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There is an economic imperative to have higher engagement at work, so why has it not changed?

Extrinsic motivators like status and money tend to be back-end loaded, they tend to be delayed. And so, as Robert Kaplan points out, we need short-term rewards. 

A new poll shows that Americans overwhelmingly blame the GOP for the catastrophe that continues this evening in Washington. Things are getting so bad for the Republicans that prospects for reopening the government and avoiding a debt-ceiling crisis are, I think, looking up.

Guest post by Jill Janes “Management…follows general rules, which are more or less stable,…and which can be learned.” ~Max Weber Management. Be it district management, classroom management, or bus-line management, […]

Kas Thomas: The evidence is substantial enough that people should start thinking about taking substantial amounts of vitamin D as prophylaxis against cancers of all kinds. 

Newly published research involving data from European workers shows higher rates of job satisfaction among those in creative professions, due in part to having more autonomy in their schedules and types of work.

Happiness is the joy that we feel striving after our potential.

Yuval Levin, in his neglected classic Imagining the Future, claims that there are two characteristic ways of viewing our technological and biotechnological future.  One is in terms of innovations, the […]

By understanding a modern picture of cosmology, even at just an intuitive non-detailed level, people can get a wonderful spiritual sense of how they fit into the universe.

Shortly after being hired by Equinox Fitness in 2004, the manager at one New York City club called a meeting for movement instructors of every discipline. Gathered one afternoon in […]

THERE IS something I must tell you about China: It is rather morally creative in the usage of its women. There isn’t a hotel, massage parlor, ktv, or conference hall in town […]

Studies show that students flourish best when under constantly under a moderate amount of stress. 

A built-in webcam captures the person’s face, then tweaks the expression using software. Tests showed that subjects were more likely to “like” a garment when they saw themselves smiling in the mirror.

Is the pursuit of happiness, which we Americans will celebrate later this week, a worthy goal? Many have said no, on the grounds that happiness comes only to those who […]

If you filled out a form today, you were probably asked your “gender.” I’m always tempted to answer “mannish,” or “girlie.” This isn’t what the form wants to know. Frequently […]

How can the ethics of compromise and confrontation, as practiced in Washington, be improved?

Today we are celebrating 7 of the most popular – and indeed they turn out to be among the most interesting – ideas of the summer of 2013.

Judging from their mid-term essays, I would say that among the many and diverse books and essays we’ve read so far in my course in technology, the one that has impressed the […]

So my class on technology is beginning to consider skeptical views of the transformative possibilities of biotechnology. One comes from those who say that the evolutionary understanding of nature explains […]

Japanese scientists have found that listening to sad music may actually evoke positive emotions, even though the experience of sadness itself is widely considered to be negative emotion. 

If the art cannot sell, that is fine. 

If stars, planets, and biological processes are so common in the Universe, then where is everyone? “If the Universe Is Teeming with Aliens… Where Is Everybody?”–Stephen Webb As egocentric as […]

What would a great ad for a university of technology be? An ad, that itself, solves a problem through technology. This is exactly what the University of Engineering and Technology of […]

A Pew Research Center survey released this week revealed that despite Americans’ optimism about advances in medical technology, a slight majority said they wouldn’t want to have their lifespans extended past 120 with such technology.

So you might think I’m excessively anti-technological.  That’s not true at all.  I do think that liberal education should be a counterweight to all our technological obsessions.  That means its […]

People were talking about a third world war, which thank God didn’t happen.

What kind of people confess to crimes they didn’t commit? You might imagine they’re sleepless and terrified, with cops telling them there’s already proof of their guilt. And you’d be […]

Is Youthful Pain the Key to Success?

Time magazine covers seem custom-designed to annoy me. The latest example is their “The Childfree Life” cover. Stories of the childfree lifestyle are always illustrated this way. They feature a […]

“Poe is one of the writers who make us who we are,” wrote E. L. Doctorow. So how is it that Poe’s countrymen could be so hostile to the man? As it turns out, there was villainy at work.