Teaching creativity

[Juniper]

That video is SO cool. Really inspiring. I've heard about Daniel Pink but never really looked into his stuff, now I'm going to have to do that.

About the MFA, though -- I'm reading a book now called The Portable MFA and the author says that basically if you do the MFA (as a writer, anyhow) you're worse off than you'd be without it because you end up with nothing of value plus $50K in debt. Want to improve your creative performance? Read and write. A lot. I can groove to that.

I'm going to get an M.A. anyway. Screw the F part.

[Pete Zicato]

Anyone else remember the Why Man Creates movie from high school. I love The Ediface section.

Arabian one: I've invented the zero!
Arabian two: What?
Arabian one: Oh, nothing, nothing.

You can watch a clip here.

[Clodfobble]

I remember a parallel idea from my (required by my major to broaden my mind just like Lamplighter wanted) Psychology class in college. The basic principal, backed by several studies, was that people's enjoyment of a tedious task was inversely proportional to the amount they got paid for it.

For example, give a bunch of people a little picture puzzle to put together, maybe 150 pieces. Pay some of them $1 to do it, some $15, and some $50. When asked afterwards, the people who got paid more would report that they didn't really enjoy the task, it was dumb but whatever. The people who were paid less reported that they actually had fun, and some even asked to get to do another one. The theory is that in the absence of real reward, the brain will fabricate internal rewards in order to justify having done the task in the first place. This is slightly different than the video, since that was looking less at personal enjoyment and more on successful performance. But of course his idea is that enjoyment will lead to more successful innovations.

But I think the big problem with his philosophy is lifestyle inflation: he says pay them "enough to take money off the table," so that they aren't specifically worried about the amount of money they have. But it's my experience that over time most people inflate their lifestyles such that soon they are worried about the money again. Say you quietly, unofficially put caps on your employees' salaries, and once they reached that point they only received other "benefit raises," like more autonomy, etc. It would work for awhile, but I think at some point even your best employees would get lured away by soulless jobs that paid more. They might end up being less happy in their new jobs, but they'd still decide to go there anyway because people will believe that the money will make them happier. You can make the supposedly ideal work environment, but you can't necessarily make people see that it's ideal.

[xoxoxoBruce]

The theory is that in the absence of real reward, the brain will fabricate internal rewards in order to justify having done the task in the first place.

I guess if the money is big, the finished puzzle becomes the focus, but small money means the journey is the focus. Interesting, but trying to determine the proper size of large and small, would be difficult with all the variables.

lifestyle inflation

That doesn't explain why a wall street trader making 10 million a year, having more money than they could possibly need, will leave for a job paying 11 million. There's more at work there, ego, bragging rights, fear of being ridiculed/loss of prestige, for not chasing the bucks.

[Clodfobble]

There's probably more to it at that point, I agree. But I bet that guy would also tell you about this incredibly sweet classic car that he just needs to add to his fleet of 30 other vintage pieces. And you know, it really would make sense to have a second vacation home up in the Hamptons so that they wouldn't need to arrange for travel every single time they go...

On the flip side, there are certainly others in this world who would point to you or I and say we are filthy rich by their standards, and certainly have all that we could possibly need.

[xoxoxoBruce]

It's true, we do have everything we need, and much more, so it's a matter of what you want vs need, methinks. The fly in the ointment would be if I'm not happy with what I've got, I probably won't be happy with what I want.

Unlike zippy-t, who's happy period. We can all envy that bastard.