668 Blog Post for Week of June 7th 2010

How does motivation translate into technology design and success?

For my Action Research project, motivation played a role in the success/failure of the implementation of our internal SharePoint project. What were the intrinsic and extrinsic motivators that my co-workers had to contribute to our knowledge management system? I found out that most of the co-workers were too busy with their own initiatives and were not motivated to contribute to something that didn't 'pay off'. Although management supported the initiative, the employees were not forced to contribute and were not rewarded either. This project would have been more successful if we had employees contribute eagerly and willingly. I had zero 'power' to coherce my co-workers and in these stress filled lay off filled times, people were reluctant to share their knowledge and were unmotivated to do so as well.

Think of an example successful technology, and share how motivation was a factor in its success.

The one technology that I can think of that is super successful right now is Facebook. People are genuinely curious by nature and so they wonder what their friends are up to, or they want to do things that offers them extrinsic rewards. I would think it's 'entertaining' to find out what your ex-girlfriend is doing, how she looks now or how your old friend is dating your ex-girlfriend now...uuhh..well, anyhow you get the point. Everyone has different motivators, and they all contribute differently to Facebook. One can just update their statuses allll day long, and another person would upload a ton of pictures to share. Aggregately, we have a technology that is meant to work the way it's designed. Facebook also adjusts to the needs of the community. (I.e privacy, updates, etc.) Usability, curiosity, adopt-ability are key factors of a successful technology product. (Social technology that is) It has to hit 'home' and provide the user with some sort of satisfaction, or extrinsic reward for them to use the technology.

MT out.