Been playing around with WordPress 3.0 for the last week and have found it to be a fantastic update! Can not wait to see how hard I can push this over the next few months…
Government vs. Government
This might sound like a good idea on the surface, provide incentives to those closest to the day to day operations of government, but if you look a little deeper it could seriously backfire.
First, spend a few minutes brushing up on the latest phsycology of motivation. Here’s a quick video of Dan Pink speaking about his research:
What Dan Pink has found, is that for anything other than basic assembly line type production, fincancial incentives always result in LOWER productivity, and worse moral overall.
It sounds counterintuitive, and I bet that’s what the government hopes you will think as well. It seems to me more and more that the Conservatives are a govern-by-gut party that has little interest in evidence-based descision making. Better to go with what feels right.
Now government operations not only have to worry bout how thier actions might look politically, but how anyone inside the organization might try to turn anything they do into a financial witchhunt, so they can make a few bucks. I can see how this would result in very tense working environments, and really discourage good people from entering into management.
It’s like the larger problem in our society; why would a smart kid choose engineering when she can make 10 times more money going into financial services? Great for her, but with our dwindling production of things, we’re looking at a dark future for growth if we don’t get more smart kids inventing stuff people want.
I’m sure Mr. Day thinks this is a great idea, and I’m sure many Canadians will too. Who knows, it might even work; hey, you might win the lottery too. But the evidence seem to say this just will not work at best, and at worst, toxify the public service working environment.
Why I love the internet
I don’t love the internet like I love my family & friends, or even how I love chocolate.
I love the internet because it’s probably the most signifiant wealth enabler in the history of mankind. At least since the invention of stone and then metal tools.
When I sit in front of my screens and bang out line after line of code, I’m doing more than just building web properties. I’m creating wealth!
Not only that, when I make a web property or service that people want, I deliver to all customers at once. Unlike a blacksmith who creates wealth one horseshoe at a time, I make one horseshoe and as many people who want it get it at the exact same time; with zero incremental cost of delivery. This kind of wealth multiplier has never existed before. It has a dark side of course; every mistake is multiplied as well, but the positives far outweigh the negatives. You can respond extremely quickly and cheaply to people’s changing wants.
This is not news, but I’m working hard with my team on building our digitalOttawa.ca startup. we’re moving into our new offices downtown this week, and I’ve been reading and watching all kinds of business wisdom & inspiration to get me pumped up about pushing forward.
Here we go!
