Do you have any idea about what the future will bring? Don't tell me you don't care because the future is too far away. I'm talking about next year, five years, maybe as much as ten. Don't tell me it's going to happen anyhow so what can I do? You probably need to get to work on it, or it will be done to you, instead of being guided by you.

    Am I talking dooms day? No, I am talking about a new era that is coming upon us and how we need to be aware of what is happening and adjust ourselves to some new rules. There are huge opportunities and fascinating times ahead if we recognize and understand what is happening and respond to the challenges.

    Chess is the thinking person's game. It is the game that has fascinated people for hundreds of years. Its rules are simple. Playing it is complicated. Only people with the highest intelligence become grand masters. Oops - now a computer wins every time. Cell phones are tiny, sophisticated, complex electronic devices that require skill and dexterity and carefulness to put together. Oops - that is being done by very low paid workers in China. Computer programming requires skills of understanding complex programming languages and experience using them in the most efficient manner. Oops - that is being done in India by well trained, low pay programmers (assisted by more and more sophisticated computer aids). Finding facts about anything at any time is just a matter of downloading Google (for free) and spending fifteen minutes teaching yourself how to use it. Do you want to know everything about Xzyek? Just type xzyek in the Google box and it will all come up.

    Is there anyone reading this that thinks what you do at work today will be the same next year or in five years? Think again.

    There are a couple of books that are "must reads" regardless of your field of endeavor. I am reading both of them as this is being written. I read a chapter in one and then a chapter in the other. They compliment each other perfectly.

    You have probably heard of the first: The World is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman. Friedman does an excellent examination of the rapidly developing world economy. He describes who is really doing what in the world of today and the near future. He has traveled the world and spent significant time with the leaders and movers and changers. What he describes is both fascinating and bothersome. Every day we see small examples of the flatness of the world. When they all get gathered together and organized by Friedman they become bothersome. I use the word "bothersome" because it implies something that must be dealt with and can be dealt with, but interferes with what you are doing.

    The second book is A Whole New Mind by Daniel H. Pink. The subtitle is Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future. The essence is that the Information Age is a left-brain logical sequential period where information and its logical use is primary and we are moving to the Conceptual Age where the right-brain and its ability to create high concept and high touch solutions will dominate.

    By-the-way, I have nothing to do with the authors or publishers of either book. I bought the first one because the title was fascinating. I bought the second because a friend suggested it when I told her I was reading the first one. I find it interesting that The World is Flat was in the economics section of the bookstore and A Whole New Mind was in the science section.

    Pink points out that the successful people in the Agricultural Age were the farmers; in the Industrial Age the factory workers; and in the Information Age the knowledge workers. He says that in the Conceptual Age that is coming it will be the creators and empathizers.

    How are you going to fit? What are you going to be doing? Read these books and your empathizing right-brain will create your answers.

• Thomas L. Friedman, The World is Flat (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005)
• Daniel H. Pink, A Whole New Mind (Penguin Group, 2006)

Excerpted from an article that first appeared in ComputerTalk for the Pharmacist