If I told you money is not a good work incentive would you believe me? Yeah, you might. But what if I told you that money as an incentive can actually lower your performance, would you believe me then? Well it's true, and science backs this up. This is the point that Dan Pink has been trying to spread lately. In the video above we're introduced to some very interesting research that has proven, once and again that performance is not tied t...

If you hate your job because it's too hard and if your idea of the perfect life is slacking off all day and doing as little work as possible this post is not for you. But if you hate what you do because you feel it's meaningless and you feel you are wasting yourself away then I want to talk to you. If you're unhappy I urge you to take action, you've only got so many years in this life to be wasting them away in unhappiness. No, working for the we...

Facing criticism and cynicism is something that anyone on a creative endeavor will have to deal with on a constant basis. I know I've dealt with a lot of it for my other projects and even for this blog, new as it may be. It is something that you'll be facing if you're doing something worth doing. Teddy Roosevelt said it best: “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of d...

Great storytelling isn't just something great writers can do, it's a skill that's present in every great leader. Strangely enough it's a skill that's very rarely taught for the business or political world. You'll see it as a performance art, as a skill for writers of all kinds but seldomly with focus outside of the arts and entertainment. It's hard to find concrete advice on how to craft and tell stories, specially advice from master storytel...

It has been months since the last post on Ivanismo, I've missed it a lot. Just a few days ago I left my Job, it was not an unexpected decision, just one that happened a few months sooner than I had expected. I will miss the people and the work I did a lot but the lessons learned and the mistakes made will forever enrich my life. Without going into unnecessary detail I left my job because I was no longer happy in it and it was turning me...

The world thrives on entrepreneurship, in business, art, science and even spirituality. All the great names written in history, famous or infamous, were of entrepreneurs. Those who felt compelled to do more and better. But what lies at the core of that complex and elusive quality in life? In the heart of the entrepreneur lies conflict, a never-ending struggle between what is and what could be. An everlasting urge to do more, to do better...

When reaching out to others there is a myth that you can get everyone to like you, or at the very least, stop anyone from disliking you. It is bullshit, and I can prove it. Name one important person, company or cause in history that is universally liked or hated. If you drew a blank is because anything that stands up for something will inevitably be rejected by some. Those who are remarkable take a stance, they know who and what they are...

A great case of cosmic convergence, or coincidence, your choice. I was listening to Faith No More's Epic this morning when I read this post on Seth's blog in which he riffs that consumers will always be asking "Is that it?" when faced with even the best of products or services. He then turns this into a cause for marketers and companies in general to strive for more, to be able to reply to "is that it?" with "No! There's more!". However, this i...

The other day I came across a new company called Get Satisfaction. Its basically a place where users can start forums for specific companies, products or services and discuss them or get support for them. Any user can start a forum for any company and some companies are joining in and giving official support on Get Satisfaction. There's a very clear message here, in this age, if you don't talk to your customers they will talk among themselv...

Wired has an article on its April issue titled How Apple Got Everything Right By Doing Everything Wrong. It tells the story of Apple's management style, how while in Silicon Valley management is going for the open route, being empowering and comforting to its employees, Apple is going the opposite route. Its corporate culture values extreme secrecy, empowerment is a dirty word at the company and micromanagement is on the menu everyday. At t...