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Deadline Pressures Are Bad for Creativity

  • Posted on May 7, 2012 at 6:00 am

Ever think that deadlines pressures help you find creative solutions to problems? According to a Harvard Business School study, that’s not the case. From an interview with the researcher behind the study:

My research team and I investigated time pressure and creativity as part of a multi-year research program in which we had a large number of organizational employees—238 individuals on 26 project teams in 7 companies in 3 industries—fill out a brief electronic diary every day during the entire course of a creative project they were doing in their jobs. [...]

As the HBR article points out, the results suggest that, overall, very high levels of time pressure should be avoided if you want to foster creativity on a consistent basis. However, if a time crunch is absolutely unavoidable, managers can try to preserve creativity by protecting people from fragmentation of their work and distractions; they should also give people a sense of being “on a mission,” doing something difficult but important. I don’t think, though, that most people can function effectively in that mode for long periods of time without getting burned out.

At the other end of the spectrum, very low time pressure might lull people into inaction; under those conditions, top-management encouragement to be creative—to do something radically new—might stimulate creativity. But, frankly, I don’t think there’s much danger of too little time pressure in most organizations I’ve studied.

Harvard Business School: Time Pressure and Creativity: Why Time is Not on Your Side

(via Alex Pang)

See also: Overtime Kills Productivity)

From http://technoccult.net/archives/2012/05/07/deadline-pressures-are-bad-for-creativity/

Nomad Economics and E-Commerce

  • Posted on March 5, 2012 at 5:02 pm

My old friend Abe Burmeister was interviewed about the philosophy behind his company Outlier by Dan Gould for PSFK:

A few hundred years ago most products were sold directly from the maker to the user. If you wanted forks and knives you went to a silversmith. To get shoes you went to a shoemaker. The industrial revolution exploded all that, and gradually layer upon layer of wholesalers, distributors, buyers and salespeople have been added into the purchasing process. In the end you often find dozens of people separating the designers from the end users.

The internet has the potential to explode this game, but perhaps more importantly it also provides an economic incentive to. Most of those layers separating the designer from the user are layers that raise the price of the product and reduce the profit margins of the manufacturer. Gut out the layers of wholesalers and distributors and you wind up reducing the price of products and making more money at the same time. But to do this requires boldly throwing out the old business model. Of the established companies, Apple is close to the only large one confident enough to do it.

One of the craziest things about selling design on the internet is that there are no sales people. Not only can you eliminate layers of middlemen between the designer and the user, but you also eliminate the persuader at the end of the line. All of a sudden the product basically needs to sell itself, and anyone who knows how to google can turn themselves into an expert in hours. It’s a new environment and one in which the designer takes a much more important role in selling the product than they have in the past.

PSFK: The Internet Has Changed the Way We Make Products

This is an application of theory that Abe wrote about in his master’s thesis Nomad Economics. Abe’s very seldom updated blog Abstract Dynamics was one of the best blogs of the early to mid 00s and he’s still one of the most interesting people I follow on Twitter.

From http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Technoccult/~3/wN01xU5FnDA/

Has the Cost of Books Gone Up, Adjusted for Inflation?

  • Posted on January 4, 2012 at 12:14 pm

The answer, apparently, is no. The Awl looked through the cost of different New York Times best sellers from the past seven decades and comparing the costs using a tool from Bureau of Labor Statistics to convert all the costs into 2011 money. The conclusion? Hardcover books have cost roughly $30 2011 money since 1951, with the exception of some large outliers in 1971.

The article concludes:

And it’s good that we’re doing this now, as the uncertainty looming over the publishing industry is unimaginably big. Both the competitive pricing and release patterns of e-books and the ascendance of Amazon and similar e-tailers (okay, just Amazon, really) threaten to change the business of book publishing into something that will be completely unrecognizable on an historical basis. All this at a time when even members of the Fourth Estate are railing against the horrors of bookstores, even the independent ones. (Needless to say, I disagree with him in a manner that involves the use of profanities: support your local bookstore.) I hope this is not the case, but maybe only James Patterson can save us.

The Owl: How Much More Do Books Cost Today?

(via Matt Staggs)

From http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Technoccult/~3/4qalcsZ66GA/

Do Entrepreneurs Really Create Jobs?

  • Posted on December 19, 2011 at 9:06 pm

Barry Ritholtz has an iconoclastic take on entrepreneurs and job creation:

BI is a digital media property. The print industry (aka dead trees) has been fighting a losing battle versus online competition for years. The print news industry itself is shrinking, while the online industry is growing — but online’s gains are not nearly as large as offline’s losses.

Those 75 jobs Henry mentioned? Twenty-five years ago, they would have been 250 jobs at various newspapers and magazines. Writers, copy editors, artists, printers (Humans, not HPs), etc. The enormous gains in productivity allow far fewer people to do the work formerly employing far more people. This is the inevitable path of technology. Ever since the first human sharpened a stick to hunt, that curve has been the accomplishment of more production with fewer people.

What entrepreneurs actually do is facilitate moving workers from one firm to another — from the less productive business model to the more productive one — as they battle it out in the marketplace.

Economonitor: On Job Creation, Creative Destruction and Technology

(Note: It sounds from Ritholtz’s piece that Blodget is claiming that BI created jobs, but Blodget actually does not claim this. The original piece is here)

I do think that in some cases entrepreneurs create economic opportunity where none existed before – this would especially seem to be the case in the “shadow economy” that thrives in squatter settlements all over the world. But many enterprises now are in the business of destroying jobs through technology. Many more jobs now exist for computer programmers. I benefit from the IT revolution as a journalist in that I rather doubt there would be nearly as many people employed as technology journalists otherwise. But the companies that employ these people, the companies that I cover, are upending entire industries, such as legal services and travel agencies.

In the past we could assume the luddite fallacy was indeed a fallacy. However, reading Race Against the Machine or Slate’s Robot Invasion series it appears that concept may soon need to be renamed the luddite principle.

It doesn’t matter when you were born, we’re all a part of generation sell now. But are we about to turn a corner?

From http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Technoccult/~3/Oxvr5y45CDM/

Most Students Don’t Learn Much in College Researchers Say

  • Posted on June 20, 2011 at 7:19 pm

Academically Adrift Most Students Dont Learn Much in College Researchers Say

[This post refers to a study with a large sample, but which has not been replicated]

One of the arguments in favor of college is that, regardless of whether you learn practical content in college or whether it helps you find a better job, at least it teaches you to “learn how to learn” and enriches you with knowledge. Unfortunately, according to research presented in the book Academically Adrift, colleges aren’t doing a very good job of this. The authors used the Collegiate Learning Assessment, which measures skills like critical thinking and analytic reasoning to assess 2,300 students enrolled in several different colleges.

According to Inside Higher Education, the authors found:

  • 45 percent of students “did not demonstrate any significant improvement in learning” during the first two years of college.
  • 36 percent of students “did not demonstrate any significant improvement in learning” over four years of college.

    • Those students who do show improvements tend to show only modest improvements. Students improved on average only 0.18 standard deviations over the first two years of college and 0.47 over four years. What this means is that a student who entered college in the 50th percentile of students in his or her cohort would move up to the 68th percentile four years later — but that’s the 68th percentile of a new group of freshmen who haven’t experienced any college learning.

Inside Higher Education: Academically Adrift

There are various causes for this lack of learning, but low expectations from professors is allegedly the biggest cause. Students are getting by with less and less work and being rewarded for it. But what’s causing the grade inflation? The demand to keep enrollment up may be one cause, exacerbated by professors desire to reduce the amount of work they must grade. This avoidance assigning more work may itself be caused by budget cutting at universities, and by professors’ focus on their own research instead of teaching.

Another interesting finding is that business, education and social work majors learn less than those in other majors. This lengthy New York Times piece looks at the sorry state of undergraduate business education, and notes that my own major (communications) was among the worst as well.

This study has not, to my knowledge, been replicated. But according to New York Times higher education blogger Jacques Steinberg, it is consistent with the finds of the National Survey of Student Engagement, which found that students spend relatively little time studying.

From http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Technoccult/~3/3fMJIk2Kvb8/

Brand Fanaticism Lights Up Same Part of the Brain as Religion

  • Posted on May 31, 2011 at 2:22 pm

glycon Brand Fanaticism Lights Up Same Part of the Brain as Religion

Curt Hopkins compares the discovery that a company’s logo lights up the same brain regions in fans of that company that religious iconographic lights up in followers of the religion.

Anyway, the public (well, at least the free, male, moneyed public) that took such a hands-on role in shaping the policy of the Republic was displaced by an Imperial government that consolidated power in one man, whose will was carried out by a bureaucracy. When that happened, the formerly most influential elements of the society turned away from public life to “mystery religions”: Mithraism, the worship of Isis and of course Christianity.

In the same way, it feels that we’ve lost something in turn. I’m not sure what it is – religious faith, political will, tribal affiliation? – but I can feel it. With the loss of that thing, people have turned to brands, particularly to tech brands, with their promise of connection, amplification, justification, belonging. The promise of salvation and relevance.

ReadWriteWeb: Thou Shalt Have No Other Jobs Before Me: Geek Fanatacism Lights Up Same Part of the Brain as Religion

Also check out what Douglas Rushkoff has to say about the future of branding in social media.

From http://technoccult.net/archives/2011/05/31/brand-fanaticism-lights-up-same-part-of-the-brain-as-religion/

An Education in For-Profit Education

  • Posted on May 30, 2011 at 12:21 pm

Via that panel on comics as journalism, here’s a great comic/infographic on for-profit education by Susie Cagle for Campus Progress.

for profit education An Education in For Profit Education

See also: Earn 45% of Credits Towards a Bachelor’s Degree by Working at Wal-Mart

From http://technoccult.net/archives/2011/05/30/an-education-in-for-profit-education/

What’s The Difference Between Game Mechanics in the Enterprise and Good Management?

  • Posted on January 24, 2011 at 5:01 pm

puzzle Whats The Difference Between Game Mechanics in the Enterprise and Good Management?

A follow-up to my last article on the gamification of work:

And to some extent, “pointsification” is just quantification – something enterprises should be doing anyway. In fact, most the principals of a good game should apply in the workplace.:

  • Quantification: Tracking sales, average customer support response time, server uptime and other metrics that identify success.
    Recognition and Reward: Raises, bonuses, promotions.
    Autonomy: Robertson notes that for a game to be truly engaging players must be able to make decisions that “meaningfully impact on the world of the game.” Autonomy has been identified by Daniel Pink and others as a requirement for motivation and job satisfaction.
    Challenge: I think this should be self-explanatory.

    • Looked at this way, is there any difference between “gamification” and “good management”?

    From http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Technoccult/~3/cn778HqiCjc/

    3 Best University Majors According to Microsoft

    • Posted on August 31, 2010 at 3:13 pm

    Artificial intelligence

    These are the areas of concentration Microsoft is most in need of right now, according to its jobs blog:

    Data Mining/Machine Learning/AI/Natural Language Processing

    Business Intelligence/Competitive Intelligence

    Analytics/Statistics – specifically Web Analytics, A/B Testing and statistical analysis

    Microsoft Careers Jobs Blog: The Top Three hottest new majors for a career in technology

    No surprises there. See “The Coming Data Explosion” for more on the subject of big data.

    (via Don)

    Update: See also: The Big Data Explosion and the Demand for the Statistical Tools to Analyze It “If The Graduate were remade today, the advice to young Benjamin Braddock might be ‘just one word… statistics.’”

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    From http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Technoccult/~3/sHeHGEs-fP8/

    With Asian Industry Astir, More Job-Seekers Go East

    • Posted on August 2, 2010 at 9:57 am

    Hong Kong Central

    In Hong Kong, the recruiting firm Ambition estimates that the number of résumés arriving from the United States and Europe has risen 20 to 30 percent since 2008. These now make up about two-thirds of the more than 600 résumés its Hong Kong office gets every month, said Matthew Hill, Ambition’s managing director for the city. Similarly, at eFinancialCareers, an online job site, applications for positions based in Singapore and Hong Kong have jumped nearly 50 percent in the last year, its Asia-Pacific chief, George McFerran, said.

    Landing a position in Asia, though, is not just a matter of being willing to make a new life halfway around the world. Many employers prefer candidates who have track records in the region and who bring language skills and local contacts to the job.

    Mike Game, chief executive in Asia for Hudson, an international recruitment agency, said the number of Westerners actually making the move was still fairly small. Many employers, he said, are more demanding than they were during the economic peak of 2007 and are “setting the bar very high in terms of what they want.”

    New York Times: With Asian Industry Astir, More Job-Seekers Go East

    (via Chris 23)

    Photo by Jacksoncam (CC)

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    From http://technoccult.net/archives/2010/08/02/job-seekers-go-east/

    NSA and Raytheon Team-Up for Cybersnooping Project

    • Posted on July 8, 2010 at 12:41 pm

    Nuclear Power Plant in Limerick, Pa.

    A piece I wrote for RWW today:

    The Wall Street Journal reports, citing unnamed sources, that the NSA is launching a program to help protect critical infrastructure – including private enterprises – from cyber attacks. According to the paper, defense contractor Raytheon has received the contract for the project, which would rely on a series of sensors to detect “unusual activity suggesting an impending cyber attack.” This follows the Lieberman-Collins bill passing committee in the Senate.

    The Orwellian nature of the name was alledgedly not lost on Raytheon: The Wall Street Journal claims to have seen an internal Raytheon e-mail saying “Perfect Citizen is Big Brother.”

    ReadWriteEnterprise: Do Private Enterprises Need the NSA to Protect Them From Cyber Attacks?

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    Related posts:

    1. No “Kill Switch” in Lieberman-Collins Bill, But There’s Been One Since 1934
    2. How Team of Geeks Cracked Spy Trade
    3. Future of Cyber Security: What Are the Rules of Engagement?

    From http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Technoccult/~3/7rb6xh6SSe8/

    Justin Boland Interview at Boing Boing

    • Posted on June 17, 2010 at 12:49 pm

    Hump Jones

    Chris Arkenberg continues to rack-up the interviews:

    You’ve released a number of projects under various names. Would you talk a little about these projects and your aliases? Do your avatars embody & express your art in some way?

    I suppose they do, man. They definitely embody the fact that my interests are intense and short-lived, that I tend to give all my content away for free, and there’s also a strong whiff of the stubborn stupidity I’m known for. I’ve made music as Wombaticus Rex, as Humpasaur Jones, and as Algorhythms, as well as way, way too much other stuff. I’m somewhere between 50% and 90% of DJ Multiple Sex Partners, depending on the vintage. The Hump Jones project was dangerously stupid, I was really pushing the Total Sexual Freedom meme past legally safe boundaries there, although I will probably still publish the book, Human Sexuality for Filthy Apes, that I was preparing for that. It makes me sound like more of a perv than I am, but that entire project was borne out of a single joke instructional song about anal sex. In retrospect, it was good, loving advice and I stand by it, so perhaps it was not a joke track after all?

    Boing Boing: Justin Boland – The indie hip hop game

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    Related posts:

    1. John Robb interview by Chris Arkenberg at Boing Boing
    2. Boing Boing’s David Pescovitz – Technoccult interview
    3. Justin Landers of The Steven Lasombras – Technoccult interview

    From http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Technoccult/~3/-aE2jhCTHAw/

    People with Negative Attitudes More Likely to Learn From Mistakes

    • Posted on June 11, 2010 at 10:14 am

    negative attitude

    Interesting:

    This research focused on the relationship between negative emotionality and learning from errors. Specifically, negative emotionality was expected to impair learning from errors by decreasing motivation to learn. Perceived managerial intolerance of errors was hypothesized to increase negative emotionality, whereas emotional stability was proposed to decrease negative emotionality. All the hypotheses were tested in a laboratory simulation. Contrary to the prediction, a positive association was found between negative emotionality and motivation to learn. The effects of perceived managerial intolerance of errors and emotional stability on negative emotionality were as predicted. Moreover, exploratory data analyses were conducted at the level of specific negative emotions and revealed differentiated effects of specific negative emotions on learning from errors.

    Barking up the wrong tree: Does a positive attitude make you more motivated to learn from your mistakes?

    See Also:

    Expressing negativity can improve relationships

    Negativity can improve brainstorming

    Technoccult posts tagged with “positive thinking”

    (Photo by bark / CC)

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    Related posts:

    1. Education: Learning Styles Debunked
    2. You can have a positive mental attitude and still die from cancer
    3. Offshore, carbon-negative algae-power on the cheap

    From http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Technoccult/~3/kz6xbhlEsrs/