Video Interview - Dan Pink - Author of "Drive"

by Braden Kelley

I had the opportunity to interview Dan Pink, author of the new book "Drive" at a biznik event last night. If you're not familiar with biznik, it is an online community for entreprenurs and the independently employed. Instead of just stopping there, Biznik organizes several in-person events and an annual conference called Seattle BizJam (which I spoke at in 2007), and allows members to organize their own free or fee-supported events. I think Biznik is great and they are headquartered here in Seattle.





Dan Pink was interviewed on stage during the event by Warren Etheredge and some of the highlights from my tweets last night included:

• "A good book is a basket of ideas that is refined and spread through conversation."


• People are more likely to donate blood for altruistic reasons than for cash. Offering people money moves things from the social realm to the economic realm and behaviors and expectations change. Same is true when you begin imposing a fine on parents picking their kids up late from day care instead of people feeling obligated to be there on time.


• There is great absurdity in how open source developed if you look at it in terms of economic motivation, but the mastery drive is so strong that people participated (even without an economic incentive).


• Even though biznik has an even male-female split, more women turn up for the in-person events than men.


• People who sculpt their jobs to broaden them beyond narrow responsibilities, find more autonomy and job satisfaction.


• "Annual performance reviews are dumb. People need more frequent feedback. Imagine professional athletes only getting feedback on their performance only once a year."


• The carrot-stick approach is the wrong approach when it comes to creative, thoughtful work - non-algorithmic work.


• Using the carrot-stick approach with teachers or students is wrong. Dan Pink's solution for the education problem would be to raise teacher base pay and make it easier to get rid of bad ones.

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Braden Kelley is the editor of Blogging Innovation and founder of Business Strategy Innovation, a consultancy focusing on innovation and marketing strategy. Braden is also @innovate on Twitter.