(Note: Because Groupon is apparently overwhelmed with visitors today, I had to link to a Screenr video of the unsubscribe page rather than the page itself.)

(Source: WSJ, 2/5/10)

In a blog post, he says that his creation builds on research showing that side-to-side eye movement, by increasing communication between the left and right hemisphere, can increase creativity.

If you’re facing a creative challenge today, I’m not sure watching Schauer’s nifty video beforehand will work. But I am sure it can’t hurt. If it doesn’t bring your two hemispheres into harmony, maybe it’ll be effective as a curious combination of the placebo effect and the Hawthorne effect. Give it a try. (HT: Bill Tulloh)

Yesterday Landesman announced that his modest but mighty federal agency was accepting submissions to redesign the logo for the NEA’s “Art Works” initiative.

As the NEA blog explains:

“‘Art works’ is Rocco’s guiding principle for his work at the NEA. The phrase has three meanings: ‘art works’ are the plays, paintings, dances, films and the other works of art that are the creation of artists; ‘art works’ describes the effect of art on audiences and viewers, art works to transport, transform, inspire, and challenge us; and ‘art works’ is a reminder that arts workers are real workers with real jobs who are part of this country’s real economy.”

The new logo, Landesman says, should make that three-part definition come to life. Designers, start your engines. The deadline is February 26. The actual RFP is here.

Turns out there really is a Platform 9 3/4 at King’s Cross station in London. Here I am escaping my other obligations and racing to board the Hogwarts Express.
(King’s Cross railway station, London, 28 January 2010, 9:30pm)

PHOTO
To my amazement, Drive is #6 on the b.s. list at WH Smith, the giant retailer. Here’s a photo showing the book in that exalted spot, ahead of books about cats and prostitutes and behind one by some bloke named Gladwell.

IDEA
This week, every daily edition of The Guardian comes with a 25-page booklet of poetry. Today, as you see, readers scored a collection of poems by Percy Bysshe Shelley.

It’s a cool idea. C’mon WaPo, give us some Wallace Stevens or Maya Angelou.

FACTOID
According to today’s FT, “Almost half of London entrepreneurs who are trying to develop a small business do not have a website.” Maybe they ought to buy an iPad, which is on the front page of every paper here.

QUOTE
Also in today’s FT, and quite relevant to the link between (massive) executive compensation and (not so massive) executive performance is this quotation from Jeroen van der Veer, former CEO of Shell: “You have to realise: If I had been paid 50 percent more, I would not have done it better. If I had been paid 50 percent less, then I would not have done it worse.”

As part of his effort to spark conversations, he’s interviewed several other authors about their work — and how their ideas relate to his. Below is the interview Seth did with me on the connections between Linchpin and Drive.

GODIN: Your book Drive really got me excited. First, it’s a great book. Second, it brings up a complementary point I totally missed! The essence of the lesson, as I hear it, is that art, initiative and creativity aren’t things we do to get a reward. They are intrinsic rewards in and of themselves. Do I have that right?

PINK: Amen, Seth. Too many people harbor the misguided belief that humans are motivated solely by biological urges and by carrots-and-sticks. Those two drives matter, of course. But we’ve neglected that humans also have a *third* drive — to direct our own lives, to get better at stuff, to make a contribution. Here’s an example. This weekend somebody’s going to be practicing the clarinet — even though it won’t get him a mate (the first drive) or make him any money (the second drive.) Why is he doing that? Because it’s fun, it’s interesting, it’s meaningful. Because the act is its own reward.

GODIN: As you put it on the first page of Drive, this is a mind-blowing revelation that has been almost completely overlooked by our command-and-control factory system. In the world we grew up with, if there isn’t an extrinsic motivator (a prize, a payment or at the very least, a pat on the head) then why bother? What do you think Ayn Rand would say?

PINK: First, don’t forget that Ayn Rand herself was a novelist and screenwriter — a creator. Beyond that, I think she’d be aghast at my saying the market isn’t perfect all the time. But I think she’d see that her iconic characters — for instance, Howard Roark — were motivated by internal desires like autonomy, mastery, and purpose.

GODIN: Does this explain why people with an irresistible need to create tend to gravitate to fields where they’re almost certain to not get paid? (Stuff like poets, painters and playwrights come to mind).

PINK: I doubt it. What I think is going on is that until recently, the business world didn’t much prize people with these kinds of skills. So if you wanted to do those things, you weren’t going to get paid much. Today, these right-brain types are much more in demand. That said, there are maybe fourteen people on the planet who are going to make a living as poets. But, again, there are maybe a million who can use their talents as poets in work as teachers, copywriters, bloggers, journalists, and other professions and business centered on creation.

GODIN: Do you agree with me that every successful organization needs people like this today? Problem solvers, self-drivers, artists?

PINK: Of course. Not even a close call.

GODIN: How then do we merge the two motivations? How do we get people to bring their artist to work?

PINK: Stop treating people like horses and start treating them like human beings. Instead of trying to bribe folks with sweeter carrots or threaten them with sharpen sticks, how about giving them greater freedom at work, allowing them to get better at something they love, and infusing the workplace with a sense of purpose? If we tap that third drive more fully, we can rejuvenate our businesses and remake our world.

At the risk of sounding like a peevish author picking nits from the tangled hair of quickly forgotten reviews, let me do precisely that. Drive never says that raises aren’t worthwhile. Far from it.

Yes, raises in the form of “If-then” rewards — “If you do something great, then you’ll get a raise” — can be dangerous. But in general, I advocate (and the science affirms) paying people well.

For instance, page 79 says that if an organization doesn’t pay someone “an adequate amount, or if her pay isn’t equitable compared to others doing similar work—that person’s motivation will crater.”

Page 172 says: “Providing an employee a high level of base pay does more to boost performance and organizational commitment than an attractive bonus structure.”

The bottom line, from page 170: “The best use of money is to take the issue of money off the table . . . Effective organizations compensate people in amounts and in ways that allow individuals to mostly forget about compensation and instead focus on the work itself.”

Enter the good people at Milwaukee’s General Mitchell International Airport. As I discovered last week, workers there have given the post-security line patch of tattered carpet and stiff benches, where passengers can lace up their shoes and dust off their MacBooks, a new name. It’s not much. But it’s not bad. Not bad at all.