In her book Kill the Company, Lisa Bodell contends that our world economy is well into the Conceptual Age, where creative thinking is an essential mind set.  Looking back, we been through various "ages”, including the Information Age, then the Technological Age, the Industrial Age, and before that, the Agricultural Age.  All of these "ages” valued left-brain hard skills.  Bodell contends that workers in this new Conceptual Age need right-brained soft skills, five to be exact.  These include skill sets in:

> Strategic Imagination (dreaming with a purpose)

> Provocative Inquiry (What business are we in?)

> Creative Problem Solving (devising fresh solutions)

> Agility (thinking quickly in unexpected situations)

> Resilience (moving through the impossible to the possible)

Lesson plans on Soft Technical Skills from Lesson-Up.net provide skill sets for the Conceptual Age.