The *business* of software
Offering money to encourage participation (hey Neil I'm talking to you!)
Not to unfairly pick on our host, but I want to have a discussion on using money to get people to participate.
Neil offered $20 for the best comment on a post he made the other day and it got me thinking if this was counterproductive. For me anyway, it's not enough to be a motivator (and I would think the same for most people), but now if I do comment I have to rationalize that I am doing it for the money instead of doing it because I have a great idea to contribute, and because I like Neil. It wasn't effective for me, but that may just be because I have a social connection to him. I know him personally and admire him professionally and would have read his post regardless. (Neil points out though that this was the first time I ever posted on his blog).
If Neil asked me to help him move, I'd gladly pitch in (assuming I happened to be in Cambridge). But if he said "Hey Michael, I'll give you $20 to help me move tomorrow" my head would start to wonder if helping him move was really worth $20 to me. It's not. I might make an excuse. "Uh, I have to mow the lawn. Sorry"
The author of "Predictably Irrational" discusses this:
"The author proves that people are happy to do things, but occasionally not when they are paid to do so. In some situations work output is negatively affected by payment of small amounts of money. Other tests showed that work done as a “favor” produced much better results."
-- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictably_Irrational
Joel Spolsky talks about this in his Google talk on why Stackoverflow.com has been so successful. (Stackoverflow is a q&a type site for programmer questions). Joel argues that Mahalo tries to get people to answer questions using Mahalo bucks (essentially money) and that it fails, because the type of people that are motivated by $1 to answer questions all day are NOT the type of people you want answering your questions. Stackoverflow gives you karma (like reddit) which actually opens up more features on the site. Like the gamerscore from Xbox Live. It is still an extrinsic motivator, but I think it's easier to swallow for people than money (especially programmers). Jason Calacanis, Mahalo creator, is supposed to be on Spolsky and Atwood's next next podcast to dispute, so give a listen if you are interested.
Money does work sometimes though. I mean look at 99designs.com. Many designers will spend an hour or two trying to get $100 or $200 for a design that if you had contracted them individually you would probably pay twice or three times that amount. And MOST of the designers get paid ZERO. I don't even get how this site works. People have gotten pretty good designs from there too.
If Neil offered me something which COST about $20 it would probably be a stronger motivator. I.e. what if he said "Best post gets a humping dog toy!" That speaks to me even more!
Does Amazon Mechanical Turk work? Who are the people that are doing labor for $.02 a question? There was a post somewhere that said Amazon makes nothing off of Turk (and actually loses money) but that it solves a problem that they themselves had, so it was worth it for them.
So sometimes money IS a motivator. I just think it can't compare with the intrinsic motivation of wanting to do a good job, or to contribute something really intelligent to a discussion and be recognized by your peers.
There's a book called "Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion" which is similar to the "Predictably Irrational" book and talks about ways which we can persuade people to do things we want. It's one of my favorite books. The author, Robert Cialdini, just came out with a newer one and I suspect one of the other persuasion techniques from his second edition might be more effective.
"Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive". Read a blog post which summarizes the book.
Examples:
#9. A small gift makes people want to reciprocate.
If Neil sent people he wanted to participate a gift that cost $20, I think it would be more effective.
#10. Hand-written Post-It note improves response rate on inter-office letter
If Neil took the time to write me a postcard that said "Haven't seen you on the BOS forum in awhile, come back and participate, we miss you!" I guarantee I'd make an effort to show up more often.
#1 Inconvenience the audience by creating an impression of product scarcity.
Do what Seth Godin did and make this group invite only. Invite more people only once a year, or make people pay to get in.
Thoughts?
Neil offered $20 for the best comment on a post he made the other day and it got me thinking if this was counterproductive. For me anyway, it's not enough to be a motivator (and I would think the same for most people), but now if I do comment I have to rationalize that I am doing it for the money instead of doing it because I have a great idea to contribute, and because I like Neil. It wasn't effective for me, but that may just be because I have a social connection to him. I know him personally and admire him professionally and would have read his post regardless. (Neil points out though that this was the first time I ever posted on his blog).
If Neil asked me to help him move, I'd gladly pitch in (assuming I happened to be in Cambridge). But if he said "Hey Michael, I'll give you $20 to help me move tomorrow" my head would start to wonder if helping him move was really worth $20 to me. It's not. I might make an excuse. "Uh, I have to mow the lawn. Sorry"
The author of "Predictably Irrational" discusses this:
"The author proves that people are happy to do things, but occasionally not when they are paid to do so. In some situations work output is negatively affected by payment of small amounts of money. Other tests showed that work done as a “favor” produced much better results."
-- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictably_Irrational
Joel Spolsky talks about this in his Google talk on why Stackoverflow.com has been so successful. (Stackoverflow is a q&a type site for programmer questions). Joel argues that Mahalo tries to get people to answer questions using Mahalo bucks (essentially money) and that it fails, because the type of people that are motivated by $1 to answer questions all day are NOT the type of people you want answering your questions. Stackoverflow gives you karma (like reddit) which actually opens up more features on the site. Like the gamerscore from Xbox Live. It is still an extrinsic motivator, but I think it's easier to swallow for people than money (especially programmers). Jason Calacanis, Mahalo creator, is supposed to be on Spolsky and Atwood's next next podcast to dispute, so give a listen if you are interested.
Money does work sometimes though. I mean look at 99designs.com. Many designers will spend an hour or two trying to get $100 or $200 for a design that if you had contracted them individually you would probably pay twice or three times that amount. And MOST of the designers get paid ZERO. I don't even get how this site works. People have gotten pretty good designs from there too.
If Neil offered me something which COST about $20 it would probably be a stronger motivator. I.e. what if he said "Best post gets a humping dog toy!" That speaks to me even more!
Does Amazon Mechanical Turk work? Who are the people that are doing labor for $.02 a question? There was a post somewhere that said Amazon makes nothing off of Turk (and actually loses money) but that it solves a problem that they themselves had, so it was worth it for them.
So sometimes money IS a motivator. I just think it can't compare with the intrinsic motivation of wanting to do a good job, or to contribute something really intelligent to a discussion and be recognized by your peers.
There's a book called "Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion" which is similar to the "Predictably Irrational" book and talks about ways which we can persuade people to do things we want. It's one of my favorite books. The author, Robert Cialdini, just came out with a newer one and I suspect one of the other persuasion techniques from his second edition might be more effective.
"Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive". Read a blog post which summarizes the book.
Examples:
#9. A small gift makes people want to reciprocate.
If Neil sent people he wanted to participate a gift that cost $20, I think it would be more effective.
#10. Hand-written Post-It note improves response rate on inter-office letter
If Neil took the time to write me a postcard that said "Haven't seen you on the BOS forum in awhile, come back and participate, we miss you!" I guarantee I'd make an effort to show up more often.
#1 Inconvenience the audience by creating an impression of product scarcity.
Do what Seth Godin did and make this group invite only. Invite more people only once a year, or make people pay to get in.
Thoughts?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Neil Davidson on -
Michael,
You're absolutely right. The $20 thing was a spur of the moment decision that occurred to me a fraction of a second before I hit the 'post' button. In retrospect, the humping dog toy would have been a better idea.
Ariely's book is awesome, and I've just ordered Cialdini's.
Neil
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Permalink Reply by Dror on -
Overall I agree with your thoughts here with one important distinction.
If Neil offered $200 instead of $20 would it make a difference? How about $500?
One of the important things we sometimes forget is how global the Internet audience is. $20 is not a real motivator in the US or UK, but it is in other parts of the world. Similarly $100-$200 is not worth it to put the time on creating designs on 99designs.com for western designers, but if you're making $500/month as a designer in Eastern Europe, it's a different story.
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Permalink Reply by Mike Morris on -
I agree with most of what Michael says, but I think there is another element at play here. That is that Neil traditionally offers "$20 for the best reply/post". So I think the $20 is just a token of the recognition of "providing the best/most insightful reply". What people are really striving for is this recognition, not the $20........
It's not much different than the incentive to participate on StackOverflow or similar sites........except that the currency there is reputation and goofy badges. What people really want is for someone to show them some love.
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