VISU1311: Creativity Blog #2

The essay, “ High Concept, High Touch”, presents a new age that is arriving, the Conceptual Age, and the need for right brain thinking. I agree with the author’s theories and concepts that he asserts, especially his theory that soon right brain thinking will be very valuable to the working world.

After giving a quick overview of each age from Farming to Information, the author presents the new coming age called the Conceptual Age. This Conceptual Age is an age where being a right brain thinker and having the talent of high concept and high touch is what will be ruling the working world and the age altogether. Businesses will be looking for artists to fill the role of the businessman or businesswoman and right brain thinkers will lead companies. I actually have come across a similar assertion and I have heard talk that employers are now looking for a candidate who is creative. I like the idea of the Conceptual Age mainly because the talents necessary in this age are the talents I posses and also I am stronger in right brain thinking than my left. This article makes me feel better about pursuing an art-based major and career. It gives me hope that my talents are going to be extremely useful for the coming years as we enter the Conceptual Age. The author also talks about how the MFA is the new MBA, which I thought was an interesting notion. I still think that an MFA cannot completely replace a MBA because there are certain ideas and practices that an MBA student learns that a MFA student does not; for instance, how to build a successful business. Art students may learn how to create a small business around the success of their art, but leading a large company with high stakes is a totally different scenario and is something art students are not taught.

Schools’ seemingly constant need to test their students’ IQ is also touched in this essay. The SAT is defined as an exclusively left-brain thinking test and it tests for skills that are no longer as important as they once were with the coming of the new Conceptual Age. I only took the PSAT, never the actual SAT, because my scores suffered from the amount of math that was on the test. I always excelled in reading, writing, and history. The SAT is made up of largely math and a small amount of reading and writing. So I naturally chose the ACT, which I excelled in much more than my PSAT. The Rainbow test was something I had never heard of, but if it were distributed I would have opted to take that one. For myself I think it would be easier, but I know that some people might think that kind of a test might be daunting or difficult especially since we have all been forced into left-brain thinking by schools. I never had to take any of the normal high school and elementary tests that public school students had to take and I am thankful. I had one test that we took each year at my school and there was never any kind of significance put on it other than that you got out of school early that day.

I very much enjoyed this essay and the author’s theories and evidence that he used to support his idea of the coming of the Conceptual Age. As far as I can tell I am ready for it.