I read a book called Drive by Daniel Pink. I actually listened to it which means limited retention (trying to avoid the endless people ramming the piece of crap 24 in my face or having some person rip away my headphone cord because the future of humanity depends on h getting ahead of me and onto that subway car takes away my attention.). But I remember largely him speaking about the power of intrinsic motivators vs. traditional extrinsic. Intrinsic focuses on internal accomplishment, pursuit of pleasure, pursuit of creativity. Extrinsic focuses on money, grades, everything outside us, it is the human equivalent of giving the monkey a peanut to ring a bell. Pink says that setting up motivators to appeal to intrinsic rewards provides better results. I think that the University and the College (on both sides of the lectern) are almost totally driven by extrinsic rewards. From the student side it is about the grade, about the course, about the degree. From the teaching side it is about politics, building empires, minimizing preparation and marking time, getting tenure, etc.
How does this related to a potential iPhone app?
If the fleshed out ideas are all about grades students will find away to do the absolute minimum to get their grade bait. When that happens it is like there is a mental short circuit, creativity, understanding and pride of achievement are ignored in the mad cash to "what is the quickest and the easiest way to get to the end place where I get my grade peanut."
So this is why I think that the merit of any Marketing iPhone app worth it's salt will be to create something that is used but not rewarded for use by grades. One student suggested offering job internships, or access to industry leaders as a reward. That sounded interesting. One idea proposed is that the engagement that the app provides be tied to observing or interacting with particular retail stores -- perhaps if that was true there could be commercial sponsors. But what ever we do I think that the app needs to rise above quizzing and flash cards that are purely focused on test prep.
So what do you think? Everything we do we do for a reason, sometimes for money, for sex, for altruism, for laughs, for spite, for the joy of saying "I did that, look!), for power, for acclaim, for . . .
What incentives can we offer? (But maybe we still should focus on what this app does before worrying about incentives you say? Perhaps the drivers to do and the rewards to do are so closely tied together they can't be split up)
Paul
How does this related to a potential iPhone app?
If the fleshed out ideas are all about grades students will find away to do the absolute minimum to get their grade bait. When that happens it is like there is a mental short circuit, creativity, understanding and pride of achievement are ignored in the mad cash to "what is the quickest and the easiest way to get to the end place where I get my grade peanut."
So this is why I think that the merit of any Marketing iPhone app worth it's salt will be to create something that is used but not rewarded for use by grades. One student suggested offering job internships, or access to industry leaders as a reward. That sounded interesting. One idea proposed is that the engagement that the app provides be tied to observing or interacting with particular retail stores -- perhaps if that was true there could be commercial sponsors. But what ever we do I think that the app needs to rise above quizzing and flash cards that are purely focused on test prep.
So what do you think? Everything we do we do for a reason, sometimes for money, for sex, for altruism, for laughs, for spite, for the joy of saying "I did that, look!), for power, for acclaim, for . . .
What incentives can we offer? (But maybe we still should focus on what this app does before worrying about incentives you say? Perhaps the drivers to do and the rewards to do are so closely tied together they can't be split up)
Paul
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