Tag: danielpink

How To Not Get Sick On An Airplane

~ Mark

austinkleon:

I get sick every time I go home for Christmas, and while it isn’t helped by lack of sleep and alcohol abuse, I’m pretty sure 75% of it is the 3-5 hours I spend on what is, essentially, a flying petri dish.

So thanks to The Wall Street Journal for these tips (which I’ve summarized):

  • Hydrate (drink water, use saline spray).
  • Clean your hands with alcohol-based hand sanitizer
  • Use disinfecting wipes to clean off tray tables before using
  • Avoid seat-back pockets.
  • Open your air vent, and aim it so it passes just in front of your face. Filtered airplane air can help direct airborne contagions away from you.
  • Stay the hell away from people who look sick

The air vent thing was new to me! Now I’m off to get disinfecting wipes and some saline spray.

Update: thanks to @aweissman for this suggestion: “i do this and it almost always works: basically OD on Vitamin C before you get on the plane – right before. Use EmergenC or a similar product, drink it all up while waiting.”

See also: Daniel Pink’s travel tips. Episode #1 is about avoiding illness. I like his ointment-in-the-nose trick. And don’t forget (environ-)mental health tactics: earplugs, headphones, eye mask!

How To Not Get Sick On An Airplane

~ Mark ~ Leave a comment

I’ve been enjoying Daniel Pink’s travel tips series, but one bit from tip number 7 about how to zip through airport security really spoke to me. I’m both ashamed and proud to see myself here:

Men are crazy. We are hyper-competitive. So, every opportunity we have to best someone else, we will take it. What this means is when men get in a security line, they do not want to move more slowly than the guy behind them because that would compromise their masculinity.

And that is why you should get in the line with the male business travelers. Our tacit competition will keep things moving quickly.

A Whole New Mind (review: 2.5/5)

~ Mark ~ Leave a comment

I first heard about A Whole New Mind: Moving from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age when Joshua Blankenship posted this excellent quote from author Daniel Pink. Great stuff, so I found the book, which isn’t as great.
The premise is that the Information Age was led by left-brained, linear-thinkers. Now, as we enter the Conceptual Age, the balance is shifting such that right-directed, sympathetic, synthetic thinkers are more and more valuable.

To survive in this age, individuals and organizations must examine what they’re doing to earn a living and ask themselves three questions:

  1. Can someone overseas do it cheaper?
  2. Can a computers do it faster?
  3. Is what I’m offering in demand in an age of abundance?

Luckily the book isn’t about outsourcing paranoia, but about some soft skills and sensibilities you’ll need: Design, Story, Symphony, Empathy, Play, and Meaning. The book is heavy on the anecdote, and generally light-hearted, but not particularly gripping. Like some other pop-business books I’ve read like The Long Tail and The Tipping Point, I think it would have been great as a long essay. As a book it feels a bit thin. I’ve heard excellent things about Pink’s other book Free Agent Nation, so maybe that’s worth a look.