December 6, 2007
As amazing as the Internet is for commerce, communication, and education, it might have been better. Imagine opening your email and not finding any spam. Imagine your children or your little brother not happening into any pornography.
Pete Ashdown spoke at the Utah Open Source Conference earlier this year. He touted the virtues of the Internet for open communication and open government. He said the Internet is the “only working anarchy” and we “shouldn’t change it.”
At the same conference, Phil Windley quoted Vint Cerf, one of the inventors of the Internet, as saying he would have liked it different. “Vint wishes that the original design of the Internet had required that each endpoint…be able to authenticate [itself]….”
Vint is saying every computer on the Internet should identify itself. Anonymity allows bad actors to go unregulated. If authentication and identity were built-in, perhaps we might reduce Internet maladies like spam, phishing, and predatory porn.
Pete, Phil, and Vint are smart people. But they seem to disagree about whether the Internet needs change.
The H2M and CP80 proposals imply that something is broken about the current Internet. If so, it shouldn’t be hard to imagine changing it. People built the Internet and people can change the Internet. It’s supposed to serve us, not the other way around.
I tend to agree that we can do a better job of protecting children from pornography. I’m not sure what the solution is. Perhaps it’s H2M or CP80, or maybe something else. But if we believe the Internet is broken and can be better, we have every right to fix it. To quote Bill Cosby’s father:
You know, I brought you in this world, and I can take you out. And it don’t make no difference to me, I’ll make another one look just like you. (Wikiquote.org)
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December 5, 2007
Even the libertarian and most ardent proponent of free speech should care that we continue to allow pornography to run rampant on the Internet. Here’s why.
A proposal by Larry Lessig called H2M (”Harmful to Minors”) would help parents protect children from pornography. Professor Lessig argues that if government doesn’t help parents block unwanted pornography, the loss of freedom of speech will be even greater because parents will turn to private companies for help:
Parents won’t wait for the government to figure out how best to filter harmful-to-minor speech. They will get what they can to block harmful-to-minor speech even if what they get is private and blocks more speech than necessary. For them it’s better than nothing.
After you watch this video, I think you’ll understand the H2M proposal:
H2M is similar to the CP80 initiative. Each is a proposal for 1. a new law which 2. codifies a technology which 3. allows parents to choose whether to block or allow pornography. Ralph Yarro of CP80 has repeatedly said that Internet filters don’t work. I infer that Larry Lessig thinks filters work well enough that parents will use them but not well enough to protect free speech.
I’ve previously written that the role of proper government is to stay small and allow nonprofit companies to compete for social change. In that light, perhaps I shouldn’t favor any legislation that would regulate the Internet. However, I see Professor Lessig’s point: a well defined law may serve all constituent groups better than no law.
December 4, 2007
I’ve recently been pondering how to motivate workers. I’m mostly interested in how to motivate volunteers in a nonprofit organization — a “cause”. Just a day after writing about it, I found a section in Made to Stick with good insight:
We may mistakenly think that people are motivated by the pursuit of baser needs, while we ourselves are motivated by loftier ideals. The book calls this living in the penthouse of Maslow’s pyamid while believing others live in the basement.
Imagine that a company offers its employees a $1,000 bonus if they meet certain performance targets. There are three different ways of presenting the bonus to the employees:
- Think of what that $1,000 means: a down payment on a new car or that new home improvement you’ve been wanting to make.
- Think of the increased security of having that $1,000 in your bank account for a rainy day.
- Think of what the $1,000 means: the company recognizes how important you are to its overall performance. It doesn’t spend money for nothing.
When people are asked which positioning would appeal to them personally, most of them say No. 3….
Here’s the twist, though: When people are asked which is the best positioning for other people (not them), they rank No. 1 most fulfilling, followed by No. 2. That is, we are motivated by self-esteem, but others are motivated by down payments. This single insight explains almost everything about the way incentives are structured in most large organizations. (Made to Stick, pp. 184-85)
So, the question isn’t just whether or not to give an incentive or bonus, but also how to present it.
If you’re motivated by a cause, an incentive may even offend you. When firefighters were offered a free copy of a safety video to review, they readily accepted it. When offered a free popcorn popper as a thank you for reviewing the safety video, one firefighter said, “Do you think we’d use a fire safety program because of some #*$@%! popcorn popper?!” (p. 188)
November 30, 2007
Not everyone agrees on how to motivate workers. I’m still trying to decide which of these ideas sounds most correct:
- Charles Coonradt, author of The Game of Work, gives five reasons why games are better than jobs:
1. Feedback is much more frequent in games, 2. there’s always a score to “reinforce the behavior you want repeated,” 3. consistent coaching, 4. goals are more clearly defined, and 5. more personal choice. (source)
For example, in a game of soccer, imagine how easy it is to know which goal is yours, who your teammates are, who your competitors are, how to get feedback from your coach, and how much time you have left to score.
See also “Make Life More Like Games” by Sarah Milstein.
- In Managing the Nonprofit Organization, Peter Drucker says:
People need to know how they do–and volunteers more than anyone else. For if there is no paycheck, achievement is the sole reward. Once goals and standards are clearly established, appraisal becomes possible. …with clear goals and standards, the people who do the work appraise themselves.
In all human affairs there is a constant relationship between the performance and achievement of the leaders, the record setters, and the rest….If one member of an organization does a markedly better job, others challenge themselves.
- However, Joel Spolsky, quoting a Harvard Business Review article, says Incentive Pay [Is] Considered Harmful:
… at least two dozen studies over the last three decades have conclusively shown that people who expect to receive a reward for completing a task or for doing that task successfully simply do not perform as well as those who expect no reward at all. [HBR Sept/Oct 93]
…any kind of workplace competition, any scheme of rewards and punishments, and even the old fashion trick of “catching people doing something right and rewarding them,” all do more harm than good. Giving somebody positive reinforcement (such as stupid company ceremonies where people get plaques) implies that they only did it for the lucite plaque; it implies that they are not independent enough to work unless they are going to get a cookie; and it’s insulting and demeaning.
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A colleague of mine received the MVP Award from Microsoft. He said it’s peer selected, hard to get, and hard to keep. (You have to maintain annual certifications.) The award is given for past accomplishments, but he thinks it has the effect of motivating many people to do more.
Which one is it?
Do the same rules apply to volunteers at a nonprofit as employees at a company?
Thinking…
October 24, 2007
In two days Apple will release a new version of its Mac operating system, so last Saturday I watched the guided tour and read about all of the 300 new features of “Leopard.”
I thought my strong interest in the new operating system was justified since I’m going to take the opportunity to replace my 4½ year old Titanium Powerbook with a new Leopard-powered notebook. But then I got thinking, it’s just a tool. Using a Mac isn’t my goal per se. I might as well get exciting about all the tools at Home Depot — and I do — but if I don’t build anything with them, they’re useless.
Jon Udell refers to himself as a “toolsmith” — someone who loves the tools of his trade — and I think I have a bit of that in me. Being a toolsmith means knowing the ins and outs of one’s tools, with the potential to be very productive with them. But Merlin Mann warns against continual “fiddling” with tools and systems and methods at the expense of just Getting Things Done.
Use whatever tools work best for you, but use tools to build something.
