Dan Pink on the Incentives Experiment ( TED blog 3)

In the Incentives challenge that Dan Pink talks about the higher the reward the better the performance for skills that were mechanical. But, if the challenge required cognitive skills the performance was worse. How is this possible? How can solving a challenge that requires mechanical skills (which is harder and uses more brain power) have a greater performance than solving a challenge that requires simple thinking? This makes no sense! Another thing, Pink talks about this company in Australia called Atlassian. They gave their workers the opportunity to work on whatever project they wanted for 24 hours there was no reward but they got to do something thing that they were passionate about. This opportunity led to new software and new computer hacks that might never have existed because the workers would never have gotten the chance to share their ideas. This makes sense but why would the brain preform worse on something that requires very little thinking. Let me know if I misunderstood Pink.  When Pink talked about this idea that he could have prevent to his teacher about all of these sophisticated people doing all of this work for free and then giving away the product of their work for free they were talking about Wikipedia. Pink talks about this same subject in his book Drive. This idea leads to the world’s most view encyclopedia. All of these people did this work knowing that there was no reward for them but they were all making something huge for the world. This makes sense people doing work for a bigger cause than themselves. Now why can’t we all think like this? Why does the work we do have to have a reward? Why do we get so lazy when that reward is put in front of and we don’t take advantage of that because the task requires not thinking? What does this tell the world? The people in this generation don’t care about supporting the cause to make the world a better place. All this generation cares about is making their own life successful. Why do we think like this? Do you think this is why we have wars, because people don’t care about supporting each other to make the world a better place. Please comment on thin I would love to hear what you all think about this. And I need some help understanding why this is the way it is. Thanks!

Caroline Casey on Overcoming Life's Challenges (TED blog 2)

Caroline Casey was the speaker of this TED talk.  She spoke about the challenges that she faced from the moment she turned 17 and discovered that she was legally blind. Her story was a personal story and she used this to capture her audience’s attention. Her story was so inspirational in the sense that she started off as just a normal human being, completely content with her life and the life turned her upside down, but she turned everything around and created an amazing and successful life for herself. Caroline Casey knew her whole life what she wanted to do she wanted to be the adventurous girl. She wanted to be Mogly from The Jungle Book and she was so determined that this was going to be the path of her life. Life gave her challenges but she found a way to accomplish her dreams. Her story and the determination allowed so many other people to be able to see. She explained that on her trip on the back of an elephant across India she raised enough money for 6000 Cataract surgeries.  I took away from this video that you can never let the challenges that life presents you get in your way or effect who you are. This matter because the world is losing its determination to fulfill its dreams. Human beings are just following the tide. They have no goals in life. This video teaches that you must always follow your dreams because it is part of who you are and it shapes who you become later in your life. You must always have goals so that you have vision for yourself.  And you must always be true to who you are and what you are because nothing that you ever do will change that.

Sir Ken Robinson on Educaton Killing Creativity (TED blog 1)

Sir Ken Robinson gave his TED talk in a very light and funny mood. The information that he gave was important and you could tell that he was passionate about what he was saying, but it wasn’t a very serious lecture. He used jokes to lighten the mood of the subject and he had everyone one hooked on what he was saying. He pulled his listeners in with stories of people learning styles and how that led to their successful careers. To Sir Ken Robinson what mattered was that creativity is the most important trait that a child needs to have in this generation, but the education styles of this generation are taking away that creativity. The way that children are educated in this generation, my generation, is so normal and boring. Students are being taught that the teacher’s way is right and so therefore they become used to being wrong.  Robinson stated that by the time a child in this generation becomes an adult they will be used to being wrong.  In this generation there is a big want for creative minds but if education continues the way that it is children will not know how to use that creativity to become successful. The world runs on the creativity of the human mind and without that creativity nothing will ever become better everything will stay the same. Humans will not be able to create technology that will help their population to strive.