watch at least the first minute of this.

http://comment.rsablogs.org.uk/2010/04/08/rsa-animate-drive/

It's an interesting talk anyway, and over in 10 minutes, so it's worth watching.
-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
    Ada - the programming language trying to avoid
    you literally shooting yourself in the foot.

Post a reply to this message

On Fri, 21 May 2010 12:14:42 -0700, Darren New wrote:

> It's an interesting talk anyway, and over in 10 minutes, so it's worth
> watching.

Interesting talk, the presentation style reminds me a little bit of 
http://prezi.com/

Jim

Post a reply to this message

Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> http://comment.rsablogs.org.uk/2010/04/08/rsa-animate-drive/

  I think the point about having or not having someone constantly managing
what you are doing can work both ways, though.

  If I have understood correctly, when John Romero founded his own company
(Ion Storm) in 1996, his basic idea was to have a friendly work environment
with lots of freedom and little management pressure, where programmers and
artists had more independency and freedom to do things at their own pace in
their own terms.

  This (among other things) resulted to be a bad choice. The lack of
management, of a leader who would manage the whole, and who would clearly
instruct each department of what and how they would do things, resulted in
lots of miscommunication, wasted work and frustration.

  On the other hand, the Duke Nukem Forever project by 3D Realms (which went
for over 10 years) might be a good example of monetary rewards being, indeed,
demotivational rather than the other way around, as contradictory as that
might sound. Seemingly the project didn't finally crash because of lack
of funding, but on the contrary, because there was *too much* funding.

  Ironically, too much funding caused stagnation and lack of motivation.
There was no pressure, no deadlines, no actual motivation to do work in
order to earn the money...

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

Darren New wrote:
> watch at least the first minute of this.
> 
> http://comment.rsablogs.org.uk/2010/04/08/rsa-animate-drive/
> 
> It's an interesting talk anyway, and over in 10 minutes, so it's worth 
> watching.
I don't understand the experiment.  What does he mean "people offered 
the high reward" did poorly.  Does that mean no one actually received 
the high reward? I'm confused.

Post a reply to this message

On 21/05/2010 8:14 PM, Darren New wrote:
> watch at least the first minute of this.
>
> http://comment.rsablogs.org.uk/2010/04/08/rsa-animate-drive/
>
> It's an interesting talk anyway, and over in 10 minutes, so it's worth
> watching.

Sorry, it was over in much less than 10 minutes.
I’ve heard of and suffered “Death by PowerPoint” and this is a good 
example of insulting the viewer’s intelligence.


-- 

Best Regards,
	Stephen

Post a reply to this message

On 05/22/10 08:46, Jim Charter wrote:
> Darren New wrote:
>> watch at least the first minute of this.
>>
>> http://comment.rsablogs.org.uk/2010/04/08/rsa-animate-drive/
>>
>> It's an interesting talk anyway, and over in 10 minutes, so it's worth
>> watching.
> I don't understand the experiment.  What does he mean "people offered
> the high reward" did poorly.  Does that mean no one actually received
> the high reward? I'm confused.

	They performed worse than those who weren't offered an award, or
offered a low award.

-- 
Whose cruel idea was it for the word "Lisp" to have a "S" in it?

Post a reply to this message

On 05/22/10 09:04, Stephen wrote:
> On 21/05/2010 8:14 PM, Darren New wrote:
>> watch at least the first minute of this.
>>
>> http://comment.rsablogs.org.uk/2010/04/08/rsa-animate-drive/
>>
>> It's an interesting talk anyway, and over in 10 minutes, so it's worth
>> watching.
> 
> Sorry, it was over in much less than 10 minutes.
> I’ve heard of and suffered “Death by PowerPoint” and this is a good
> example of insulting the viewer’s intelligence.

	Well, OK. Watch his other talk at TED then:

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/dan_pink_on_motivation.html

	Also, he references Dan Ariely, who himself has two TED talks. And
Ariely's book (Predictably Irrational) is a pretty good read. It has a
chapter on this topic.

-- 
Whose cruel idea was it for the word "Lisp" to have a "S" in it?

Post a reply to this message

On 22/05/2010 5:39 PM, Neeum Zawan wrote:

> 	Well, OK. Watch his other talk at TED then:
>
> http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/dan_pink_on_motivation.html
>
> 	Also, he references Dan Ariely, who himself has two TED talks. And
> Ariely's book (Predictably Irrational) is a pretty good read. It has a
> chapter on this topic.
>

That’s a much better presentation with no gimmicks. As far as the 
subject matter goes he is preaching to the converted. ;-)

I suppose the problem is that I am a socialist and an European, these 
things are self evident (to most) here.
But I applaud him.


-- 

Best Regards,
	Stephen

Post a reply to this message

Neeum Zawan wrote:
> On 05/22/10 08:46, Jim Charter wrote:
>> Darren New wrote:
>>> watch at least the first minute of this.
>>>
>>> http://comment.rsablogs.org.uk/2010/04/08/rsa-animate-drive/
>>>
>>> It's an interesting talk anyway, and over in 10 minutes, so it's worth
>>> watching.
>> I don't understand the experiment.  What does he mean "people offered
>> the high reward" did poorly.  Does that mean no one actually received
>> the high reward? I'm confused.
> 
> 	They performed worse than those who weren't offered an award, or
> offered a low award.
> 
I see so the reward is not based on performance or achievements after 
the fact but rather it is paid in the hope of getting high performance 
or achievements which never pan out.

Post a reply to this message

Stephen wrote:
> On 21/05/2010 8:14 PM, Darren New wrote:
>> watch at least the first minute of this.
>>
>> http://comment.rsablogs.org.uk/2010/04/08/rsa-animate-drive/
>>
>> It's an interesting talk anyway, and over in 10 minutes, so it's worth
>> watching.
> 
> Sorry, it was over in much less than 10 minutes.
> I’ve heard of and suffered “Death by PowerPoint” and this is a good 
> example of insulting the viewer’s intelligence.
> 
> 
My reaction too, it seems like some kind of scientific veneer is being 
pasted on a small set of casual observations surrounding open source 
coding and in a rather self-congratulatory way.  But maybe the 'studies' 
do exist, would like to know about Those, before getting to all the 
sweeping conclusions.

Post a reply to this message

On 23/05/2010 3:44 PM, Jim Charter wrote:
>> Sorry, it was over in much less than 10 minutes.
>> I’ve heard of and suffered “Death by PowerPoint” and this is a good
>> example of insulting the viewer’s intelligence.
>>
>>
> My reaction too, it seems like some kind of scientific veneer is being
> pasted on a small set of casual observations surrounding open source
> coding and in a rather self-congratulatory way.  But maybe the 'studies'
> do exist, would like to know about Those, before getting to all the
> sweeping conclusions.

And the graphics, they were good for the first 5 minutes but it was 
worse than sub titles on an English film.

-- 

Best Regards,
	Stephen

Post a reply to this message

Who is this guy, and how the heck does is draw so fast? That's amazing!

Also, where did he get an infinite whiteboard from??

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

Jim Charter wrote:
> I see so the reward is not based on performance or achievements after 
> the fact but rather it is paid in the hope of getting high performance 
> or achievements which never pan out.

I would think it would be done like regular salaries. We'll pay you $1 per 
unit of work, or we'll pay you $10 per unit of work, where a unit of work 
might be either carrying buckets of water or writing limericks.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
    Ada - the programming language trying to avoid
    you literally shooting yourself in the foot.

Post a reply to this message

On 05/23/10 07:39, Jim Charter wrote:
>>     They performed worse than those who weren't offered an award, or
>> offered a low award.
>>
> I see so the reward is not based on performance or achievements after
> the fact but rather it is paid in the hope of getting high performance
> or achievements which never pan out.

	Um, perhaps. Not sure I'm parsing you correctly.

	The point is that offering a larger sum to get the job done led to
lower performance (slower, etc) for tasks that require more advanced
thinking.

-- 
Fax me no questions, I'll Fax you no lies!

Post a reply to this message

Neeum Zawan wrote:
> On 05/23/10 07:39, Jim Charter wrote:
>>>     They performed worse than those who weren't offered an award, or
>>> offered a low award.
>>>
>> I see so the reward is not based on performance or achievements after
>> the fact but rather it is paid in the hope of getting high performance
>> or achievements which never pan out.
> 
> 	Um, perhaps. Not sure I'm parsing you correctly.
> 
> 	The point is that offering a larger sum to get the job done led to
> lower performance (slower, etc) for tasks that require more advanced
> thinking.
> 
People paid higher rewards were simply no different from people offered 
lower rewards?  Or people doing such tasks who were paid lower rewards 
performed better than those being paid higher?

The reward high or low was not at all attached to production?

Post a reply to this message

On Sun, 23 May 2010 19:08:42 +0200, Jim Charter <jrc### [at] msncom> wrote:
> People paid higher rewards were simply no different from people offered  
> lower rewards?  Or people doing such tasks who were paid lower rewards  
> performed better than those being paid higher?

The latter.



> The reward high or low was not at all attached to production?

There was a negative correlation between reward and performance.



-- 
FE

Post a reply to this message

On Sun, 23 May 2010 16:08:38 +0100, Orchid XP v8 wrote:

> Who is this guy, and how the heck does is draw so fast? That's amazing!

He doesn't, the video is sped up to keep pace with the lecture.

> Also, where did he get an infinite whiteboard from??

I've taught in classrooms that had whiteboards big enough to accommodate 
something like this - it doesn't look to me like it needed a *lot* of 
space, really.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

>> Who is this guy, and how the heck does is draw so fast? That's amazing!
> 
> He doesn't, the video is sped up to keep pace with the lecture.

Yeah, I know that. ;-)

But in seriousness... I could stand in front of a board for several 
weeks and not draw anything this good. Man, those drawing classes really 
paid off. :-(

>> Also, where did he get an infinite whiteboard from??
> 
> I've taught in classrooms that had whiteboards big enough to accommodate 
> something like this - it doesn't look to me like it needed a *lot* of 
> space, really.

Really? I've never seen one larger than about 6 feet across.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

On Sun, 23 May 2010 22:04:55 +0100, Orchid XP v8 wrote:

>>> Who is this guy, and how the heck does is draw so fast? That's
>>> amazing!
>> 
>> He doesn't, the video is sped up to keep pace with the lecture.
> 
> Yeah, I know that. ;-)

I thought that might be the case, but you've surprised us before. ;-)

> But in seriousness... I could stand in front of a board for several
> weeks and not draw anything this good. Man, those drawing classes really
> paid off. :-(

Some people have a knack; some people don't.  I couldn't draw like that 
either.

>>> Also, where did he get an infinite whiteboard from??
>> 
>> I've taught in classrooms that had whiteboards big enough to
>> accommodate something like this - it doesn't look to me like it needed
>> a *lot* of space, really.
> 
> Really? I've never seen one larger than about 6 feet across.

Yeah, really.

In a couple of our so-called "warrooms", the entire wall - ceiling to 
floor, corner to corner - is all whiteboard.

The two larger classrooms in our office in Provo are easily 25'x5' in 
size.

But even in standard classrooms that I teach in (with 4-15 students) 
typically have whiteboards that are the width of the room.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

Jim Henderson wrote:
> In a couple of our so-called "warrooms", the entire wall - ceiling to 
> floor, corner to corner - is all whiteboard.

Sun Computers wallpapered their entire cafeteria in whiteboard wallpaper and 
left markers all around the room.  The only problem was every visitor had to 
be taken out to lunch, because the whole caf had trade secrets written all 
over the walls.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
    Ada - the programming language trying to avoid
    you literally shooting yourself in the foot.

Post a reply to this message

Fredrik Eriksson wrote:
> On Sun, 23 May 2010 19:08:42 +0200, Jim Charter <jrc### [at] msncom> wrote:
>> People paid higher rewards were simply no different from people 
>> offered lower rewards?  Or people doing such tasks who were paid lower 
>> rewards performed better than those being paid higher?
> 
> The latter.
> 
> 
> 
>> The reward high or low was not at all attached to production?
> 
> There was a negative correlation between reward and performance.
> 
> 
> 
No, in fact he flips it.

First he says of the study with the students that to
'incentivise performance'
'there were three levels of reward'
'if you did pretty well you got a small reward, medium well you got a 
medium reward, and really well you got a large cash prize'

so reward is attached to performance, the reward amount follows 
performance, depends on performance

then he goes on to summarize the results in the opposite order

for 'mechanical skills the higher the pay the better the performance'
for 'rudimentary cognitive skills the higher reward led to poorer 
performance'

so now he has performance following the reward, performance depending on 
reward



then he describes second study as being set up 'roughly as follows'

'small performance, low performance, two weeks salary,
medium performance, about a months salary,
high performance, about two months salary'
so he leaves the order a little vague though he does list performance 
then reward, and again he describes the 'incentives' as 'rewards' 
suggesting it follows on performance
then again he describes the results in the opposite order, that the 
rewards 'led' to performance.
at this point a lot depends on the word 'offer' which can be ambiguous 
in the context but still we have the word 'reward'
those 'offered medium reward do no better than those offered small 
reward, but the people offered the top reward, they did worst of all'

this is the sleight of hand I am bothered by.

who was offered what? was everyone competing for top rewards?  i don't 
get it.

Post a reply to this message

Darren New wrote:

> Sun Computers wallpapered their entire cafeteria in whiteboard wallpaper 
> and left markers all around the room.  The only problem was every 
> visitor had to be taken out to lunch, because the whole caf had trade 
> secrets written all over the walls.

Haha! Nice way to shoot yourself in the foot. ;-)

Post a reply to this message

On Mon, 24 May 2010 07:14:08 +0200, Jim Charter <jrc### [at] msncom> wrote:
>
> who was offered what? was everyone competing for top rewards?  i don't  
> get it.

The test was performed several times, each time with different levels of  
reward offered. The participants competing for big rewards did worse than  
those competing for small (or no) rewards.

Admittedly, he does kind of confuse things in that video, especially with  
the drawings. Neeum Zawan linked to a better video, one that even has a  
citation for the experiment:
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/dan_pink_on_motivation.html



-- 
FE

Post a reply to this message

Fredrik Eriksson wrote:
> On Mon, 24 May 2010 07:14:08 +0200, Jim Charter <jrc### [at] msncom> wrote:
>>
>> who was offered what? was everyone competing for top rewards?  i don't 
>> get it.
> 
> The test was performed several times, each time with different levels of 
> reward offered. The participants competing for big rewards did worse 
> than those competing for small (or no) rewards.

Okay well, that is not how he presents it!  He clearly states that 
reward follows accomplishment on the little staircase.  So then I want 
to know who it is that ends up falling through the top stair.  They 
should never have made it to the top stair.

I also find it suspicious that just as he segues to his little reversal 
of cause and effect, each time, he goes on a little detour into 
something completely unrelated and emotionally charged such as stereo 
types about the political leanings of the study's sponsor, or the 
scholastic pedigree of the experimenters.
> 
> Admittedly, he does kind of confuse things in that video, especially 
> with the drawings. Neeum Zawan linked to a better video, one that even 
> has a citation for the experiment:
> http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/dan_pink_on_motivation.html
> 
> 
> 

thanks I'll take a look.

Post a reply to this message

On Mon, 24 May 2010 15:04:03 -0400, Jim Charter wrote:

> He clearly states that reward
> follows accomplishment on the little staircase.

I read it as the staircase reflected the various levels of reward 
offered, not that it was a progression.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Mon, 24 May 2010 15:04:03 -0400, Jim Charter wrote:
> 
>> He clearly states that reward
>> follows accomplishment on the little staircase.
> 
> I read it as the staircase reflected the various levels of reward 
> offered, not that it was a progression.
> 
> Jim

not what he says though

'if you did pretty well, you got a small reward, medium well you got a 
medium reward, and really well you got a large cash prize'

Post a reply to this message

On Mon, 24 May 2010 15:20:49 -0400, Jim Charter wrote:

> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> On Mon, 24 May 2010 15:04:03 -0400, Jim Charter wrote:
>> 
>>> He clearly states that reward
>>> follows accomplishment on the little staircase.
>> 
>> I read it as the staircase reflected the various levels of reward
>> offered, not that it was a progression.
>> 
>> Jim
> 
> not what he says though
> 
> 'if you did pretty well, you got a small reward, medium well you got a
> medium reward, and really well you got a large cash prize'

Hmmm, I missed that somehow, but perhaps my interpretation fits if one 
considers that the people were told the various reward levels and maybe 
were asked to self-select which they wanted to go for (and to declare 
that).

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On Mon, 24 May 2010 21:20:49 +0200, Jim Charter <jrc### [at] msncom> wrote:
>
> 'if you did pretty well, you got a small reward, medium well you got a  
> medium reward, and really well you got a large cash prize'

I think each run of the experiment was structured like that, but the  
values for small/medium/large varied between runs. He does seem to get the  
two different progressions mixed up though.



-- 
FE

Post a reply to this message

Fredrik Eriksson wrote:
> On Mon, 24 May 2010 21:20:49 +0200, Jim Charter <jrc### [at] msncom> wrote:
>>
>> 'if you did pretty well, you got a small reward, medium well you got a 
>> medium reward, and really well you got a large cash prize'
> 
> I think each run of the experiment was structured like that, but the 
> values for small/medium/large varied between runs. He does seem to get 
> the two different progressions mixed up though.
> 
> 
> 
Lol, don't mean to beat it to death, but that seemingly trivial mix-up 
is quite convenient for his fluffy little theme that the big mean 
corporations get it right for stupid people but not for cognitively 
brilliant people like you, me, and him,... and the 'science' proves it.

Post a reply to this message

Fredrik Eriksson wrote:
> On Mon, 24 May 2010 07:14:08 +0200, Jim Charter <jrc### [at] msncom> wrote:
>>
>> who was offered what? was everyone competing for top rewards?  i don't 
>> get it.
> 
> The test was performed several times, each time with different levels of 
> reward offered. The participants competing for big rewards did worse 
> than those competing for small (or no) rewards.
> 
> Admittedly, he does kind of confuse things in that video, especially 
> with the drawings. Neeum Zawan linked to a better video, one that even 
> has a citation for the experiment:
> http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/dan_pink_on_motivation.html
> 
> 
> 
Okay I see.  Well he still makes exactly the same reversal, just about 
word for word.  Again I still don't see a clear path from the experiment 
as he describes it to a result that 'the greater the money, reward the 
less the performance,' but I do believe the related idea that the more 
you try to motivate with money for certain types of production, the 
poorer the result may be.

Post a reply to this message

On 05/24/10 15:02, Jim Charter wrote:
> Fredrik Eriksson wrote:
>> On Mon, 24 May 2010 07:14:08 +0200, Jim Charter <jrc### [at] msncom>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> who was offered what? was everyone competing for top rewards?  i
>>> don't get it.
>>
>> The test was performed several times, each time with different levels
>> of reward offered. The participants competing for big rewards did
>> worse than those competing for small (or no) rewards.
>>
>> Admittedly, he does kind of confuse things in that video, especially
>> with the drawings. Neeum Zawan linked to a better video, one that even
>> has a citation for the experiment:
>> http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/dan_pink_on_motivation.html
>>
> Okay I see.  Well he still makes exactly the same reversal, just about
> word for word.  Again I still don't see a clear path from the experiment
> as he describes it to a result that 'the greater the money, reward the
> less the performance,' but I do believe the related idea that the more
> you try to motivate with money for certain types of production, the
> poorer the result may be.

	I didn't actually watch all of Darren's video, so am not sure what
you're talking about.

	If you're saying that he doesn't demonstrate a _negative_ correlation,
then I agree with you and am not sure one exists. What the experiments
demonstrate is payment vs non-payment (for complex tasks).

	However, I think what he's trying to say is: Give people a fixed salary
(because they need money), but then don't offer specific performance
based rewards. In a sense, they wouldn't really be working on any given
task for a specific reward, but merely as part of their work.

	So I think he's contending that if the task in the talk was given to
people as part of their job with no special rewards, they'd do it faster
than if it was given to people on the job, but told that they'd get a
bonus if they do it quickly.

-- 
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

Post a reply to this message

> 
> 	If you're saying that he doesn't demonstrate a _negative_ correlation,
> then I agree with you and am not sure one exists. 

Then we are agreed, because he doesn't.



What the experiments
> demonstrate is payment vs non-payment (for complex tasks).

Yes, in on stage talk, the 'candle problem' gives a clearer comparison 
of those opposing motivators


> 
> 	However, I think what he's trying to say is: Give people a fixed salary
> (because they need money), but then don't offer specific performance
> based rewards. In a sense, they wouldn't really be working on any given
> task for a specific reward, but merely as part of their work.
> 
> 	So I think he's contending that if the task in the talk was given to
> people as part of their job with no special rewards, they'd do it faster
> than if it was given to people on the job, but told that they'd get a
> bonus if they do it quickly.
> 

Yeah, the stage talk comes off as much more pragmatic and purposeful in 
its focus and less as if he is trying to set himself up as some sort of 
prophet of the open-source movement, (way after the fact of the 
open-source movement)

Post a reply to this message

> watch at least the first minute of this.
>
> http://comment.rsablogs.org.uk/2010/04/08/rsa-animate-drive/
>
> It's an interesting talk anyway, and over in 10 minutes, so it's worth 
> watching.

OK so I need to use the PP scribble tool with line width 10 from now on :-)

Yes the talk was quite interesting, although I would like to actually read 
the studies he mentions before drawing any conclusions myself.  For example, 
is this applicable to all types of employee, do people who are used to 
manual repetitive work respond the same to those used to doing scientific 
research or being the director of a large company?

At our place (which is mostly scientific research) there is a very small 
bonus (something like 1 days pay) if you get a patent granted.  I assume 
nobody actually considers the bonus when working.  I cannot believe that if 
they offered a 6 months salary bonus for patents then people wouldn't work 
harder, but maybe that's because they are not paying what people consider 
"enough" to start with?

It seems like "enough" should be enough to afford a comfortable life within 
commuting distance of your job (if you have to commute).  I know with the 
current house prices a lot of people certainly aren't earning enough.

Post a reply to this message

On 05/25/10 23:25, scott wrote:
> example, is this applicable to all types of employee, do people who are
> used to manual repetitive work respond the same to those used to doing
> scientific research or being the director of a large company?

	Nope. See the TED talk. People who do mechanical work or any kind of
work that doesn't require much thinking tend to perform better if the
rewards are there (and presumably even better if the rewards are higher).


-- 
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

Post a reply to this message