During lecture today, we discussed how crowd-sourcing has become a powerful and efficient business strategy. At one point, we were asked if it were true that, "You do well by doing good." In class, many seemed to agree that from a business point of view, this is probably not true.
This reminded me, however, of an excellent video about the science of motivation:
In the video, they discuss how recent research suggests that the best work is created in workplaces where the employees feel they are working towards a greater purpose. They show that when offered greater monetary rewards for complicated tasks, the participants actually preformed worse. This might explain why crowd-sourcing is often successful, since people feel like they are contributing to a community.
This further reminds me of the topic of motivation as discussed in psychology class last year. It was shown that when there is no extrinsic motivation for an activity (such as money), people are more likely to engage in it and embrace it because they feel they are doing it for themselves, not for someone else. Although the personal reward for participating crowd-sourced projects may be little, people are usually motivated intrinsically to participate, which can lead to better performance.
So, it would appear that in some situations,"You do well by doing good," is true even in the business sense.
Despite the fact that a university education leads to many hypothetical great rewards, I do feel that it is lacking; and often my performance isn't as high as it should be. Most of the time I am more motivated to do my computer science related learning, that does not associate itself with what is happening in class.
I won't receive a degree for learning hosting a web app running on Ruby on Rails, or get a better mark for releasing an App in a curated market (like the App Store)
Very true; school can often feel like a workplace. The goal of education should be to properly educate people and inspire individuals. Instead, it sometimes seems like people are only working for the grades, with learning being a side effect.
The same principle applies to education.
ReplyDeleteDespite the fact that a university education leads to many hypothetical great rewards, I do feel that it is lacking; and often my performance isn't as high as it should be. Most of the time I am more motivated to do my computer science related learning, that does not associate itself with what is happening in class.
I won't receive a degree for learning hosting a web app running on Ruby on Rails, or get a better mark for releasing an App in a curated market (like the App Store)
But it is immensely gratifying and fulfilling.
Very true; school can often feel like a workplace. The goal of education should be to properly educate people and inspire individuals. Instead, it sometimes seems like people are only working for the grades, with learning being a side effect.
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