Motivation of Eternal Strugglers – Stories of Rubén Castro, Sitanshu Kotak and many others

Posted on January 23, 2013 by kandarpmehta

At some point during the year 2013, Rubén Castro, a striker who plays for the Sevilla based football club Real Betis, is likely to get a call to represent Spain in an international football game. I heard this on a Radio while commuting to work during the week. I wasn’t surprised! Every professional sports team looks for young blood to rejuvenate the winning spirit and for infusion of new skills. However I was indeed surprised when I discovered that Rubén was already 32. An age where a professional footballer starts planning for his retirement. The same age when Maradona’s career started to decline. The same age when Spanish legend Raúl was shown the exit from the national team, Rubén Castro will be rewarded for his hard work and consistency in his performances. Rubén started at the age of 19 in the club of his hometown Las Palmas. He was signed by Deportivo la Coruña at the age of 23. Later in six different seasons he was loaned out to six different clubs before he settled down finally at the age of 30 at Real Betis. Such a career trajectory is enough to demotivate any player. But Rubén not only stayed motivated, he actually flourished.

Another example that came to my attention in a very interesting article in Cricinfo is that of Sitanshu Kotak. Sitanshu Kotak is going to play his first Ranji trophy final (Premier Indian Domestic Cricket Competition) in a week. Sitanshu Kotak is playing his twentieth season. He is 40. Most of his teammates from his junior cricket team today would be either cricket administrators, coaches or would be doing something completely unrelated to Cricket. Sitanshu was a promising batsman. But he never got a chance to play for the country. When he was at his peak, the selectors denied him an opportunity saying “he was over 30″, while he actually was still 28. Many sports professionals hang up their boots once they know that they will not get a chance to play at the highest level. They lose their motivation.

Then what motivates people like Sitanshu Kotak and Rubén Castro? Maybe, the sheer joy of game. However it’s not just fun. There’s something more than that. Teresa Amabile, Harvard Professor in one of her earlier studies had shown that intrinsic motivation is based on intrinsic value that one attaches to work. In colloquial parlance often intrinsic motivation is misunderstood as fun and enjoyment one derives from an activity. Intrinsic value is not just fun though. In the article mentioned above Sitanshu Kotak says one important thing about his motivation, “My only motivation after 2005 was to play, perform and trouble the opponent. And if the [opposition] had senior or international players, I wanted to make them understand: even if he has never played for India, he is a player of our standard.” This tells us a lot about intrinsic motivation. It’s not just fun but it’s about proving one’s worth. Sitanshu says that he will play as long as he feels good. One plays as long as one feels that one can prove himself through the sports. This motivation of doing well. The motivation of proving one’s worth. Motivation of doing the best that one can do. That’s what keeps players like Rubén Castro and Sitanshu Kotak going.

At times, lady luck smiles at them. I read a wonderful piece about Bryce McGain. The player who was an ordinary club cricketer but was rewarded with a call up to the Australian test side. Unfortunately he registered one of the worst debuts ever in the history of Cricket and was discarded after a solitary game. No matter what, he kept on working hard and trying hard. It’s players like them who keep the spirit of any sports alive. Because its sports which keeps their spirits alive…

Reference

Motivation and creativity: Effects of motivational orientation on creative writers.

Amabile, Teresa M.

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol 48(2), Feb 1985, 393-399. doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.48.2.393

Amabile, T. (1985). Motivation and creativity: Effects of motivational orientation on creative writers. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 48 (2), 393-397 DOI: 10.1037//0022-3514.48.2.393

Use Youtube to be Creative at work…

Posted on December 17, 2010 by kandarpmehta

New research has shown that watching funny video at work may likely make you more creative. So all those bosses who catch their subordinates snooping in some comic videos on Youtube, be happy! The same subordinate might come up with your next star product.

This rather interesting piece of research carried out by Ruby T. Nadler, Rahel Rabi and John Paul Minda (2010), showed that positive mood helps an individual achieve a greater cognitive flexibility. Cognitive flexibility, in other words, being more skilful at performing cognitive tasks which involve greater analysis, imagination and hypothesizing. In order to test impact of mood on cognitive flexibility they carried out an experiment where they used Youtube videos. I personally haven’t heard of Youtube videos being put to academic use. I am sure there are people who do that.

For ‘Positive mood’ they used the Laughing baby video, for ‘Neutral mood’ they used the Antique Roadshow video and for ‘Negative mood’ they used a Chinese earthquake report video. I am embedding here a laughing baby video – I am not sure if it’s the same that was used in the experiment.

So if you are a boss and if you catch your subordinate watching youtube at work, don’t worry. Immediately after the video is over, give him/her a challenging task and you should get good results. After all he/she will have a his/her mind in a much better shape. But do make sure, that videos are positive ones!!

Nadler RT, Rabi R, & Minda JP (2010). Better mood and better performance: learning rule-described categories is enhanced by positive mood. Psychological science : a journal of the American Psychological Society / APS, 21 (12), 1770-6 PMID: 20974709

“Crazier you (or your family) are, more creative you are likely to be”

Posted on May 19, 2010 by kandarpmehta

Do you (and some your like-minded neighbors) think that some of your family members are crazy? Well, if your answer is yes, researchers from Karolinska Institutet, Sweden have good news for you. Greater the degree of lunacy in your family (including yourself…), greater the chances of you, being creative. The new research conducted mentions, “High creative skills have been shown to be somewhat more common in people who have mental illness in the family.”

The study also mentions that creative people share certain psychological traits (e.g. ability to make bizarre associations) with schizophrenics due to Dopamine D2 receptor genes. Dr. Frederik Ullén and his research team basically studied the brain and the Dopamine D2 receptors. Dopamine receptor genes are linked to the ability for divergent thought. In the mentioned study, people who showed higher levels of creativity (divergent thinking) also showed a lower density of Dopamine D2 receptors in thalamus, which is also a trait commonly found among the schizophrenic. Thalamus (see the image) is that part of brain which filters and relays information before it reaches cortex, where cognition and reasoning take place. Lower density of D2 receptors means less filterning and a greater flow of information, which in turn increases the possibility of more bizarre associations and imaginations.

So if you’re crazy, you might be creative; and vice-versa!!! or in the words of Dr. Frederik Ullén, “Thinking outside the box might be facilitated by having a somewhat less intact box”.

Reference

de Manzano O, Cervenka S, Karabanov A, Farde L, & Ullén F (2010). Thinking outside a less intact box: thalamic dopamine D2 receptor densities are negatively related to psychometric creativity in healthy individuals. PloS one, 5 (5) PMID: 20498850

Microsoft Courier – Just a Dream! or Logic of Abandoning an Innovation

Posted on May 5, 2010 by kandarpmehta

Microsoft Courier (courtsey : http://www.engadget.com)

Last Thursday several Gadget lovers mourned with deep pain when Engadget wrote about sad premature demise of Microsoft Courier. It kind of made almost every Microsoft Fan (Who are an absolute minority now) a bit sad. Rumours about Microsot developing a dual-screen tablet started last September, and soon it’s images and even videos were leaked out. Microsoft however never confirmed it officially, until it decided to scrap the project.

The question however is, why would Microsoft abandon such an interesting product? Before Apple launched iPad nobody was sure of utility or commercial appeal of a Tablet PC. However, Apple’s iPad is one of the most successful début products in our recent memory. In the very first month of it’s launch it has sold 1 Mn units. Vladislav Savov at Engadget writes, “Steve (Jobs) told us it’d be revolutionary, and if sales are the measure of a device’s success, then the iPad seems to be well on track to validating its creator’s bold claims.” Now when future of Tablet Computing was looking so rosy, why Microsoft abandoned something, that was already creating some excitement among Techies?

Microsoft Courier is an interesting case of a proactive exit. There is lot of academic work on Innovation and Innovation system however there is not sufficient research available on abandonment of innovations. As it’s important for companies to know, how and when to commit to an innovation, it’s equally important to know, when to abandon an innovation. Research suggests that a company might abandon to pursue a new product, in case (i) the market doesn’t move according to its expectations or (ii) the planned innovation is not strategically important for the company. I found another interesting explanation in an article by Sanjay Jain and Kamalini Ramdas (2005). Using examples from Videogame industry they elaborate on what they have termed as a pace keeping approach to product development. In Videogame consoles, the development cycle ranges from two to five years, whereas the development cycle for graphics processing unit (GPU), which is a core underlying technology, takes about six months. In an industry like this, where core technology evolves much faster than the product, at times it makes sense to abandon a new product development, just because it’s neither easy nor profitable to keep pace with rapidly advancing technology.

Going back to the Microsoft Courier, do we really believe that this was a reason? In this case, it seems more the problem of ‘Apps’ rather than core technology. After successful launch of iPad, most of the applications developers have strongly invested their efforts, energy and creativity in developing killer Apps for iPad. Any new Tablet, with a different platform than iPad, could face a temporary ‘Apps-Drought’. In an article in March, Fastcompany had predicted a similar outcome based on the same logic.

We don’t know, and probably would never know why Courier was shelved. Maybe Bill, The Gates has some other surprises up his sleeve. Maybe Microsoft just lost interest in Courier. Maybe it was just pure bureaucratic problem of ‘cost overruns’ etc etc. The bottomline is Courier will never be a reality. A dream, that never came true!

So here is a video of a wonder product, you never had!

References

(1) Agarwal, Rajshree; Bayus, Berry & Tripsas, Mary. 2005. ‘Abandoning Innovation in an Emerging Industry. ‘ Working Paper.

(2) Jain, S., K. Ramdas. 2005. Up or out—or stay put? Product positioning in an evolving technology environment. Production and Operations Management 14(3) 362–376.

When Limitation leads to Invention – Curious case of Niépce

Posted on May 24, 2009 by kandarpmehta

Joseph Nicéphore Niépce - The inventor of Photography

World's first Camera up for exhibition in Macao

Right now in Macao, world’s oldest camera is on display in an exhibition. This reminded me of what I had read about Joseph Nicéphore Niépce. Niépce was the inventor of photography.

However it’s interesting how he got the inspiration to invent photography. In those days, popular form of catching images was with “Camera Obscura”. Camera obscura was basically a box with hole on one side of the box. So through passing of the light, the image in front of the hole would get reflected on a thin paper on the opposite side of the hole. Once this image was reflected on the paper, the person (or ‘photographer’) was required to trace the image with the help of a pencil. This is what Niépce couldn’t do. He didn’t have a steady hand. Since he couldn’t draw, he had to find some other way to be able to take photographs.

View from the window at Le Gras, 1827. The first photograph ever....

He tried to look for alternatives where he wouldn’t be required to use his hand. He experimented with lithography – a method for printing using metal plate or stone. He replaced the thin paper in the ‘Camera Obscura’ with a metal plate. After experimenting with different metals and chemical coatings he finally produced the first photograph on a highly polished pewter plate, coated with bitumen. After an eight hour exposure in the camera, the plate was washed in a mixture of oil of lavender and white petroleum to produce the first permanent positive image. Here on the left, you can see the image. By the way, Niépce had termed this a ‘Heliograph’, recognising the power of the sun. (source)

Can You Dance your Research?

Posted on November 22, 2008 by kandarpmehta

Dance or a Scientific Theory?

I recently came across this very interesting contest organized by Gonzo labs, and I sincerely regret not having participated in it. But well, I have a year more to do my best.

I found the idea of the contest and the performance of the contestants extremely creative. The idea was scientific researchers in any discipline, were supposed to choreography based on their research and perform it. They all were supposed to upload their videos on youtube and wait for results. The results are very interesting and extremely creative. In one of my earlier posts I had talked about the idea of “Expressive Creativity”, as explained by Dr. Pradip Khandwalla in his books. Expressing complicated scientific research through choreography and dance, indeed is a great example of “Expressive Creativity”. In his book, “Lifelong Creativity”, Dr. Khandwalla cites, work done by Francis Hare, where he posits that “…aesthetic behaviour is triggered by perceived complexity.” (P. 105)

Obviously, nothing can be more complex than a research project on role of Vitamin D in beta-cell function. However, Sue Lynn Lau, was creative enough to translate this complex research project into a nice choreography. He in fact, is the winner of the AAAS Dance contest. More vidoes you can watch here.

References:

Khandwalla, Pradip N., 2003, Lifelong Creativity: An Unending Quest, McGraw-Hill Publishing India.

Hare, Francis. G., 1973, “Experimental Aesthetics : The Expressive and Responsive Artist”, Educational Trends, Vol.8 (1-4), 1973, pp. 49-59.

Creatologue

A Creativity Blog by Kandarp Mehta

Category Archives: Science