Last week I attended the Academy of Management Meetings in Anaheim, California. I was struck by two worlds of fantasy: Disneyland and the Creative Class. One from the past, one from the future. While a few years ago the world of management was full of old white men, today I came face-to-face with the creative class from around the world. When you meet young people from the four corners of the world, they all have had the same vision of the future from different pasts. How do I know this?
My good friend Bernard Yeung (BY) was named the new dean of the NUS Business School in Singapore. I went to the reception in his honor. The room was an experience from another world- a fantasy: white chocolate covered appetizers, cool mood music, even cooler lighting, and long drinks. From around the world the creative class mingled and contemplated the future of the world. While Disney created a make-believe future for us to experience for $75, the creative class is creating a real future for us to live in.
This future is being created in many places and Singapore is just one of them. See the post by Bob Wuebker the other day. But how are the youth creating the future, this new “Disney”? (see the post by David Miller). The answer to that was found in a set of interesting sessions at the Academy: It is in the mind. Neuro-economics is the frontier. Decision-making through the lens of neuro-economics. Is home economics a myth? Should organizations care? How do entrepreneurs think? How does the creative class think?
What we have is the intersection of a set of disciplines: neuroscience, biology, economics, cognition, game theory, entrepreneurship, and experimental economics that is shaping a new world. This transdisciplinary way of thinking is influenced by emotions, preferences, utility, rationality, behavior, and rewards. All of this can help us figure out how the creative class makes decisions about their future. Go figure. Thank you BY.
August 14th, 2008 at 6:39 pm
It’s interesting that you talk about a field that’s so multi-disciplinary (neuro-economics).
For next year’s theme for our conference, we’re exploring a theme centered around Creative IT and how many jobs nowadays almost require people to understand diverse disciplines well. How people will have to get ever more creative to address our ever increasing and diverse problems. It’s almost as if Joseph Schumpeter’s creative destruction is shifting into over drive right now and causing us all to tag along.
August 15th, 2008 at 9:15 am
Yes, I was at the AOM as well (and that NUS reception)! There continues to be a tangible sense that creative change (destruction perhaps) is happening in many ways. For me the new frontier has become neuroeconomics and now uncovering all the ways it can be applied to entrepreneurship and organization theory research. Forgive me, please, but it is like a quote from an old Star Trek movie, a young man was given a new technology in a trade with Scottie back from the future, the young man said: “it will take me years to understand the dimensions of this matrix!”
I and others have already begun work in this exciting new field of application and hope that many others will come along. It is multi-disciplinary (Zak called it “transdisciplinary”) and virtually demands cooperative efforts. It is a vast and rich field ripe for creative exploration of the brain if not the mind in decision-making. And don’t get me started on hormones….
August 15th, 2008 at 2:05 pm
I wish the evening of the NUS chocolate covered fruits has never ended. Not only was it great food but it also provided great environment for creative thinking.
So let me start on the hormones that Mellani did not want to: chocholate (in general) releases many “feel-good” hormones and NUS has certainly proved that they understand neuroeconomics and the hormonal connection to decision-making and general human behavior.
I am looking forward to some cooperative work with members of the neuroeconomics community of NUS!