Motivation

If you’re interested in education, motivation, or doing right by our kids, you owe it to yourself to watch this Edutopia interview with James Paul Gee.In eleven minutes, he offers an array of compelling insights, including: How games, unlike schools, avoid the mistake of separating learning and assessment, Why we should use textbooks the same way […]

The traditional approach is to offer economic incentives, which can be effective in some circumstances but often fall short.So here’s a small but intriguing alternative from Sweden: Motivation through engagement. (HT: Scott Underwood)

Duc Huynh, a designer in Denver, says the recent Ted talk on candles and creativity, reminded him of this graphic depiction of a similar idea, which he created a few years ago. (You’ll need to click on the image to see it in its entirety.)

I’ll be taking a hiatus from blogging for the rest of the month, as I finish off a few projects and gear up for a busy fall and winter.If you’re curious about what’s in the works, and why I’ve been squirreled away in the boiler room of Pink, Inc., for much of the last six […]

I wish I were half as insightful and one-eighth as funny as Scott Adams. (via Dilbert.com with a HT to Becky Blanton)

Just back from TED Global, which was one of the few conferences I’ve attended that actually lived up to its billing. Even for a jaded dude like me, it was quite remarkable. Nearly all the talks were excellent. And Bunko winner Becky Blanton absolutely, totally, positively rocked the house in her 6 minutes of brilliance […]

As some of you know, I’m finishing up a book about the science of motivation. And each day, it seems, brings more evidence of how we’ve gotten this subject all wrong.The latest example comes from the London School of Economics, where scholars looked at 51 studies on pay-for-performance schemes: “We find that financial incentives may […]

One of the great things about a long project, like the book I’m finishing now, is not only the source of satisfaction at the end — but also what you learn about yourself and how you work along the way.What I’m discovering, or perhaps confirming, this time around is what kind of animal I am.To […]

In preparing for a visit to NeoCon 2009, I’ve been doing a fair bit of research on the utterly fascinating lives of Charles and Ray Eames.The Eameses, as most of you know, created, well, everything. Furniture. Graphics. Sculptures. Medical equipment. Films.In the 1930s, Charles, at the time somewhat frustrated with his architectural practice, picked up […]

“An economy that is more entrepreneurial, less managerial, would be less subject to the kind of distortions that occur when corporate managers’ compensation is tied to the short-term profit of distant shareholders. For most entrepreneurs, profit is at once a more capacious and a more concrete thing than this. It is a calculation in which […]