Buyology

by Martin Lindstrom
- boring read
- did not learn much
- expected a lot more insight

ch 2 - product placement
- brand needs to play a fundamental part of the storyline of a commercial or TV show for it to be effective. or else we won't remember the item.
- think about american idol's coke (effective) which is drunk by the judges and on the set all the time. same with cingular (effective) which is used to vote for the contestants
- and Ford which does not play a role on the set and only shows traditional ads on tv...(not effective)

ch 3 - mirror neurons
- what we observe triggers emotions in us as strong as if we did it ourselves
- example: abercrombie mannequins wearing nice clothes, famous actors smoking in movies, and virtual shopping on Sims.
- have ads that show someone else doing it and your mind will automatically feel the sensation of doing it yourself.
- think of mcdonalds adds where person on tv eats burgers or coke commericals where they sip the drink

ch 4 - subliminal messages
- subliminal messages work and associations drawn from products + activities work well
- think about marlboro and its presence in nascar...it is automatically associated with being cool and the power of the race cars
- logos alone are not effective

Least effective to most effective:
1. ads without warnings / danger - logos
2. ads w/ warnings - tobacco ads saying it can kill you
3. Merchandise - hats and shirts worn by
4. subliminal images - advertisements in nascar and formula 1

ch 6 - faith religion and brands
- emotions we experience when we are exposed to ipods, guinness and ferrari sports cars are almost identical to the motions generated by religious symbols such as crosses, rosary beads, mother teresa, the virgin mary, and the bible.
- 50% of all purchasing decisions by shoppers are made spontaneously - and therefore unconsciously- at the point of sale

Somatic marker examples in advertisement:
- tissue + cute dogs (tv ads associating them both so u think the tissue brand is soft)
- pink bank + piggy bank (color bank interior pink makes u feel like a childhood piggy bank)
- blendtec + "will it blend" videos (blenders and its strength in the youtube videos)
- colgate + no brushing = gum disease
- michelin tires + michelin guide of best restaurants (associate tires with excellence)

Chapter 8 - selling to our senses
- consumers are equally seduced by the sight of a product as by its scent (including perfume)
- combo of the image + smell of the perfume is stronger appeal than just the smell or sight of the product
- when a pleasant fragrance matches up with an equally appealing congruous visual image, we not only perceive it as more pleasant, we're also more likely to remember it but if the 2 are incongruous, it will be forgotten easily
- odor activates many of the exact same brain regions as the sign of a product or logo
- ex: smell a donut andu are likely to picture the krispy kreme logo or smell the abercrombie fragrance and you see the logo of the company in your head
- when people make a subconscious judgment about a person, environment, or product within 90 seconds, between 62 and 90% of that assessment is based on color alone.
- power of sound: classical music has been found to deter vandalism, loitering, and even violent crime in canadian parks, 7-eleven parking lots, and subways.

idea: buy a mango scent and spray it in WUD to draw up sales of lassi

chapter 10 - sex in advertising
- we respond more favorably to "real" or "ordinary" people in print and tv ads more than models.
- real people suggest an authentic backstory
- because they don't look like models, we feel like they really believe in what they are selling
- despite supermodels being glamourous and seductive to the human eye, we feel that whatever they claim about the product is phony. they are not telling a story, they're acting in one.
- mirror neurons allow us to imagine ourselves as being equally cool, attractive, and desirable and that works especially well with sex appeal
- observing a victoria's secret model wearing sexy lingerie helps women imagine the feel and touch of the underwear against their own skin and equally feel sexy and seductive as the woman in the ad
- sexy ads are effective more because they have shock value and causes controversy more so than because it shows sexual images.

Purple Cow

p 50

• Differentiate your customers. Find the group that's most profitable. Find the group that's most likely to sneeze. Figure out how to develop / advertise / reward either group. Ignore the rest. Your ads (and your products) SHOULDN'T cater to the masses. Your ads (and products) should cater to the customers you'd choose if you could choose your customers.

p58

• you do not equal the project. Criticism of the project is NOT criticism of you. The fact that we need to be reminded of this points to how unprepared we are for the era of the Cow. It's people who have projects that are never criticized who ultimately fail.
• When you launch a clunker, the criticism of the failure will be real, but it won't be about you - it'll be about the idea. The greatest artists, playwrights, car designers, composers, advertising art directors, authors, and chefs have all had significant flops - it's apart of what makes their successful work great

p 61

• You can't know if your Purple Cow is guaranteed to work. You can't know if it's remarkable enough or too risky. That's the point. It's the very unpredictability of the outcome that makes it work.
  

p 82

• The opposite of "remarkable" is "very good"
• Ideas that are remarkable are much more likely to spread ideas that aren't. Yet so few brave people make remarkable stuff. Why? I think it's because they think that the opposite of "remarkable" is "bad" or "mediocre" or "poorly done". Thus, if they make something very good, they confuse it with being virus-worthy.
  
• Very good is an everyday occurrence and hardly worth mentioning

4 steps of Purple Cow (p110)

1. get permission from people you impressed the first time. Not permission to spam them or sell them leftovers or squeeze extra margins from them. Permission to alert them the next time you might have another Cow
2. Work with the sneezers in that audience to make it easier for them to help your idea across the chasm. Give them the fools and the story they'll need to sell your idea to a wider audience.
3. Once you've crossed the line from remarkable to profitable business, let a different team milk it. Prioritize your services, servicize your products, let a thousand variations bloom. But don't believe your own press releases. This is the inevitable downward slide to commodity. Milk it for all it's worth, and fast
4. Reinvest. Do it again. With a vengeance. Launch another Purple Cow (to the same audience). Fail and fail and fail again. Assume that what was remarkable last time won't be remarkable this time.
   

Life [is What you Make it]

By Peter Buffett

New York Times article "Is this the time to chase a career dream?"

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/19/jobs/19pre.html

Goethe's Poem:

Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back. Concerning all acts of initiative and creation, there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would come his way. Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.

The One Minute Negotiator

The One Minute Drill

Step 1 - Engage

• Recognize you are in a negotiation and quickly review the viable strategies

Step 2 - Assess

• Evaluate your tendency to use each of the negotiation strategies, as well as the tendencies of the other side

Step 3 - Strategize

• Select the proper strategy for this particular negotiation

4 strategies in Negotiation

1. Avoidance (low cooperation / reactive) - grey
- like ostrich putting head in ground to avoid confrontation

2. Accommodation (high cooperation / reactive) - yellow
- basically giving in and providing or allowing the other side to take what they ask for

3. Competition (low cooperation / proactive) - red
- Win / Lose scenario
- fighting over same piece of pie. someone has to lose


4. Collaboration (high cooperation / proactive)
- Win / Win
- working on ways to make the pie bigger so no losers, only winners

Assessing Tendencies of Others

1. Analyticals (slow paced / task force) - numbers person

• least emotional in negotiations
• want hard data, accurately presented, and the time to study
• tendency to use the AVOIDANCE negotiation strategy
• they avoid making decisions without adequate data and significant time to process it
• often strongly resist making decisions and expressing opinions in public forums
• they really don't want surprises
• STRATEGY - makes sure you have all the data on hand before making the pitch. once its presented and they decide, it will be hard to change their minds

2. Drivers (fast pace / task focus) - the bully

• short attention span, unemotional task orientation, and direct nature
• you generally know exactly where they stand
• often come with an overly COMPETITIVE strategy
• they want to see what you're made of and how prepared and confident you are in terms of the issues being negotiated
• if pass their first round of tests, you have a very good chance of collaboration
• they will have ONE BIG ISSUE in any negotiation, and if you can confidently address that point, they will have very limited interests in other "minor" aspects of the deal (once the big issue is removed, very few hurdles to path to success)
• generally aggressively attack price to check your confidence in the value of your proposal
• need to build credibility with a drive, because the one thing they fear most in any negotiation is failure
• they don't mind a few mistakes a long the way
• very little patience for discussions of the details of a deal
• STRATEGY - use the COMPETITION strategy and be prepared to tackle their one big issue

3. Expressives (fast pace / relationship focus) - the lazy wannabe collaborator

• they love the idea of collaboration but rarely have the attention span or discipline to follow through with the strategy
• lack focus to be great collaborators
• when you capture their attention, you better move rapidly and enthusiastically to get a deal done
• may love you today, but tomorrow will often not even remember your name. they have moved on the road and are now working on other, more exciting negotiations
• novice negotiators are frequently offended when expressives lose interest and move to avoidance
• are impulsive and sometimes flighty
• STRATEGY - best bet is to understand their goals and visions and respond to them in a stimulating manner in an attempt to secure their commitment
• very useful is to find someone in the expressive's organization to work with to collect info necessary to understand needs, develop options, create an action plan, and them come back to the expressive for a decision.
• don't be afraid to be diligent in pushing an expressive to stick with the process. the need this prodding and will ultimately respect it
• number one thing they dislike in negotiations is boredom
• STRATEGY - come up with solutions respectful of the expressive's goals, present them in a brief and energetic manner, and you might be surprised when they grab them in a nanosecond

4. Amiables (slow pace / relationship focus) - the ultimate avoiders

• not in a hurry to make decisions
• likes to keep relationships good so resists conflicts at all costs to keep a friendly mode
• will postpone a decision until they are certain of an outcome that will not offend anyone on their team as well as on the other teams competing for their attention
• is the most likely group to ACCOMODATE
• in order to stay away from conflict, they will often accommodate beyond which is even necessary
• very big on using complaining and guilt to try to get the accommodations back later in the game
• in their mind, if they wait long enough, the issue in question will solve itself or totally disappear

extra type - first timers

• try to get to know them as well as possible
• do research on them and see how they view other clients...usually they will negotiate in a similar fashion

tip

• start with a collaboration mind (instead of competitive)
• much easier to switch from collaboration to competitive than the other way around
• generally, better to to be proactive (competition / collaboration) than reactive (avoidance / accommodation)

Times when AVOIDANCE strategy is appropriate

• when the topic is a minimal issue (but if avoided, the issue might grow to something big later)
• or when a superior option is readily available elsewhere - when you don't have interest to continue the negotiate and rather work with another party as they will give you a better solution

Times when ACCOMMODATION strategy is appropriate

• when in a significantly weaker leverage position that is obvious to all sides
• or when have no other options with which to negotiate

Times when COMPETITION strategy is appropriate

• when negotiation involves an opponent not inclined to or capable of collaborating, or one simply not worth the effort
• when the opponent is using strong COMPETITION strategy
• must be careful as this strategy can damage relationships

Times when COLLABORATION is best (win-win solution)

• during any situation presenting a significant opportunity with capable and willing decision-making teams on all sides of the table
• is the strategy that allows for both parties to win as well as their future relationship
• only about 1 in 5 negotiations can be settled in this way...rare to find other party ready and able to collaborate
• is about making a bigger pie to bake properly, not how to take a bigger piece of it

p31 - Do not Accept the first offer
- accepting the first offer if it sounds good is actually not efficient as it does not guarantee that both parties will feel great about the outcome
- "while and up-front agreement sounds like total bliss, it is in reality only through the time and effort we invest in a negotiation that we can reach an agreement both sides feel is in their best interests"

p31 bottom - Price vs Terms
-there are 2 sides of an agreement, the price as well as the terms. Remember that if a party always agrees to the price but is also allowed to set the terms that he is the one that WINS, not the one setting the price
- most people emphasize the price too much...that is only 1 aspect of it
- "almost all people overemphasize price"
- "a savvy negotiator will tell you that if they let u set the price and u let them set the terms, conditions, and deliverables, they will beat you every time"

32 bottom - "Negotiaphobia"
- "signs of negotiaphobia include telling yourself that now is not the time to rock the boat It is longing for the good old days when things were easier"

p 71 1/2 - Competitive = Low Chance of Collaboration
- when the other side determines that they will use a competitive strategy, unless you can move to change their mind, you simply no longer have the option of collaborating.
- You can avoid, accommodate, or compete with them, and maybe appropriately try the late-game compromise tactic, but you simply can no longer accommodate

p 72 bottom - Fight Competitive with Competitive
- When the other side goes competitive, and u are actually more likely to compete than to simply give in, and the and the other side promptly and clearly recognizes this tendency, you will be given many more collaborative opportunities
-this is because most of the time then the other side goes competitive, they do not expect to face competition in return.

Nudge

*incomplete reading...stopped reading at chapter 3 (hard back cover with white cover)

Introduction

• the libertarian aspect of our strategies lies in the straightforward insistence that, in general, people should be free to do what they like - and to opt out of undesirable arrangements if they want to do so.
  
• if private companies or public officials think that one policy produces better outcomes, they can greatly influence the outcome by choosing it as the default. Setting default options can have huge effects on outcomes.

Chapter 1 - biases and blunders

• we can influence the figure you will choose in a particular situation by ever-so-subtly suggesting a starting point for your thought process
• in many domains, the evidence shows that, within reason, the more you ask for, the more you tend to get. clever negotiators often get amazing deals for their clients by producing an opening offer that makes their adversary thrilled to pay half that very high amount
• a good way to increase people's fear of a bad outcome is to remind them of a related incident in which things went wrong; a good way to increase people's confidence is to remind them of a similar situation in which everything worked out for the best
• unrealistic optimism is a pervasive feature of human life; it characterizes most people in most social categories. when they overestimate their personal immunity from harm, people may fail to take sensible preventive steps
• people hate losses. roughly speaking, losing something makes you twice as miserable as gaining the same thing makes you happy.
  
• what this means is that people do not assign specific values to objects. when they give something up, they are hurt more than they are pleased if they acquire the very same thing
• loss aversion operates as a kind of cognitive nudge, pressing us not to make changes, even when changes are very much in our interests
• for lots of reasons, people have a more general tendency to stick with their current situation.
• those who are in charge of circulation know that when renewal is automatic, and when people have to make a phone call to cancel, the likelihood of renewal is much higher than it is when people have to indicate that they actually want to continue to receive the magazine
• the combination of loss aversion with mindless choosing implies that if an option is designated as the "default", it will attract a large market share.
• framing works because people tend to be somewhat mindless, passive decision makers. their reflective system does not do the work that would be required to check and see whether reframing the questions would produce a different answer
• people adopt sensible rules of thumb that somewhat lead them astray. because they are busy and have limited attention, they accept questions as posed rather than trying to determine whether their answers would vary under alternative formulations.
  

Chapter 2 - resisting temptation

• when sally is hungry and appetizing aromas are emanating from the kitchen, we can say she is in a hot state. when sally is thinking abstractly on tuesday about the right number of cashews she should consume before dinner on saturday, she is in a cold state. we will call something "tempting" if we consume more of it when hot than when cold. none of this means that decisions made in the cold state are always better. sometimes we have to be in a hot state to overcome out fears about trying new things
• when we are in a cold state, we do not appreciate how much out desires and our behavior will be altered when we are "under the influence" of arousal.
• people are far more likely to splurge impulsively on a big luxury purchase when they receive an unexpected windfall than with savings that they have accumulated over time, even if those savings are fully available to be spent

Chapter 3 - following the herd (READ STARTING HERE)

Drive (ch 6 - end)

Chapter 6 - Purpose

• According to United Nations data, a sixty-year-old American man can expect to live for another twenty-plus years; a sixty-year-old American woman will be around for another quarter of a century. In Japan, a sixty-year-old man can expect to live past his eighty-second birthday, a sixty-year-old woman to nearly eighty-eight. The pattern is the same in many other prosperous countries.
• Neither generation rates money as the most important form of compensation. Instead they choose a range of nonmonetary factors—from “a great team” to “the ability to give back to society through work.”⁴ And if they can’t find that satisfying package of rewards in an existing organization, they’ll create a venture of their own.
• The aims of these Motivation 3.0 companies are not to chase profit while trying to stay ethical and law-abiding. Their goal is to pursue purpose—and to use profit as the catalyst rather than the objective
• Gary Hamel, whom I mentioned above, says, “The goals of management are usually described in words like ‘efficiency,’ ‘advantage,’ ‘value,’ ‘superiority,’ ‘focus,’ and ‘differentiation.’ Important as these objectives are, they lack the power to rouse human hearts.” Business leaders, he says, “must find ways to infuse mundane business activities with deeper, soul-stirring ideals, such as honor, truth, love, justice, and beauty.”⁸ Humanize what people say and you may well humanize what they do.
• First, many psychologists and economists have found that the correlation between money and happiness is weak—that past a certain (and quite modest) level, a larger pile of cash doesn’t bring people a higher level of satisfaction.
• a psychologist at the Harvard Business School, how people spend their money may be at least as important as how much money they earn. In particular, spending money on other people (buying flowers for your spouse rather than an MP3 player for yourself ) or on a cause (donating to a religious institution rather than going for an expensive haircut) can actually increase our subjective well-being.¹¹ In fact, Dunn and Norton propose turning their findings on what they call “pro-social” spending into corporate policy.
• According to The Boston Globe, they believe that “companies can improve their employees’ emotional well-being by shifting some of their budget for charitable giving so that individual employees are given sums to donate, leaving them happier even as the charities of their choice benefit.”¹² In other words, handing individual employees control over how the organization gives back to the community might do more to improve their overall satisfaction than one more “if-then” financial incentive.
• Another study offers a second possible purpose-centered policy prescription. Physicians in high-profile settings like the Mayo Clinic face pressures and demands that can often lead to burnout. But field research at the prestigious medical facility found that letting doctors spend one day a week on the aspect of their job that was most meaningful to them—whether patient care, research, or community service—could reduce the physical and emotional exhaustion that accompanies their work. Doctors who participated in this trial policy had half the burnout rate of those who did not.¹³ Think of it as “20 percent time” with a purpose.
• What’s more, graduates with profit goals showed increases in anxiety, depression, and other negative indicators—again, even though they were attaining their goals.

“These findings are rather striking,” the researchers write, “as they suggest that attainment of a particular set of goals [in this case, profit goals] has no impact on well-being and actually contributes to ill-being.”¹⁵

• “One cannot lead a life that is truly excellent without feeling that one belongs to something greater and more permanent than oneself.”

MIHALY CSIKSZENTMIHALYI

• the findings suggest that even when we do get what we want, it’s not always what we need. “People who are very high in extrinsic goals for wealth are more likely to attain that wealth, but they’re still unhappy,” Ryan told me.

Or as Deci put it, “The typical notion is this: You value something. You attain it. Then you’re better off as a function of it. But what we find is that there are certain things that if you value and if you attain them, you’re worse off as a result of it, not better off.”

• Failing to understand this conundrum—that satisfaction depends not merely on having goals, but on having the right goals—can lead sensible people down self-destructive paths. If people chase profit goals, reach those goals, and still don’t feel any better about their lives, one response is to increase the size and scope of the goals—to seek more money or greater outside validation. And that can “drive them down a road of further unhappiness thinking it’s the road to happiness,” Ryan said.
• “One of the reasons for anxiety and depression in the high attainers is that they’re not having good relationships. They’re busy making money and attending to themselves and that means that there’s less room in their lives for love and attention and caring and empathy and the things that truly count,” Ryan added.
• The profit motive has been an important fuel for achievement. But it’s not the only motive. And it’s not the most important one. Indeed, if we were to look at history’s greatest achievements—from the printing press to constitutional democracy to cures for deadly diseases—the spark that kept the creators working deep into the night was purpose at least as much as profit. A healthy society—and healthy business organizations—begins with purpose and considers profit a way to move toward that end or a happy by-product of its attainment.
• The science shows that those typical twentieth-century carrot-and-stick motivators—things we consider somehow a “natural” part of human enterprise—can sometimes work. But they’re effective in only a surprisingly narrow band of circumstances. The science shows that “if-then” rewards—the mainstays of the Motivation 2.0 operating system—not only are ineffective in many situations, but also can crush the high-level, creative, conceptual abilities that are central to current and future economic and social progress. The science shows that the secret to high performance isn’t our biological drive or our reward-and-punishment drive, but our third drive—our deep-seated desire to direct our own lives, to extend and expand our abilities, and to live a life of purpose.
• We’re designed to be active and engaged. And we know that the richest experiences in our lives aren’t when we’re clamoring for validation from others, but when we’re listening to our own voice—doing something that matters, doing it well, and doing it in the service of a cause larger than ourselves.

Part 3 - The Type I Toolkit

Type I for individuals: nine strategies for awakening your motivation:

• Set a reminder on your computer or mobile phone to go off at forty random times in a week. Each time your device beeps, write down what you’re doing, how you’re feeling, and whether you’re in “flow.” Record your observations, look at the patterns, and consider the following questions:

• Which moments produced feelings of “flow”? Where were you? What were you working on? Who were you with?

• Are certain times of day more flow-friendly than others? How could you restructure your day based on your findings?

• How might you increase the number of optimal experiences and reduce the moments when you felt disengaged or distracted?

• If you’re having doubts about your job or career, what does this exercise tell you about your true source of intrinsic motivation?

• One way to orient your life toward greater purpose is to think about your sentence. Maybe it’s: “He raised four kids who became happy and healthy adults.” Or “She invented a device that made people’s lives easier.” Or “He cared for every person who walked into his office regardless of whether that person could pay.” Or “She taught two generations of children how to read.”

As you contemplate your purpose, begin with the big question: What’s your sentence?

• At the end of each day, ask yourself whether you were better today than you were yesterday. Did you do more? Did you do it well? Or to get specific, did you learn your ten vocabulary words, make your eight sales calls, eat your five servings of fruits and vegetables, write your four pages? You don’t have to be flawless each day. Instead, look for small measures of improvement such as how long you practiced your saxophone or whether you held off on checking e-mail until you finished that report you needed to write. Reminding yourself that you don’t need to be a master by day 3 is the best way of ensuring you will be one by day 3,000.

So before you go to sleep each night, ask yourself the small question: Was I better today than yesterday?

• So every seven years, Sagmeister closes his graphic design shop, tells his clients he won’t be back for a year, and goes off on a 365-day sabbatical. He uses the time to travel, to live places he’s never been, and to experiment with new projects. It sounds risky, I know. But he says the ideas he generates during the year “off ” often provide his income for the next seven years. “Taking a Sagmeister,” as I now call it, requires a fair bit of planning and saving, of course. But doesn’t forgoing that big-screen TV seem a small price to pay for an unforgettable—and un-get-backable—year of personal exploration? The truth is, this idea is more realistic than many of us realize. Which is why I hope to take a Sagmeister in a couple of years and why you should consider it, too.
• Figure out your goals—mostly learning goals, but also a few performance goals—and then every month, call yourself to your office and give yourself an appraisal. How are you faring? Where are you falling short? What tools, information, or support might you need to do better?

Some other hints:

• Set both smaller and larger goals so that when it comes time to evaluate yourself you’ve already accomplished some whole tasks.

• Make sure you understand how every aspect of your work relates to your larger purpose.

• Be brutally honest. This exercise is aimed at helping you improve performance and achieve mastery—so if you rationalize failures or gloss over your mistakes instead of learning from them, you’re wasting your time.

• Follow these steps—over and over again for a decade—and you just might become a master:

• Remember that deliberate practice has one objective: to improve performance. “People who play tennis once a week for years don’t get any better if they do the same thing each time,” Ericsson has said. “Deliberate practice is about changing your performance, setting new goals and straining yourself to reach a bit higher each time.”

• Repeat, repeat, repeat. Repetition matters. Basketball greats don’t shoot ten free throws at the end of team practice; they shoot five hundred.

• Seek constant, critical feedback. If you don’t know how you’re doing, you won’t know what to improve.

• Focus ruthlessly on where you need help. While many of us work on what we’re already good at, says Ericsson, “those who get better work on their weaknesses.”

• Prepare for the process to be mentally and physically exhausting. That’s why so few people commit to it, but that’s why it works.

Type I for Organizations: Nine ways to improve your company, office, or group

• You’ve read about the wonders of “20 percent time”—where organizations encourage employees to spend one-fifth of their hours working on any project they want. And if you’ve ever used Gmail or read Google News, you’ve benefited from the results. But for all the virtues of this Type I innovation, putting such a policy in place can seem daunting. How much will it cost? What if it doesn’t work? If you’re feeling skittish, here’s an idea: Go with a more modest version—20 percent time . . . with training wheels. Start with, say, 10 percent time. That’s just one afternoon of a five-day workweek. (Who among us hasn’t wasted that amount of time at work anyway?) And instead of committing to it forever, try it for six months.
• Kimley-Horn and Associates, a civil engineering firm in Raleigh, North Carolina, has established a reward system that gets the Type I stamp of approval: At any point, without asking permission, anyone in the company can award a $50 bonus to any of her colleagues. “It works because it’s real-time, and it’s not handed down from any management,” the firm’s human resources director told Fast Company. “Any employee who does something exceptional receives recognition from their peers within minutes.” Because these bonuses are noncontingent “now that” rewards, they avoid the seven deadly flaws of most corporate carrots. And because they come from a colleague, not a boss, they carry a different (and perhaps deeper) meaning. You could even say they’re motivating.