Drive, Practical Wisdom, Money and Congress, Alone Together [en]

[fr] Quelques lectures, vidéos, podcasts.

A few random thoughts about stuff I’ve been reading. Or maybe, random pointers to stuff I’ve been reading. Or watching.

I had a chat the other day with a friend about needing to make time for “serious reading” (that I want to do!) and we both decided to try and fit in 30 minutes of reading during lunch break when we didn’t have meetings or appointments. I think this has motivated me to get back on the podcast-listening and talk-watching track too. Interestingly, I’m seeing collisions between the various things I’m reading/listening to/watching from various sources.

Anyway. Start with Drive, the book I’m reading. It’s about motivation. I’m around page 30 so far, and it’s talking about the intrinsic/extrinsic motivation stuff I’m so interested in since I bumped into it whilst reading The How of Happiness. Now read I Was a Warehouse Wage Slave, a rather chilling account of what happens on the other end when you order stuff online (physical stuff, that is stored in warehouses, and needs to get to you). No place for intrinsic motivation of any kind in there.

And here’s a TED talk by Barry Schwartz (the guy who wrote The Paradox of Choice) on using our practical wisdom. What’s that? Quoting from memory, it’s about wanting to do the right thing, and knowing where and how to bend the rules to do the right thing. Barry gives examples of how rule-ridden our culture (particularly American culture) has become.

And in the same vein, watch Larry Lessig explain how money corrupts congress, and how it can be stopped. Sobering.

This morning I decided to listen to an RSA talk (I subscribed to their podcast ages ago but haven’t yet really listened to anything). I picked one with a title that appealed to me: Alone Together, title of a book by Sherry Turkle. She talks about two things, mainly. Robots is the second. It’s a huge topic: how willing we are to enter into relationships with machines designed to imitate the behaviours of living/sentient/caring beings — and the consequences of that.

But that’s less interesting for me right now than her thoughts on always-on mobile connectedness: smartphone in hand, we always have the option of bailing out of our lives with each other. She gives the great example of the 15-year-old birthday party. When everyone wants to leave, it gets uncomfortable. They have to talk to each other. Say that they’re leaving. Now, they just “disappear” into Facebook and avoid having to confront that uncomfortable moment.

We have this capacity to leave where we are physically to go someplace else, which is easier. And avoid facing moments where maybe we need to learn something as a human being — growing moments.

Later in the discussion, she talks about our inflated expectations of responsiveness from one another. This is a topic that’s dear to my heart. I strongly believe that we should not cave in to being “always available” and “ever responsive”. Sherry says that before e-mail, when professors were asked if they would contribute to a publication, the average response time was 3 weeks. Now it’s 1.5 days. We’re not thinking anymore. We’re responding as fast as our fingers can type on our Blackberries. She suggests trying to answer an e-mail with “I’m thinking” to see the reaction. Maybe I’ll try. 🙂

Update 16h45: oh yes, forgot this one. More hours does not mean more productivity.

Carotte et créativité ne font pas bon ménage [fr]

[en] I write a weekly column for Les Quotidiennes, which I republish here on CTTS for safekeeping.

Chroniques du monde connecté: cet article a été initialement publié dans Les Quotidiennes (voir l’original).

Plutôt que de vous parler de la nouvelle boulette (je suis gentille) de Facebook au sujet de nos vies privées (le sujet me sort par les oreilles, pour être honnête), je vais faire une petite digression pour vous parler de motivation.

Le monde connectĂ©, ce n’est pas que la technologie (j’espère ne pas vous avoir donnĂ© l’impression que c’Ă©tait le cas). C’est aussi le hasard des rencontres qui n’auraient jamais eu lieu sans cette technologie. C’est les rĂ©seaux et les communautĂ©s, dopĂ©s par ce qu’on appelle aujourd’hui les mĂ©dias sociaux (rassurez-vous, demain on aura trouvĂ© un autre nom). C’est les choses intĂ©ressantes qui vous tombent entre les mains d’on-ne-sait-oĂą, sans qu’on les ait cherchĂ©es. Le rĂ©seau qui vous les offre en cadeau.

J’Ă©cris cette chronique de Lisbonne. J’ai bravĂ© le nuage de cendres pour aller donner une poignĂ©e de conseils pour indĂ©pendants lors de la confĂ©rence SWITCH Ă  Coimbra — confĂ©rence mise sur pied par Ricardo Sousa, 17 ans, et son Ă©quipe Ă  peine plus âgĂ©e. A SWITCH, j’ai fait quelques rencontres marquantes, dont ZĂ©, sur le blog duquel j’ai fait un saut en dĂ©but d’après-midi après avoir retrouvĂ© mon wifi lisbonnais.

Et c’est lĂ  que je tombe sur cette vidĂ©o, que ZĂ© nous dit de regarder et regarder Ă  nouveau. Elle est en anglais — je vous encourage Ă  braver la barrière linguistique durant 10 minutes, et Ă  revenir ensuite ici. Je ne bouge pas.

Dan Pink, l’orateur que vous entendez dans la vidĂ©o, nous apprend qu’il a Ă©tĂ© scientifiquement dĂ©montrĂ© (je pèse mes mots) que les rĂ©compenses monĂ©taires Ă©levĂ©es ont un effet nĂ©faste sur le travail lorsque celui-ci fait appel un tant soit peu Ă  nos forces crĂ©atives. Les meilleurs motivateurs sont intrinsèques: l’autonomie, la maĂ®trise, et le sens. Quand on rĂ©alise que le monde du business fonctionne en grande partie sur des principes que la science a dĂ©montrĂ© comme erronĂ©s…

A mon avis, on peut appliquer tout ceci Ă  l’utilisation des mĂ©dias sociaux en entreprise, et surtout Ă  la volontĂ© hypertrophiĂ©e de tout mesurer — parfois Ă  tort et Ă  travers — afin de savoir si on en retire rĂ©ellement quelque chose. Mais c’est pour un autre jour!

Si je vous ai donnĂ© envie d’Ă©couter Dan Pink mais que votre anglais pĂ©dale un peu dans la choucroute, vous pouvez voir ici sa confĂ©rence TED sur la motivation, avec sous-titres français. C’est beau le web, non?