Bonkers for Bunko: The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You’ll Ever Need
I’ll admit it. I’m bonkers for bunko. Johnny Bunko, that is, in the just-released paperback, The Adventures of Johnny Bunko, “America’s first business book in the Japanese comic format known as manga — and the last career guide you’ll ever need.”
The book is written by bestselling author Daniel Pink, with art by Rob Ten Pas, who graduated right here in our backyard: at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design.
Johnny Bunko is stuck in a dull, demanding accounting job, running numbers, testing scenarios, and considering enrichment courses like ‘Best Practices for Operationalizing Your Managerial Headset,’ when he bleats — “I want to go into advertising or work in a big design or branding firm.”
Well, okay then, Johnny Bunko. Come join all of us here at MIMA.
Through Johnny Bunko, Pink is displaying his none-too-subtle right-brain leanings, which he expounded upon in his bestselling book, A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future. In that book, Pink claimed we’ve moved out of the Information Age and into the Conceptual Age, where succeeding requires “the capacity to detect patterns and opportunities, to create artistic and emotional beauty, to craft a satisfying narrative, and to combine seemingly unrelated ideas into something new.”
Exactly what Pink’s done with The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: craft a satisfying, if a bit juvenile, narrative, while combining the seemingly unrelated ideas of manga and career advice.
(By the way, apologies to all you left-brained MIMA members. We value your expertise. Really, we do.)
Pink’s read-it-at-one-sitting book is packed with career wisdom that would be preachy were it not delivered by a Japanese comic book heroine, who is, according to the trailer on YouTube, “the most kick-ass career advisor you’ve ever seen.”
Here are the six lessons she teaches Johnny Bunko:
1. There is no plan
2. Forget about your weaknesses
3. Persistence trumps talent
4. It’s not about you
5. Make excellent mistakes
6. Leave an imprint
Pink offers wonderful, quotable advice on each of these lessons, such as “the world is littered with talented people who didn’t persist (lesson 3), “you’re here to serve, not self-actualize” (lesson number 4) and “the most successful people make spectacular mistakes” (lesson number 5).
No stranger to marketing, Pink has also created a new word to accompany his book, “bunko” (not to be confused with bunco, the parlor game), cleverly working it into the story line by having Johnny look in the dictionary to find the verb form of his name, between the nouns bunionectomy and buns. (I warned you there was grade-school humor.)
bun-ko — (v) to make a mistake from which the benefits of what you’ve learned exceed the costs of the screw-up.
I predict it won’t be long before this verb appears in Merriam-Webster’s Open Dictionary.
The book’s trailer has some nice tight scriptwriting, including this enigmatic tagline: “explode your mind, embrace your chopsticks.” Read the book and it will all make sense.
Matter of fact, in the time it took you to read this post (and I thank you for that), you could already be through two chapters of The Adventures of Johny Bunko.
(Hat tip to Marci Alboher: Career Advice for the Short Attention Span.)
Tags: Daniel Pink, Johnny Bunko, Rob Ten Pas
