From the wires, Japanese researchers have found that receiving praise lights up the same part of the brain as receiving cash. Managers have known this for a long time, that praise carefully and sincerely delivered is as good as cash. Indeed cash can totally mess up a system that is working well otherwise.

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As I clean out the garage I am coming across various relics from my technology history. 10 year old pcs, a TRS-80, two original Macs, and so on. What to do, what to do.

An article in Yahoo/AP indicates that recycling of these kind of items is rising, but still difficult. A US EPA website is a good resource for finding a way to not put your old monitor on the curb.

Verne Harnish’s latest newsletter mentions an interesting website called Stickk that is intended to allow you to create your own reinforcement system. Set up a goal, commit an amount of your own money that you will pay yourself for accomplishing the goal and off you go. The goal can be anything you choose.

If you don’t achieve the goal, the money is forfeit, and goes to whomever you designate, such as a charity, your ex-wife, and so on.

So is this positive or negative reinforcement? Well, it all depends on whether is causes the behavior to repeat. If you use the site once, lose money, and don’t return, negative reinforcement. Use the site, lose money, return and try again, positive reinforcement for site usage. Use the site, accomplish your goal, don’t return, negative reinforcement for site usage and goal accomplishment. Use the site, accomplish your goal, return again, positive reinforcement for site usage.

So it seems as if the reinforcement scheme is keyed to the website and not the goal. Which is what I would want if I built that website. And in fact it is the exact issue we have faced at PositiveWare. Users completing tasks or actions don’t necessarily get reinforcement from the software. Users have suggested that we embed rewards in the application, so that the 23rd user completing a task gets a movie ticket or lottery tickets or whatever.

“This whole Web 2.0 thing is crap” says Mike. “At the end of the day the sale gets made by one person talking to another. A couple of guys sitting around in t-shirts blogging about how they hate Dell aren’t going to make a difference. Look at me. I’m at a tradeshow meeting real prospects, getting lead cards, and doing it all the old-fashioned way”

Which begs the question, what is the utility of Web 2.0 tactics for B2B companies? If you Ask Dave Taylor his answer is there is no such thing as B2B, because the people in the B are really Cs, so everything is B2C.

So call it the B2B marketing dialectic - is old school the dominant thesis, or should companies fully embrace the consumer web and abandon traditional channels. The answer, as always, is the synthesis, or what may eventually be called Web 3.0, when integrated marketing absorbs Web 2.0. This is inevitable because the kids are going to make us do it. If 20somethings organize their life around Facebook and the like today, in 20 years when they are running things they are also going to organize their companies around Facebook or the like. Nobody knows what it looks like but it is definitely coming.

A friend compliments me on my eupeptic attitude.
From Merriam Webster:

1) Of, relating to, or having good digestion

2) Cheerful, Optimistic

I hope he’s referring to the second definition.

One of the initial motives for building PositiveWare was to create a single environment where a user could increase employee engagement through collaboration, alignment, and accountability.

But to use the Cricket vernacular, accountability is the sticky wicket. Software can’t make a manager hold an employee accountable, it can only create an environment where this is possible.  A SMART goal is important, but in the absence of consequences it is probably irrelevant.

I was reminded of this today working with one of our clients. I heard him say, if only I can show this employee what I really want this time (as opposed to the last 5 quarters where the employee was also shown what was really wanted) I know that he will execute.

Well, sorry, it just isn’t so. The software shows in vivid detail what is done and not done. No amount of rationalizing can change the facts. But a manager can rationalize himself out of taking the very serious step of letting the employee go.