Audio Made Visual

Floating around the blogosphere recently is the RSA animation series. Here are a couple of my favorites, with short summaries of each:

Dan Pink: Drive: Humans can sometimes have counterintuitive responses to incentives. Higher incentives can sometimes leads to worse performance when complicated cognitive skills are required. You should pay people just enough to where the issue of money is taken off the table. Is this why I've learned so much blogging compared to my formal education?




Barbara Ehrenreich: Smile or Die: There is a darker side to positive thinking, for example, the sub-prime problems. Also, it's cruel to tell unhappy people it's all in their heads and that they just need an attitude change. Optimism can take away people's initiative to improve things. The speaker doesn't want pessimism, just realism. But isn't that what all pessimists say?




Philip Zimbardo: The Secret Powers of Time
There are three main ways of looking at the world. Through the past (nostalgic), through the present (enjoying the fate you've been given), and through the future (plan so you can succeed later in life or in the afterlife). The more future oriented you are, the harder you work and the wealthier you are (for individuals and nations). One thing school tries to do is teach students to become more future oriented.



Here is a blog that has the other audio talks made visual, like one on altruism and another on empathy.