Martin Seligman at Ted describes the three forms of positive psychology that we can experience. The first is the classic sense of happiness, the second he calls flow and the last is fulfillment. He describes flow as what you experience when time stops and you are completely lost in a particular activity.

I always wanted a word for that, for flow. When I was developing software I always really loved that sense of “flow”, complete focus on solving a problem, creating the solution. You would surface from your work and wonder how it could be so late.

Today, I only really experience that while playing games. I think this is the magic of games, that they tap into this need for flow and allow us to get lost. They do this by providing such clarity around achieving our goal, constant learning, and the sense of momentum towards that goal that is immediately visible. This is wonderfully and humorously described by Daniel Cook in his presentation on “Rescue Princess 2.0″

Now I am in a role that focuses more on the meaningful aspects of happiness, working with people and ideas, influence and communication, littered with interruption and changing focuses, constantly working around what David calls “Rules that Suck” (RTS) - the typical life of any manager or executive decision maker.

My work life, and my home life as a parent, is no longer particularly filled with periods of flow: it does not lead me to learn what I need to succeed;  rarely do I get a sense of momentum towards defined short term goals; there is no visible scoring system; levels can take years to complete and perhaps worst of all there is no pause button.

I was reading the recent issue of The Economist on the plane today, and I was struck by an article titled Law v Common Sense, subtitled Will Barack Obama protect Americans from his fellow lawyers? In it was the following choice text:

The relentless piling of law upon law—the federal register has 70,000 ever-changing pages—does not make for a more just society. When even the most trivial daily interactions are subject to detailed rules, individual judgment is stifled. When rule-makers seek to eliminate small risks, perverse consequences proliferate. Bureaucrats rip up climbing frames for fear that children may fall off and break a leg. So children stay indoors and get fat.

The point of the article is that Obama’s likely appointment of Cass Sunstein to the White House could help address some of these issues, perhaps even leading to real (and needed) tort reform.

That got me thinking to business in general, and a recent study that we commissioned from The Economist showing that 70% of people need to work around their company’s established processes in order to effectively get their work done (Actually, when I pose that question to a group of successful people, the actual answer is 100%).

Rules are good.  Unless they suck.  When I’m confronted with rules that suck (RTS), I’m often reminded of Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling, which discusses when it is our individual obligation to rise above the rules of society and embrace a higher truth (yes, the subtleties of this particular example are distracting).

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Timo Elliott recently posted on a new capability available from our Labs team - Polestar. It seems that his use of a hockey example has become a theme. Another colleague of mine noted that the co-founder of SAP Hasso Plattner owns a stake in the San Jose Sharks. So he produce a brief analysis using Polestar about the performance of the Sharks under various leadership:

What is really interesting is that the data set is only 16 rows pulled from a website, yet you can quickly glean really interesting facts and trends. Thank you Fredrick - great video. As a Brit living in Canada, it seems I am doomed to hear about Hockey all the time. Clearly, I need to go and get some Rugby data and produce the next example myself.

Also, here is the spreadsheet so you can try this your self at http://polestar.ondemand.com

Alan Kay at TED demonstrates some software they developed for the $100 laptop - demo starts at around 12:20. It allows children to create mathematical models and visualize them in the real world. If we can provide software that children can learn who to model the effects of gravity on a bouncing ball, then really modeling and visualizing the impact of say a price change on our business should be simple.

Alan Kay’s presentation at TED

Xcelsius allows you to build models in Excel, load them and dynamically visualize the information. So Excel and Xcelsius provides the modeling, now we just need to really really understand our business and create that library of working models.