'A fearless adventure in knowing what to do when no one’s there telling you what to do.' -- Deciding what to work on can be the hardest part of your job at Valve. This is because, as you’ve found out by now, you were not hired to fill a specific job description. You were hired to constantly be looking around for the most valuable work you could be doing. At the end of a project, you may end up well outside what you thought was your core area of expertise. There’s no rule book for choosing a project or task at Valve. But it’s useful to answer questions like these: #Of all the projects currently under way, what’s the most valuable thing I can be working on? #Which project will have the highest direct impact on our customers? How much will the work I ship benefit them? #Is Valve not doing something that it should be doing? #What’s interesting? What’s rewarding? What leverages my individual strengths the most? -- Structure happens: Project teams often have an internal structure that forms temporarily to suit the group’s needs. Although people at Valve don’t have fixed job descriptions or limitations on the scope of their responsibility, they can and often do have clarity around the definition of their “job” on any given day. They, along with their peers, effectively create a job description that fits the group’s goals. That description changes as requirements change, but the temporary structure provides a shared understanding of what to expect from each other. If someone moves to a different group or a team shifts its priorities, each person can take on a completely different role according to the new requirements. Valve is not averse to all organizational structure – it crops up in many forms all the time, temporarily. But problems show up when hierarchy or codified divisions of labor either haven’t been created by the group’s members or when those structures persist for long periods of time. We believe those structures inevitably begin to serve their own needs rather than those of Valve’s customers. The hierarchy will begin to reinforce its own structure by hiring people who fit its shape, adding people to fill subordinate support roles. Its members are also incented to engage in rent-seeking behaviors that take advantage of the power structure rather than focusing on simply delivering value to customers.'

'The numbers in Peopleware come from DeMarco and Lister's Coding War Games, a series of competitions to complete given coding and testing tasks in minimal time and with minimal defects. The Games have consistently confirmed various known facts of the software game. For instance, the best coders outperform [...] ten-to-one, but their pay seems only weakly linked to their performance. But DeMarco and Lister also found that the best-performing coders had larger, quieter, more private workspaces. It is for this one empirical finding that Peopleware is best known. Around their Coding Wars data, DeMarco and Lister assembled a theory: that managers should help programmers, designers, writers and other brainworkers to reach a state that psychologists call "flow"...'

'In his memoir, Mr. Wozniak offers this guidance to aspiring inventors: “...Work alone...” -- Solitude can even help us learn. According to research on expert performance by the psychologist Anders Ericsson, the best way to master a field is to work on the task that’s most demanding for you personally. And often the best way to do this is alone. Only then, Mr. Ericsson told me, can you “go directly to the part that’s challenging to you. If you want to improve, you have to be the one who generates the move. Imagine a group class — you’re the one generating the move only a small percentage of the time.” ...decades of research show that individuals almost always perform better than groups in both quality and quantity, and group performance gets worse as group size increases. The Emory University neuroscientist Gregory Berns found that when we take a stance different from the group’s, we activate the amygdala, a small organ in the brain associated with the fear of rejection. Professor Berns calls this “the pain of independence.” The one important exception to this dismal record is electronic brainstorming, where large groups outperform individuals; and the larger the group the better. The protection of the screen mitigates many problems of group work. This is why the Internet has yielded such wondrous collective creations. Marcel Proust called reading a “miracle of communication in the midst of solitude,” and that’s what the Internet is, too. It’s a place where we can be alone together — and this is precisely what gives it power.'

'Dawning horror tinged with self-loathing crept slowly over the face of claims adjuster Robert Pettlebaum, 42, as he described his job and by extension his life to others during a seemingly innocuous Tuesday lunch meeting. "Mostly what I do is I seek out discrepancies in the property appraisal versus the claimant's estimate of worth and then I…then I defer outpays…with…oh, God…," Pettlebaum said as shadows of unspeakable self-realization flickered across his increasingly desperate eyes. "Wait, no, that can't be right. I don't...do I?"'

'#2. Tasks will be non-linear in nature, rather than assembly-line: When someone new joins a firm, the experience is going to be very similar to that of playing a modern video game. The new joiner will spend time in some form of sandbox or training ground, learning a number of key things: the “game mechanics“, the values, rules and principles by which the firm operates; the “game controls“, how you navigate around the workplace, how you discover things, how you acquire learning and other assets to deploy, how you “save” your work, how you “replay” or “continue”; and the “game dashboard“, the tools that let you see the environment, your powers and authorities, feedback loops on position and progress, primarily team rather than personal, though both are visible. #4. Cognitive surpluses will be put to use sensibly, rather than discarded. #5. Radically different tools and processes will be needed as a result, time-shiftable, place-shiftable, multimedia.'

'The genius of hunter-gatherer societies lies in their abilities to accomplish the tasks that must be accomplished while maximizing each person's experience of free choice, which is essential to the spirit of play. They manage to accomplish that through their extraordinary willingness to share everything, which removes any immediate link between work and the receipt of life's necessities. Even the most industrious and successful hunters and gatherers receive no more of the food brought back to camp on a given day than does anyone else in the band. Why should those who get the most intrinsic rewards from play—because they enjoy it so much, and are so skilled at it, and therefore participate in it the most—also reap the most extrinsic rewards from it? Hunter-gatherers simply trust that, as long as work is play and as long as people are treated well and are truly free to make their own decisions, the great majority of people will quite gladly contribute to the band in the ways they can.'

'Finally, the drudgery of corporate life has been captured in a play set for adults! Bob, Joe, and Ted spend eight hours a day, five days a week, at tiny desks in tiny cubicles in a giant room packed with countless similar cubicles in a giant building filled with countless similar rooms. Comes with a sticker sheet of decor for your cube, complete with graphs, charts, screens for the computer and pithy office posters. Also includes a job title sticker sheet so you can create a convoluted and meaningless position for your employee (how about Level C Systems Associate? Or Senior Accounting Coordinator?). Each additional set comes with the figures noted, plus character specific accessories.'

'Plant: Solves difficult problems with original and creative ideas. Can be poor communicator and may ignore the details. -- Monitor/Evaluator: Sees the big picture. Thinks carefully and accurately about things. May lack energy or ability to inspire others.'

'Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor, Richman, Poorman, Beggarman, Thief. Why did little 17th century girls enjoy guessing who their future husbands might be? Was their choice of archetypes mere alliterative randomness? Relate them to the Dull Dirty Dangerous – Sexy Lucrative Powerful spectrum, and you begin to see a pattern. Richman enjoys the ultimate privilege: buying his own social identity at the SLP end of the spectrum. Poorman is stuck in the DDD end. Beggarman and Thief have fallen off the edge of society. Sailor and Tinker are successful exodus archetypes. The former is effectively a free agent [a privateer]. The latter, the Tinker, was a neo-nomad, substituting tin-smithing for pastoralism in pre-industrial Britain. -- Today, the remaining modern women who look to men, rather than to themselves, to define their lives, might sing a different song: Blogger, Coder, Soldier, Consultant, Rockstar, Burger-flipper, Welfareman, Spammer. Everything changes. Everything remains the same.'

'Thom Hartmann's approach showing the differences between "Hunters" and "Farmers". -- Hunter: #Constantly monitoring their environment. Farmer: #Nurturing; creates and supports community values; attuned to whether something will last.'

'Les, one of our support guys, said it best after a week: “That board is like magic.” Our support turnaround time is faster than it’s ever been. Just the simple act of “publicizing” those numbers — not in a cruel way, but a “where are we at as a group?” way — has kept the support process on-task and, I think, made it a bit more like a video game. (It helps that when all the boxes are at “zero”, a virtual bottle of champagne appears on-screen, and a physical one is likely removed from the fridge.)'

'I'm always on the lookout for these incentive schemes gone wrong. There's a great book on the subject by Robert Austin -- Measuring and Managing Performance in Organizations. The book's central thesis is fairly simple: When you try to measure people's performance, you have to take into account how they are going to react. Inevitably, people will figure out how to get the number you want at the expense of what you are not measuring, including things you can't measure, such as morale and customer goodwill. His point is that incentive plans based on measuring performance always backfire. Not sometimes. Always. What you measure is inevitably a proxy for the outcome you want... Because people have brains and are endlessly creative when it comes to improving their personal well-being at everyone else's expense. As some of your workers substitute making the most of an incentive program for serving customers the best way they know how, the customer experience will suffer.'

'First: The new reality'

'And as I grow up, I find something never change, the game, the people, and the world, they are still there, however evolves into another immature form, now my world is sorounded by adult toys like big houses, BMW car, fancy jobs, and now my childhood player partners all grow up to be adult game players, we play games like "start up companies". Each one of us, somewhere in his heart, is dominated with the dream to make a living world, a universe. For that dream we train ourselves with discipline, seek for good quality, and the underlying rules.'

The broader principle being: change the 'conditions' (create "games") to change the incentives (re-enable 'happiness'). -- 'McGonigal: "Games support happiness ... by giving us more satisfying work or concrete tasks that we can accomplish... Studies have shown that playing a short game — having something concrete that you can accomplish — actually gives you the motivation, energy and optimism to go back and tackle real work. ...because when you’re trying to do real-world work it’s frustrating; we don’t see the results of our actions right away. So games give us that sense of blissful productivity... Neurochemically we’re kind of fired up ... to take on challenges... Games take us immediately out of a state of paralysis or alienation or depression and they switch on the positive ways of thinking. They trigger the brain to a state in which it’s possible to do good work. It’s possible to aspire to tough goals."' -- Neo Taylorism? A Brave New 'Chunking' World? Who Games The Game Makers?

Comment: Dan G: "There is more room for happiness and satisfaction in being a believer (’clueless’) than a player (’sociopath’). Life for those who find value in what they are doing and get satisfaction out of it can be happy, fulfilled and peaceful. All they need to do is find their true interest and vocation — their true belief, not a delusion. The life of the player-sociopath is bound to be a constant war; and because it is a competition, satisfaction and success are not under their own self-control. It is contingent on the failure of the other player-sociopaths with whom they need to compete. It is ultimately foolish to make your own hapiness contingent on the payoff of a zero-sum game. -- From the point of view of society as a whole, praising sociopathy is a disaster. A society of believers will always thrive and progress; it will be the Utopia. A society of players will stagnate and self-distruct; it will be a Mad-Max style, pre-Hobbesian Dystopia." -- *nodding*

'#The Organization as Psychic Prison: ...it divides people into those who get how the world really works (the sociopaths and the self-aware slacker losers) and those who don’t (the over-performer losers and the clueless in the middle). This is where Gervais has broken new ground, primarily because as an artist, he is interested in the subjective experience of being clueless. ...the ultimate explanation of Michael Scott’s (and David Brent’s) careers: they are put into a position of having to explain their own apparent, unexpected and unexamined success. Remember, they are promoted primarily as passive pawns to either allow the sociopaths to escape the risks of their actions, or to make way for the sociopaths to move up faster. They are presented with an interesting bit of cognitive dissonance: being nominally given greater power, but in reality being safely shunted away from the pathways of power. They must choose to either construct false narratives or decline apparent opportunities.'

'... free electrons tend to keep their thoughts to themselves. In other words, if it seems like there are 10 levels of intricacy behind everything they say, it's because there is. -- ... free electrons are ridiculously rare. That means that they've spent their entire life trying to explain their way of thinking to people who will probably never be able to understand it because they just don't think the same way.

"[Y]ou do your own thinking and no one can tell you you're wrong," says Edwin Locke, an industrial psychologist and professor emeritus of leadership and motivation at the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland. "You make your own decisions, and if you're wrong, reality gives you the feedback."

'Because of our cultural bias towards specialization, we have been lead to believe that it's possible to spend our life doing nothing but what we like. The real world is not so Utopian. I believe the key to success lies in how we deal with Everything Else.'

Essay on dystopic worker futures, as explored in Dollhouse, Moon, Sleep Dealer, and The Girlfriend Experience. Cites Molly from Neuromancer as the prototypal robot-zombie-puppet-prostitute-slave worker: "You know how I got the money, when I was starting out? Here. Not here, but a place like it, in the Sprawl. Joke, to start with, ’cause once they plant the cut-out chip, it seems like free money. Wake up sore, sometimes, but that’s it. Renting the goods, is all. You aren’t in, when it’s all happening. House has software for whatever a customer wants to pay for..."

'I would avoid hiring young people, since they tend to ‘look ashamed’/'disinterested’ in holding up the sign, since they unintentionally outsourced their brand. It seems better to have a ’serious old person’ who thinks they have a real job, or possibly a ‘crazy old man’ who will wave to people and be a jovial extension of your brand. It is important not to hire a krazy homeless man, since he might scare customers away, even if he has tons of experience in professional sign holding. -- Always remember that you have to ‘go to the streets’ to reach real people. While internet advertising ‘looks kewl’, sometimes u have to reach low-end consumers with your low-end product. I believe in the power of holding up signs on the side of the road.'

'Groupthink emerges because groups are often very similar in background and values. Individual members of the group don't want to rock the boat because it might damage personal relationships. Encouraging critical thinking is not easy, but it is possible. Dissenters are often labelled as trouble-makers and targeted for either conversion to the consensus or outright expulsion from the group. As a result dissenters in groups are likely to be an endangered species. To be effective dissenters must tread a fine line, avoiding pointless confrontation or personal attacks; instead presenting minority viewpoints in an even-handed, well-modulated and authentic fashion. For their part the majority has to fight its instinct to crush dissenters and recognise the risk they are taking in being critical of the majority opinion. Although the majority consensus may well be right, it can be more secure in its decision if dissent is encouraged and all the options are explored.' -- Here be dragons

'Rypple is a collaborative, social business tool built on the premise that feedback is fundamental to success. Companies use Rypple to supercharge their annual review processes, find customer opportunities to drive revenue, and learn where their people can improve. People use Rypple to reach out to their trusted advisers and get feedback on a wide variety of topics, from business to personal and everything in between. The best habits of high performers are baked right into the service, including frequent requests for direct feedback, an environment that fosters honesty, and regular, short one-on-one conversations to keep feedback timely and relevant.'

'No wonder people have suddenly begun worrying so much about their “personal brand”—brand equity has become more important to a firm, conceptually, than loyalty to employees. Employees, to make themselves less expendable, may also need to work to integrate themselves with a company’s brand, to merge the personal with corporate brand if possible, make them inseparable. The personal brand becomes far more important, too, in a labor market full of otherwise interchangeable parts. And with globalization and companies emphasizing their own flexibility rather than a paternalistic approach to workers—no more company men, or lifelong job security—we all can expect to be returned to the labor market repeatedly. So we will begin to need something more than a resume, something more comprehensive, like a personal brand. Depressing.'

'Especially in the so-called knowledge, information, or entertainment sectors, work has all too often become little more than an arbitrary hierarchy of stupidity fees, ignorance fines, influence peddling, and pathetic popularity plays. It's increasingly an unjustifiable waste of time to set up such pointless and counterproductive relationships in the first place. It's no wonder that increasingly, many of the most intelligent, creative, and educated simply opt out. -- We're clueless about how to handle surpluses -- the most dangerous of which is cognitive surplus -- and the Old World Centralized Capitalist Party Bosses began embezzling our exponential productivity dividends long ago by providing myriad creative ways to soak up the first hints of the sociologically volatile stuff. -- So Industrial Era capitalism worked. It succeeded. But it's utterly obsolete for America and today it is our existential obligation to define what comes next -- Postscarcity Agalmics.' -- Post? Hmm...

"Play Money: Gold Farms, Polar Bear Rugs, and the World-Historical Relevance of Game Studies"

"Can a machine fume about years without a decent vacation, or having to pay exorbitant rent in a company-owned tenement near the factory? This, surely, only a man can do—a deeply self-hating man who loathes every second of his working life. A machine can break down mechanically, but can it break down emotionally, mentally, and spiritually? I can, and I have. Every day, a little piece of me dies. Could a machine say the same?"

"When we are cogs in a large machine, we need to be paid to feel recognized, because our individual contribution is lost in the elaborate division of labor and our autonomy is similarly circumscribed. But having control over how the work is done and knowing one is responsible for the final product in its entirety makes work palpably meaningful, which is its own reward, fulfilling a basic aspect of what it means to be human. ...money functions as a consolation for social isolation, which it then reinforces by supplying the illusion of strength and efficacy ...when we work for free online, our main goal may be to express our freedom from capital, for at least a little while, and experience the restorative essence of performing socially useful work for its own sake. It could be that it’s inherently delightful in the midst of late capitalism to discover a social need that can be fulfilled without capital’s intervention."

'5. Ask for recommendations- You kicked butt on the last project. The client is thrilled. Now, strike while the iron is hot, and ask for the recommendation. (i.e. - “I appreciate your confidence in me, and I will deliver my best to you always. Since I know you are enthusiastic about working with me, do you think you could please recommend me to your friends? I’d really appreciate it tremendously.”).'

'The Sims 3 balances its rewards well, not just within aspirations, but within career and financial progression as well. Like real people, your sims will always want better stuff, a nicer house, and a prettier yard. You'll start with meager means, but as you progress down your chosen career track, you'll earn more money and work less, giving you more time for the fun stuff. Like before, you won't actually guide your sim through the workday, but you will be able to select something to focus on during the day, such as getting to know your coworkers or pursuing independent research. Doing so earns extra benefits; for example, studying music theory will increase your logic skill, letting you kill two birds (a paycheck and an improved skill) with one stone. Thankfully, managing your basic needs--hunger, bladder, and so on--takes less effort than before, giving you more chances to take advantage of these occasions.

'First defined by American psychoanalyst Herbert J. Freudenberger in 1972, burnout is “a demon born of the society and times we live in and our ongoing struggle to invest our lives with meaning.” He goes on to say that burnout “is not a condition that gets better by being ignored. Nor is it any kind of disgrace. On the contrary, it’s a problem born of good intentions.”'

'Turn the world into a game, they argue, and it works better. Give people a competition, and it can transform a dull-but-important task into something exciting. "Games create drama and excitement," as Jane McGonigal, one of the leading thinkers in the field, told the crowd at this year's O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference. "We've done that for years with videogames, and now we can apply that thinking to the rest of life." Games can change behavior by taking bad behaviors and making them visible, so we can no longer ignore them.' -- Numbers numb.

"Ever since Hobbes, man has been using his ingenuity and energy in an attempt to ­create a technological utopia. We have been taught in schools since the late 18th century, and by the culture at large, to revere technology and to place faith in it as a liberator. Soon, soon, it seems to say, soon you will be free. I have a different view. I hold in supreme contempt 90 per cent of modern technology. The whole sorry shebang is actually a costly distraction, which isolates us, makes us stupid and is never going to free us. Take that digital manacle, the BlackBerry..." --- Lulzy troll. Love this guy.

"The escalating demand for academic credentials in the job market gives the impression of an ever-more-knowledgeable society, whose members perform cognitive feats their unschooled parents could scarcely conceive of. On paper, my abstracting job, multiplied a millionfold, is precisely what puts the futurologist in a rapture: we are getting to be so smart! Yet my M.A. obscures a more real stupidification of the work I secured with that credential, and a wage to match. When I first got the degree, I felt as if I had been inducted to a certain order of society. But despite the beautiful ties I wore, it turned out to be a more proletarian existence than I had known as an electrician. A good job requires a field of action where you can put your best capacities to work and see an effect in the world. Academic credentials do not guarantee this."

"It was as if there is this other form of ‘authenticity’ that I didn’t even know about that has nothing to do with the arts. I feel like there is ’something wrong with me.’ I feel like my ‘alt’ perspectives might have crippled me forever. I feel like my ‘global perspectives’ and the required 2-year core courses at my university made me ‘know too much’ about life, and possibly enabled me to think that ‘nothing matters.’ I feel trapped. I feel like I just wish I really knew a lot about computers, and could have just designed CollegeHumor/vimeo/twitter, or something. I sort of just wish I could have a job where I am ‘paid to have opinions on things that seem important’, and make me feel like I am ‘behind the scenes’ in important decisions regarding meaningful brands. I feel worried. I feel like there is a ‘real world’ that I have always told myself that I will be able to transcend, but it might have just been a gimmick." -- :*(

'It is from simulation that virtual games emerged, broke loose only to be reintegrated into the assemblages of world capital, as a means of inducing the "flexible personality" demanded by digital work, war and markets. As this hacker innovation was captured by the game factory, it has continued to generate surplus know-how that escapes complete capture in the commodity form. Some commentators see such "autoludic" activity as automatically empowering and democratizing. We, however, insist on what Paolo Virno terms "the ambivalence of the multitude." We ask of digital play what Félix Guattari asked of collective humanity: "how can it find a compass by which to reorient itself?" His response, by "remaking social practices," was grounded in a reading of transformations already underway. To speak of games of multitude is to assert that the possibilities of virtual play exceed its imperial manifestations, and the desires of many gamers surpass marketers' caricatures of them.'

'In the sales and trading area of investment banking, I could see every day how I was doing. So could my bosses. There was no fudging the numbers. This was security and this was control. I could leave at any time as I was a known quantity in a big field. Then I made my "mistake". Bored with the short term aspects of winning and losing every day in the markets, I opted to leave the frontline and enter the world of senior management. Over time I discovered what I had feared as a newbie all those years prior. In bureaucracies, results don't really matter. As I came to see what was going on more clearly, I could see what the game was. It was the pursuit of power. Now the message to the "people" is all about the common good, the shareholders, making money, making good products. But don't fool yourself... The reality is that it is all about who has the power. The breakdown of our current economy is starting to make it clear to more and more people - that they are just pawns with no control.'

'The (”lazy”) troublepreventer thinks ahead. He extracts variable information into common properties files, seeks to reduce complex code, and automates repetitive, error-prone activities such as the build and deployment processes. He also ensures that others can very easily repeat what he has done. Anyone that has worked with me for even a day knows that I often sound like a broken record when I say “Is it in Subversion?” or “Have you updated the Wiki?” To me, if the knowledge is locked in your head, you are a less valuable, not more valuable, resource. Troublepreventers put their knowledge in the system, not just their heads, so that it runs the same way every time. -- I’d opt for more troublepreventers than troubleshooters as they save everyone time, money and headaches.'

On the increasing use of brain stimulants Adderall, Ritalin, and Provigil -- 'Anjan Chatterjee worries about "cosmetic neurology", but he thinks that it will eventually become as acceptable as cosmetic surgery' -- ...when enthusiasts share their vision of our neuroenhanced future it can sound dystopian. Zack Lynch, of NeuroInsights, gave me a rationale for smart pills that I found particularly grim. ”If we eventually decide that neuroenhancers work, and are basically safe, will we one day enforce their use?" -- Nicholas Seltzer sees his habit as a pursuit that aligns him with a larger movement for improving humanity. Using neuroenhancers, he said, “is like customizing yourself—customizing your brain.” For some people, he went on, it was important to enhance their mood, so they took antidepressants; but for people like him it was more important “to increase mental horsepower.” He added, “It’s fundamentally a choice you’re making about how you want to experience consciousness.”'

"Is that compliment real or not? A new report tells you how to know the difference."

"Organizations hope to make youth see importance of getting prime parking spaces or a new desk lamp."

"A new Department of Labor report finds personal outsourcing is revolutionizing how Americans don't do their own work." -- Haha

#What do you really want? #What do you really believe? -- 'What you want - really, deeply want - is fundamental because deliberate practice is an investment: The costs come now, the benefits later. The more you want something, the easier it will be for you to sustain the needed effort until the payoff starts to arrive. But if you're pursuing something that you don't truly want and are competing against others whose desire is deep, you can guess the outcome. The second question is more profound. What do you really believe? Do you believe that you have a choice in this matter? Do you believe that if you do the work, and do it with intense focus for years on end, your performance will eventually reach the highest levels? If you believe that, then there's a chance you will do the work and achieve great performance. What you really believe about the source of great performance becomes the foundation of all you will ever achieve.'

"What we're doing inside Best Buy with Social Technology." -- Allows employees to.

"Not sure if I am even interested in ‘buying shit’, but probably more interested in convincing people 2 buy shit. Might start an ad agency, and organize a cult’s mass-suicide as a viral marketing campaign for Nike/the company of ur choice. Need investors. Ideas take money, whether it is buying something 4 urself, or executing a creative project."

'Does Dalio think of himself as one of the world's great investors? "No," he says, shaking his head, visibly agitated. "First of all, I don't know what the definition is of 'one of the great investors.' It's a totally irrelevant question. I have the fear of messing up. And that fear drives me to ask, 'Well, could this thing happen? Could that thing happen? If it happened in Japan, how do I know it won't happen to me?' Dalio describes himself as a "hyperrealist," in the sense that he is driven to understand the processes that govern the way the world really works, without bringing subjective value judgments into the equation. "I think the thing that makes him different is an intolerance for the inadequate answer," says Bob Prince, 50, Bridgewater's co-chief investment officer, who has been with the firm since 1986. "He'll just keep peeling back layer after layer to get at the essential truth." -- Read on for Dalio's 'radical transparency' workplace practices

"... the fact that Caddell can be both an industry insider and a fan simply demonstrates the degree to which those lines are blurring from all sides in our contemporary convergence culture; the fact that his fantasies have something to do with his real world identity should also not be a shock to anyone who understands the psycho-sociology of fandom." -- ;^)

"Long hours are bad for people's health, and employers should never forget that each extra hour worked makes people less productive once they are over a sensible working week." -- True.

"The whole system relies on confidence. That confidence relies on the belief that the banks have invested the money that they hold wisely, and that the value of the assets that they hold has retained sufficient value for the money deposited to be returned. The good side of the system is that it allows for rapid economic expansion, but the downside is that there is a fragility, and that the fragility is built upon the foundations of the system - confidence. The whole system is no more real than the confidence in the Linden Dollar, and the economy of the world is no more real than the economy of Second Life. It is all built upon belief in the value of currencies that have no real value, except what we subjectively give them."

"[World of Warcraft is a] detailed simulacrum of a process of “becoming a success”. The game offers its players a capitalist fairytale, in which anyone who works hard and strives enough can rise through the ranks of society and acquire great wealth. Moreover, beyond simply representing capitalism as good, World of Warcraft serves as a tool to educate its players in a range of behaviors and skills specific to the situation of conducting business in an economy controlled by corporations... the game is training a generation of good corporate citizens not only to consume well and to pay their dues, but also to climb the corporate ladder, to lead projects, to achieve sales goals, to earn and save, to work hard for better possessions, to play the markets, to win respect from their peers and their customers, to direct and encourage and cajole their underlings to outperform, to become better employees and perhaps, eventually, effective future CEOs."

"Not only is Git the new hotness, it's a fast, efficient, distributed version control system ideal for the collaborative development of software. GitHub is the easiest (and prettiest) way to participate in that collaboration: fork projects, send pull requests, monitor development, all with ease." -- Public Developer Profiles.

"What has struck me is that so [much] of what is being said is in the nature of support rather than information, perhaps because people don't know what information will be useful," says Turkle, who founded the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self. "More dire news? Job losses? This is out there, but there is a parallel track on which people are just trying to help each other out."

"Precarity is most commonly associated with outsiders who compete for low-paying retail and service jobs. Perversely, a similar state of uncertainty falls to the skilled, individualistic young, working their time with zero job security as digital freelancers in the post-industrial economies. A familiar scene at your local coffee-shop franchise is probably the closest the depoliticised members of both groups come to meeting — the one group toiling behind the tills, the other slaving against client deadlines on their MacBooks, making each drink last half a day. Precariat, meet Digital Precariat. Help yourself to sugar over there, by the door. On the way out."

#1. We don't have enough annoying strangers in our lives: The more we're able to edit the annoyance out of our lives, the less we're able to handle it. #2. We don't have enough annoying friends, either: The problem is that peacefully dealing with incompatible people is crucial to living in a society. In fact, if you think about it, peacefully dealing with people you can't stand is society. #4. Online company only makes us lonelier: When someone speaks to you face-to-face, what percentage of the meaning is actually in the words, as opposed to the body language and tone of voice? ... in Text World, all that is stripped away... absent a sense of the other person's mood, every line we read gets filtered through our own mood instead. #5. We don't get criticized enough. #7. We feel worthless, because we actually are worth less: There's one advantage to having mostly online friends, and it's one that nobody ever talks about: They demand less from you.'

'"OK, so, deep inside you're a frustrated geek with serious masculinity issues who doesn't like authority," said a gamer friend of mine when we talked about this over drinks. "And you're a loner who can't handle complexity." Except, except ... wait a minute, that's not even vaguely what I'm like in real life. In meatspace, I'm a total people-pleaser who avoids all conflict (to the point where I often get completely doormatted in my professional life). And I have a superhighly tuned, sensitive-boi EQ. Christ, I cry at weddings. What's going on?' -- Hehe (*sigh* Tell me about it..) -- "... the rest of the world is beginning to realize that one's game preferences can be regarded as a Myers-Briggs personality type for the digital age. Plenty of college kids list their most-played games on their Facebook pages, under the presumption that this speaks as clearly about their inner lives as their religion or political stances."

"Playwright Oriza Hirata says the work raises questions about the relationship between humanity and technology. The play, called Hataraku Watashi (I, Worker), is set in the near future. It focuses on a young couple who own two housekeeping robots, one of which loses its motivation to work. In the play, the robot complains that it has been forced into boring and demeaning jobs and enters into a discussion with the humans about its role in their lives."

"You live in a perfect world. You live in the free world. Every new day brings you new challenges. Every new job brings new opportunities. You’re the master of your destiny, your own boss. The future is bright. You just have to keep your soul. And your salary options. MSG™ is a slightly satirical game of negotiation and conscience, for three to six adults."

"[MSG] Players play the roles of company Reps who all work for the soul-crushing Company in service of the Brand. The point is really to make a mockery of soulless corporations and their often ruthless strategies, not to mention the soulless drones who do their bidding. At the same time, it mocks our own willingness to worship these brands and submit to the will of these companies, all while creating ludicrous scenarios that are maddeningly interconnected with the stories created in the previous round. Maybe this excerpt from the rule book explains it best: Brainstorm for a couple of minutes until you come up with a name for the Brand [that all the players work for]. If some of you hate it — or, better, all of you hate it — that’s brilliant, because it means you’ll understand a little of what it is to work for an organization that makes you cringe every time you look in the mirror and see the Brand logo they tattooed on your forehead." -- Haha

We are Various.

"... scarcity has turned out to be a feature, not a bug. Sure, people like the big, graphics-based chat arenas such as the Palace, where talk was the only real commodity, and that commodity was, as usual, cheap. But the worlds they actually want to be in - bad enough to pay an entrance fee - are the ones that make the digital goods hard to get to and even harder to copy. The addictive appeal of online role-playing games suggests that people will choose the constraining and challenging world over the one that sets them free."

"That toxic recipe cannot power global economic growth in the 21st century. When your market cap, for example, can be utterly vaporized in a matter of days, it's a stark reminder that shareholder value is a videogame - and it is human outcomes that make work meaningful."

"Blake Peebles, 16, quit his sophomore year at North Raleigh Christian Academy to concentrate on perfecting his game, which so far has seen him win prizes from gift certificates to gaming equipment and chicken sandwiches."

"...it is a trade."

"Twellow.com is currently grabbing publicly available messages from the Twitter.com micro-blogging service. We then analyze and categorize each of the users responsible for those messages into the various categories found at Twellow.com. By adding these people to specific categories we help you narrow your searching into specific niches where you can find who you are looking for." -- Leaky.

'In Wannado Ciy no one is unemployed. The choice of profession is free and the middle class is intact. Outsourcing doesn’t exist. Wannado City presents itself as a city without any ideology. As in real America, different ethnic groups mix in the workplace. ‘In Kids We Trust’ is the motto in the courtroom. Children’s heads, not presidents, adorn the bank notes. Only the American flag next to the judge, as well as a picture of George W Bush in the courtroom testify to everyday life. Officially the children are here for fun – child labour is frowned upon. “We call it real play, not working,” says the press spokesperson.' -- Work = Shopping = Citizenship. Grim.

"Human beings both want to -- and, in a deeper way, need to -- feel a sense of being autonomous. When someone else begins to seduce you into behaving with an offer of a reward, it takes away your sense of being autonomous. Now you are doing it for someone else. External rewards and punishments are counterproductive when it comes to activities that are meaningful -- tasks that telegraph something about a person's intellectual abilities, generosity, courage or values. People will voluntarily perform intellectually arduous work, for example, because it gives them pleasure to solve a puzzle or win a game of wits. It is easy to offer a reward, but it is not easy to help people find their own motivation." -- Numbers numb.

'Jon "Neverdie" Jacobs explains why virtual worlds are better than the real thing, and reveals his staggering earnings from a cyber asteroid and nightclub in Entropia Universe.' -- He's right.

"When you log into WoW, you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that if you just plant your ass in that chair for long enough, you'll level up. The thing is, almost no arenas of human endeavor work like this. Many are precisely the opposite, in fact. But grinding? Grinding always works. Always. You get a gold star just for showing up. This is a quietly joyful experience. It feeds our souls, as well as our sense of justice and fair play. We grind because we can't believe what a totally awesome deal we're getting handed here, often the first time in our entire suck-ass put-upon lives."

'Joanne Ciulla: "Of all the institutions in society, why let one of the more precarious ones supply our social, spiritual and psychological needs? It doesn't make sense to put such a large portion of our lives into the unsteady hands of employers."'

"Care is seen as passive and ineffectual, while our culture is intoxicated with independence and self-expression. The care ethic is not just about children and the elderly... but also, crucially, care of the self."

"You are supposed to be passionate about your products, your services, the brand. But why? It's a paycheque... When did passion creep out of the bedroom and into the boardroom?... When did an employer start wanting employees entirely uncritical?"

"Pavlovian tricks; hurdles for dogs to jump through... it simply doubles the workload - you have to do your job and then you have to be able to prove you have done it."

"The expectation of what we offer our employer has fundamentally shifted, both in terms of time and effort. It is not just our mental and physical energies we are now expected to devote to our work, but increasingly our emotional resources too."

"The more pressured you are, the more impatient you become of what you perceive as distractions, rather than understanding them to be opportunities. Time consuming skills: empathy, patience and perception become rare: we emotionally deskill ourselves."

"... the conclusion is that the single biggest achievement of American managerialism has been to make people work harder... How has America done it? Quite simple: it is Big Brother transferred to the workplace. Use fear, trust no one. "

"Work-life balance is not just part of the politics of the affluent west; it's part of a global story of how the organisation of economic life is invading ever more aggressively the processes and relationships of care."

"Work like a dog being taken for a walk, instead of an ox being yoked to the plow."

"Most people read NSFW as "not safe for (the platonic ideal of) work." Apparently there's this archetypal concept of a workplace that exists in the universal consciousness, and you should consult the great mother mind before putting anything on the web."