Motivation: What Makes Us Feel Good About Our Work?

Dan Ariely's TED talk is a good one. It's very straightforward, and gives some good ideas about what motivates people. It can be especially helpful when considering a rewards system within enterprise software. It's important to think beyond the money that workers (our users) are rewarded with. The challenge is to include things like meaning, creation, challenge, ownership, identity, and pride. That notion — that we need more than just payment as motivation — is at the heart of Enterprise Playability.