ‘crisis’ has forced a shift in the way many people engage with each other and the world (including its objects) around them. The primary export potential of the UK is no longer raw materials and physical products, as it once was, but rather intellectual, epistemic property. But this shift is only slight, relatively speaking, and changes are due to get far more profound and significant in the not too distant future. It is becoming an unfortunate cliché these days that as a collective humanity we are living in unprecedented times with uncertain futures. But it’s true, and this doesn’t have to be a negative thing.

In the article on ‘ego-socialism’ posted on the ‘Research-Live’ website, Chris Leadbeater is quoted as saying modern “people don’t respond well to uncertainty”. This may be true. However, our socially constructed way of living has built a veil in which uncertainty has never had to be considered with any real seriousness. Since the Industrial Revolution, and the gargantuan changes it galvanised, we have never truly confronted and challenged our reality, at least collectively. The fact of the matter is that throughout history humans have been hugely adaptable or, to use a current buzzword, exhibited resilience.

We are capable of change. Change is what keeps us moving ‘forward’. Civilizations have come and gone. Nothing is as entrenched as we tend to think it is. However, the hard reality remains that, with so much institutional and social inertia ploughing us forward in our current socio-cultural, economic and political trajectory, change is hard to implement. Within the structures and systems that these current trajectories produce, ‘ego-socialism’ makes sense.

But wider change is necessary, and inevitable.

This change will not come from selling objects, no matter how much they come to represent an idea, ideal or identity. Not at least in the long-term. Rather, real long-term change will be made by ‘selling’ ideas, lifestyles and identities which foster an alternative way of being by their own virtue, not necessarily bound to any specific object.

This is the real challenge – selling consumers new ways of living and thinking when faced with an uncertain future; and one, as researchers, that we are ideally placed to confront.

Onwards.

Robert Lee is a Researcher with Define and has an MA in Research Methods (Anthropology)

Charities need to spend a certain amount of money on raising awareness around topics we wouldn’t otherwise know existed. In other words, evangelising is usually part of a charity’s remit because the issues they tackle exist because few of us are aware of them.

Marketing and advertising is a perfectly acceptable (and expected) means of feeding our love affair with most of the high street brands; so why then is it not when engaging with matters of more substance and depth. Using KONY 2012 as the case study, herein lies the issue…

Joseph Kony has abducted approximately 30,000 children in Central Africa over the last 25 years, forcing them to fight on behalf of the Lord’s Resistance Force Army. This hasn’t gone unnoticed by the experts in the field. In that time, most of the household names in international development have advocated on behalf of those affected by this large-scale act of cruelty to try and raise awareness.

The Cape Town Principles, guidelines to eradicate the use of child soldiers and protect those released, were established by the international community in 1997 and UNICEF, Save the Children and The Red Cross each work in the area.

Yet none of these efforts have successfully connected people as fervently and as rapidly and as KONY 2012. In the 4 days since the campaign’s launch on Monday, the 30 minute video has been viewed over 46 million times. Result.

You’d think so wouldn’t you?

However, amidst this great achievement, the charity has come under scrutiny for spending a ‘large’ proportion of its income on salaries, travel and the film-making itself.  Though, looking at their website this really shouldn’t come as a surprise. Invisible Children clearly state:

“We are story tellers. We use the power of media to inspire young people to help end the longest-running armed conflict in Africa. We make documentaries, tour them around the world, and lobby our nation’s leaders to make ending this conflict a priority”

The founders of Invisible Children are primarily film-makers and do not proclaim to be experts in the field (they work with local partners on the ground), so it is clear to me that a ‘large’ proportion of the money raised is obviously going to go towards generating more people power to support the issue. That’s exactly the point.

And why shouldn’t they?

It was only when thinking through the KONY controversy I was able to identify the source of my own frustration with regard to this issue.  Here it is in a nutshell:

We are annoyed about the amount of money KONY 2012 has spent on a campaign that has successfully raised our collective awareness of an issue that we would otherwise be ignorant of (and therefore not know to be annoyed or have a reason to be annoyed).

Ironic.

Critics are effectively asking us to ignore the enormity of KONY 2012’s success in raising worldwide awareness of this atrocity because it contradicts the common law we have established in judging the way that we believe charitable organisations should operate and behave. Namely, funds raised should not be used to further market and promote the cause despite needing to do this to raise the profile of the issue and mobilise support against the situation. In the case of KONY 2012, this ‘legislation’ seems to apply notwithstanding Invisible Children’s absolute transparency on this very issue.

The conclusion I can draw is far from satisfactory because I am still utterly perplexed. Perhaps it’s misplaced anger against the incomprehensible injustice of the issue?  Perhaps we are angry that it takes this amount of money to produce an advertising campaign to make us collectively listen?

As a researcher I’d revel in helping Third Sector organisations and their donors align their respective energies on the subject. I’d also love to unpick the inner workings of the KONY 2012 campaign to help others apply its principles (if not its budget). In relation to KONY 2012 specifically, and the wider debate it has sparked, I therefore watch with anticipation as the story unfolds.

Sarah Salisbury is a Senior Researcher at Define who previously worked in a fundraising capacity in the 3^rd Sector

For over a decade, LPA has been working to improve children’s lives and life chances in Lambeth, south London. With one of the highest numbers of young people under the age of 21 across London, Lambeth also has high levels of poverty and deprivation. Convinced that play is vital for children’s health, well-being and social growth, LPA work to put children and young people’s needs at the centre of the ethos, design and development of local provisions.

LPA speak on children’s behalf in contexts that are out of their reach and ensure they have a voice in decisions affecting them. They work in strategic partnership, through engagement with local stakeholders, with community support and development to create and expand quality play opportunities that reflect real needs. They campaign, advocate, train, fundraise, manage and offer advice to others with shared commitments to children and young people’s rights.

In addition to core funding from Lambeth council, LPA have a strong funding background from the likes of Children in Need and the National Lottery.

Many LPA staff are local and have worked in these settings for years, with positive and often have lasting relationships with the children and parents. So they, and the organisation, are well placed to understand where the target audience is coming from. LPA also regularly conduct consultations with their target audience to continually improve the organisation and ensure that the voices of children and young people, and their representatives/family members, are accurately fed back to those who make decisions affecting them.

Current programmes include:

-          ‘Care to Play’ project which supports young carers in the borough to access adventure playgrounds;

-          South Lambeth Families Project, a new 4 year project to help local residents set up and deliver activities for children and young people. This project will get more children in the borough playing and, over the course of the 4 years, local residents will become fully equipped to run their own groups into the future;

-          Transforming Play Project is all about building new play structures and environmental play areas on adventure playgrounds across the borough, supporting playworkers to develop their building and maintenance skills, and involving children in the design and build of their new play structures.

-          Over 35 street party projects in which LPA work alongside Lambeth residents to organise and run very popular events in which communities come together to bolster relations, have fun outdoors and enable children’s play to happen in safe streets with the support of playworkers and play resources.

Dr Hannah Henry Smith is a Senior Researcher at Define and Chair of Lambeth Play Association (http://www.lambethplay.org.uk/)

Undertaking the task prompted the question – just how easy do charities make it for potential supporters to donate in this way? I am digitally literate and, more importantly, was specifically tasked to make these donations but still found that some of the websites made it feel a much easier process than others.

So what was it that made it easy?

I could be about to reveal an inner impatient streak, but ease of navigation for me, began with a very large and prominent donate button.

I am familiar with the ‘size-of-donate-button’ debate within inner fundraising circles but now, having been there (twenty times over), poised to take the donation plunge, I can now confidently proclaim ‘the bigger the better!’. I certainly didn’t feel they were crass for having their ‘wares’ on show (as the argument against a big donation button goes).  I’m fully aware of how charity-donor transaction operates and I just wanted the donation process to be as smooth as possible.

A charity, by legal definition, is an organisation that ‘provides a public benefit’ (Charity Act 2006). They fulfil an important social function which I, the donor, have chosen to support. To perform, they need financial assistance from me and (just to dissolve any illusions of grandeur) hundreds of thousands of others. They should be proud of their cause and feel legitimate in raising funds rather than forced to relegate their donation button to a dingy corner of the screen.

If, in comparison, I visit any reputable retailer’s website the shopping basket isn’t apologetically hidden making it difficult for me to select and gather my virtual items. No, it’s urgently blaring right from the landing page – ‘shop now!’, ‘hurry – when it’s gone, it’s gone!’, ‘snap up these best selling steals’ etc etc. Okay, so I’m being slightly facetious (though they’re all real examples) but you get the idea. Commercial enterprises don’t beat around the virtual bush when vying for your cash. So why should an ethical and morally responsible charitable venture harbour these concerns?

This is something I’ve actually long wondered and was recently acknowledged in an article in which Rosaline Jenkins claims that ‘Everyone should be a fundraiser now!’. By this, she means that everyone, from the staff on the ground to the chief executive via the marketing and fundraising teams, should be equipped, willing and confident to evangelise about their charities’ cause and their merit to ask for money. If those closest to it can’t do this, how can they hope to convert those further away?

Suddenly, it all makes sense. Charities aren’t deliberately making it difficult for donors to donate. Rather, their very essence means that brash marketing and loud proclamations are not naturally part of a charitable organisation’s make-up.

However, I consider that my experiment, albeit ad hoc was fairly replicable of a typical donor journey.  And, as a real-life donor, if you’ve made it to a charity’s website; you’ve already made the decision and you mean business. Some charities therefore need to be more confident about their fundraising credentials and seize the opportunity to easily facilitate such unsolicited advances. As Jenkins argues, charities shouldn’t be ashamed of generating income; in fact, it should be at the core of everything they do. Asking for money to support their cause is rightly so their raison d’être.

Practically, for me, this translates into a bigger donate button – the bigger it is the easier it is to find. Not an earth shattering finding, but perhaps one that needs reiterating until all charities have the confidence to implement it.

Sarah Salisbury, Senior Researcher

• Rosaline Jenkins is the Sustainable Funding Officer at the National Centre for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO). Her thoughts on this and other topics can be following in the NCVO’s Blog.

The session reiterated something I’d picked up on a while ago in Daniel Pink’s book A Whole New Mind: Why Right Brainers Will Rule The Future. Pink says that subsequent to the Information Age, a new Conceptual Age is emerging and we (the Western world) need to adapt accordingly if we are to continue to thrive. Follows logic really, we didn’t blossom from ancient civilization through to the Industrial Revolution via the Age of Enlightenment without some sort of strife.

So what does this Conceptual Age entail, why has it emerged now and how can we modify ourselves to fit neatly into this Brave New World?

Globalisation and technological advances now mean that something or someone is always out performing or undercutting us and that creativity and resourcefulness rather than analytics are essential in an effort to combat this previously none existent competition. In addition, as a specie, we are no longer fighting for our survival or the accumulation of material wealth and so require services and products that provide holistic experiences and meaning. Pink predicts that in the Western World designers, inventors, counsellors and ethnographers will prosper whilst lawyers’, engineers’ and accountants’ roles will eventually migrate to Asia.

The different skills-sets required to meet the needs of the Conceptual Age here are characterised by the way that the left and right hemispheres of our brain operate. The left is sequential, linear and analytical. The right side is none linear, intuitive and inventive.

Pink argues that although ‘left-brain’ competencies are still necessary, they are no longer sufficient if unaccompanied by their ‘right-brain’ counterparts. Individuals and enterprises that engender skills such as inventiveness, meaning and empathy are therefore more likely to prosper in the new Conceptual era.  Pink articulates the concept himself here (if you can ignore the flesh coloured shirt).

Once I’d processed all of this information using my ‘left-brain’ skills, I could see Pink’s point of view and thought ‘now where can I find these so-called ‘right-brain’ skills?’

This was when it dawned on me. It seems we need the skills we don’t have to acquire the ones we now need. We’ve been raised to rely on knowledge, proof and certainty which have, generally speaking, bred out our inventive ‘right-brain’ instincts required to develop ‘right-brain’ skills. Can we simply demote this pre-disposed dependence on information ingrained into the core of who we are?

Apparently we can. This was comforting to learn given my initial despair that we were going to be the next lost civilisation. Pink argues that a portfolio of ‘left and right brain’ competencies reside in all of us, but need ‘nurtured into being’. Great, where do we begin?

The School of Life’s programme is built around these skills and Pink’s book itself provides a road map to navigate this new era. But I still can’t help thinking that something more mainstream needs to be done to avoid our future demise. Are our political and educational leaders aware of this impending change? Are we equipping the next generation to deal with this significant shift to ‘right brain’ thinking? What about the current ‘left-brain’ generation unaware of their impending doom?

Well, we’ve seen these changes start to play out in our own research industry where co-produced and iterative qualitative methodologies are now common place. Researchers form part of the strategy team rather than acting as impartial bystanders who happen to analyse information and provide recommendations. So the ability to provide a narrative appears to be the type of ‘right-brain’ competency that will ensure research professions weather the storm. Phew. So perhaps my initial alarm is overzealous and these types of changes are quite normal when we swing from age to age and enact the survival of the fittest.

Sarah Salisbury, Senior Researcher

The School Of Life was founded by living philosopher Alain De Botton in 2008 and aims to provide a place for people to step back, think intelligently and offers good ideas for everyday living. More information can be found on the website: http://www.theschooloflife.com/
Daniel Pink’s book is called A Whole New Mind: Why Right Brainers Will Rule The Future (2006) published by Riverhead Trade