People who make $80,000 are most likely to have 4th of July week off

People who make $80,000 are fruchtwein likely to have 4th of July week offPeople who make $80,000 are most likely to have 4th of July week offThis year, the 4th of July falls on a midweek Wednesday, a day that has some of us wondering if we should take advantage of the one-day reprieve and just take the whole week off.Whether or not you decide to take the whole week of 4th of July off may depend on factors you cannot always control like your workload and what kind of manager you have. But it may also depend on your salary, according to a new survey on employees vacation habits. In a recent YouGov Omnibus survey of over 17,000 people, people who earned $80,000 a year were the most likely to take the whole week of 4th of July off.An $80,000 salary increases likelihood of more holiday vacation timeFor this lucky salaried group, moeny may make taking a weeklong are already on vacation this week. They may be onto something. Vacation weeks are when productivity slows.New data from OfficePu lsefound that 63% of employees do not plan on working on the fifth of July, anyways. Those that did manage to take their bodies into work on Thursday said they expected to be hungover or extra tired.With that kind of mentality, why bother going at all? During the week of a holiday, offices empty out. They can become a ghost town as colleagues disappear into the wilds of vacation lands and clients put up out of office messages. If you have the opportunity to do so, you may be better off extending the time off.For the rest of us, we will need to make the most of our one-day break.

Benefits From Employee Paid Vacation Time

Benefits From Employee Paid Vacation TimeBenefits From Employee Paid Vacation TimeWhen employees take a paid vacation, both the employer and the employee benefit from employees using their paid vacation time. Americans receive (on average) less vacation time than European countries. For instance, Austria has between 25 days of mandatory vacation (which jumps to 30 if youve been there 25 years), plus, 13 holidays. All paid. Estonia has 20 vacation days, plus 11 paid holidays, for a total of 31. And what about our linguistic parent, the United Kingdom? 28 days of vacation time, no paid holidays required. And, the United States? Zero. By law, your employer doesnt have to give you any paid time off- not for Christmas, not for a beach trip, not for anything. Most companies do, however, and the average worker took 16 days of vacation in 2013. So while the US isnt reaching European levels, paid vacation time is available. Just how should you use it? You can use your vacation in any way that you want, but some ideas are better than others- for the employee and for the business. Here are ideas about how to use paid vacation time. Employers Benefit The employer experiences several significant benefits when employees take extended vacation time. It is your opportunity to take a look at how the employee is performing on the job through the eyes and access you provide to another employee. The US government strongly encourages (although it does not legally require) bank employees to take vacations. Why? To prevent fraud. Former criminal and current security consultant, Frank Abagnale, explains why in his book, The Art of the Steal How to Protect Yourself and Your Business from Fraud, Americas 1 Crime. Make people take vacations, especially the ones who handle your money and transactions records. Every employee has to be out of the office and without control over transactions for at least one week a year. Large embezzlement schemes, as I have already pointed out, often mu st be maintained daily, and key figures in the scheme will resist being away. If key employees never take a vacation, find out why. Dan Lewis, at Now I Know, shared this advice and the story of Toshihidi Iguchi, whose behavior caused a $1.1 billion dollar loss. Iguchi hadnt taken an extended vacation in 11 years. Its not that taking a vacation keeps you from becoming a thief its that it makes it harder to run a scam when youre not there to take care of it- all of the time. While many jobs dont involve handhabung money directly, every job has the potential for errors to build up. Having each employee out of the office for a week (or more) without the ability to handle emails or log into their computer means that another employee has to handle it. That allows management to find out about performance problems and other issues before they grow too large. Thats why when employees take a whole week or more of vacation every business can benefit. (At a minimum, employee vacation timeforces you to cross-trainemployees and ensures that you have a backup plan for when employees quit their job.) At maximum, what benefits the employees who use their paid vacation time also benefits you. Employees Benefit You can see how the employer benefits when employees take extended vacation time but can a week or two away from the office benefit employees, too? Of course. Clinical psychologist Deborah Mulhern shared with ABC news that not only are vacations good now but if you dont take them, youll lose the ability to relax. She said Without time and opportunity to do this, the neural connections that produce feelings of calm and peacefulness become weaker, making it actually more difficult to shift into less-stressed modes, Mulhern said. What neuroscience is showing is that we require downtime in order for our bodies to go through the process of restoration. It is only when we are stahlkammer from external stresses that our bodies can relax enough to activate restoration. Are Long Vacations the Only Way? No, long paid vacations are not important. What is important is the break. The Wall Street Journal says that whats important is the recharging Psychologists and researchers have been studying how to create an ideal vacation that boosts our well-being, relieves stress that can impact our health, and helps us recharge for returning to work. Some conclusions Longer vacations arent necessarily better than shorter ones. Engage in activities you havent done before, even if youre at home on a staycation. And end a trip on a high note. A short vacation can recharge you, as long as you arent just cleaning out your basement or helping your parents move into a nursing home. Thats a break from work, but not abreak from stress and thats what you need. You need that downtime to recharge and focus on your job. How Employers Can Encourage Employees to Take Paid Time Off As an employer, you have ways that you can use to assist your employees in taking advantage of their paid vacation time, including floating holidays. It behooves you, because of the above noted positive effects that employers and employees experience when employees use their paid vacation time, to make use of ansicht ideas. Some companies (and many government jobs) allow employees to bank an unlimited amount of vacation time. When you quit, you get all of that accumulated vacation time paid out in cash. While lots of people love this idea, its not healthy in the long run. Employees need to get regular vacation time off. Rather than offering employees vacation time accumulation, companies should do two things Limit vacation accumulation and rollovers. While it isnt always practical for every person to use their allotted vacation time every year by December 31, you need to encourage employees to use paid vacation time and not reward them by allowing them to hoard it. Limit the number of days that will roll over into the next year.Provide paid disability leaves. One of the reaso ns people hoard vacation time is so that they can afford to take time for a baby, or surgery, or an unexpected problem. Companies should think about how best to meet their employees needsfor these events without having them burn out when they never get a reasonable break from work. Employee Dos and Donts Employees should not do the following when using paid vacation time. Work. It is tempting to call into that meeting and respond to all emails, so you dont get behind, but then youre not on vacation,youre just working from somewhere else.Go into debt. You dont need a fancy trip to Disney World or the Caribbean to have time off count as a vacation. If you go into debt for your vacation, youre added stress back into your workday. Its better to do a staycation and go to the park than it is to accumulate debt in your attempt to relax.Use all vacation days for other obligations. Youre a good child, so you want to help out your aging parents, or move your child into their new dorm roo m at college. These activities are great- and essential components of every persons life. But, if you use all of your paidvacationtime to do other work (including cleaning your own basement), youll never get that chance you desperately need to relax. Employees should do the following when taking paid vacation time. Something fun. Its not relaxing if youre not having fun. What that fun is, varies from person to person. You may love hiking while another person may see that as a fate worse than death. Whats important is that you break your routine.Use your allotted vacation time. Its parte of your compensation. Youd never voluntarily give up a chunk of your salary, but thats precisely what you are doing when you work for free- which is what employees who have use it or lose it vacation days do.Encourage your coworkers/employees to take their vacations. If you want a great vacation, then cover for your coworkers when they are out of the office. This makes it easier for everyone to take great vacation time when you have a supportive team. Vacation is actually a critical part of a good work-life balance. Make sure that you take your paid vacation time. Turn off your phone and have a good time. - Suzanne Lucas is a freelance journalist specializing in Human Resources. Suzannes work has been featured on notes publications including Forbes, CBS, Business Insider and Yahoo.

1 in 5 teachers are burdened by their housing costs

1 in 5 teachers are burdened by their housing costs1 in 5 teachers are burdened by their housing costsTeachers, who do the invaluable work of educating children yet are paid untenably low salaries, are finding themselves increasingly crunched on housing costs. Nationwide, 19.9% of households where a teacher is the primary earner are burdened by their housing costs.Cost-burdened is a term commonly used to measure financial stability. The rule of thumb is that you should be spending no more than 30% of your gross income on your housing costs, whether its your mortgage or monthly rent, Chris Salviati, the author of the report, told Ladders. People spending more than that are considered cost-burdened.Follow Ladders on FlipboardFollow Ladders magazines on Flipboard covering Happiness, Productivity, Job Satisfaction, Neuroscience, and moreAccording to Apartment Lists estimations from a new study, teachers earn 25.7% less than other college-educated professionals nationwide.This is a 21.3% higher than the cost-burden satz for households where the primary earner is not a teacher but does have a college degree.Among primary-earner teachers who rent, the cost burden rate was 28.2% as of 2017, up from 24.5% in 2010. Preschool and kindergarten teachers are worse off than teachers in grade 1-12 classrooms, as they earn less. Preschool and kindergarten teachers who are primary earners have a cost-burden rate of 41.2%, more than double the rate for teachers as a whole.Out of the 25 largest metros, Miami has the highest cost-burden rate for teachers, at 35%, followed by San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, and Washington, D.C.Its in these places where teachers are really struggling, said Salviati. Rents are going up in coastal hubs that may have booming economies but not much new construction, he told Ladders. If youve got a strong local economy, good job growth, then youre going to have lots of new people moving in. On the supply side, its whether or not developers are buil ding enough new housing to meet that demand. So when theres a strong labor market but not a lot of new construction, thats where you see these rents rise.Teachers are working more between 1990 and 2017, the share of teachers who report working more than 50 hours a week increased by 43%.And the idea that teachers have the entire summer off is more of a myth, Salviati says. Our research shows that the majority of teachers are working during the summer. Whether its at their primary teaching job or at a different, second job is unclear.A recent wave of strikes in West Virginia, Oklahoma, Arizona, Los Angeles, Denver, and Oakland, among other cities, has made the need for better pay for teachers painfully clear.You might also enjoyNew neuroscience reveals 4 rituals that will make you happyStrangers know your social class in the first seven words you say, study finds10 lessons from Benjamin Franklins daily schedule that will double your productivityThe worst mistakes you can make in an in terview, according to 12 CEOs10 habits of mentally strong people

Starting Out in Government

Starting Out in GovernmentStarting Out in Government

New Article Reveals the Low Down on Resume Tips and Why You Must Take Action Today

New Article Reveals the Low Down on Resume Tips and Why You Must Take Action Today New Step by Step Roadmap for Resume Tips Tailoring your resume to the particular job which you are applying for will demonstrate the hiring manager youre intent on working for their organization. Many businesses and recruiters utilize keyword-scanning software for a tool to narrow the work applicant pool. You have to organize your resume to assist agencies evaluate your experience. If you dont supply the info necessary for the hiring agency to ascertain your qualifications, you may not be considered for the job. A simple resume template is going to be your very best bet. Despite what you might have heard, you dont necessarily have to limit your resume to a single page. You also only have one page to capture every one of the attributes you would like to share. Adding your LinkedIn page to your resume can be a good idea so long as you have covered all your bases in the procedure. You should ha ve the ability to identify what profile they are searching for and the way the info ought to be presented. Ensure your resume is simple to read. From the info you are able to gather here, you will see it isnt as challenging to understand how to compose a resume as you might have thought. In the end, be sure all your contact information is current. The History of Resume Tips Refuted There are a lot of unique tactics to organize the info on your resume, but the fantastic old reverse chronological (where your latest experience is listed first) is still your best choice. You should constantly tweak your resume to make certain what you have at the top is easily the most relevant info to the job that you are applying for. There are many websites with tips around the internet, but most bring just a few them. There are both local and internet options are available, and normally the investment will be well worth the money. If you would like to learn to post my resume utilizing the j ob boards and the distribution services then you first have to find them out. Analyze job ads You will discover tons of useful info on job ads. Attempt to comprehend the market of the organization youre asking for work, and identify what sort of difficulties they could be going through. Look at getting qualified help If youre having a tough time to create your resume, or in case youre receiving no response whatsoever from companies, you could think about choosing a professional resume writing service. On the opposite hand too little information looks as if youve had no career whatsoever. Federal jobs often need you to have experience in a particular kind of work for some period of time. Online resume enables you to compose your resume all on your own. A company offering professional resumes can also make a summary resume and an expert biography for you at quite a reasonable price. There are those who post their resumes and have a tendency to forget about doing it. Professi onally presented resumes arent that expensive and are frequently worth the investment, particularly if it gets you the job. There are a few things about resumes which dont often get considered. Most folks look at writing a resume as just something youve got to do to have a job. Each time you submit an application for a new job, check your resume to guarantee that it isnt only targeted, but in addition current. Every job differs, and based on what exactly the job is, you should make certain you tweak your resume (and cover letter) for that specific job. Moreover, it proves that youre informed and interested in a specific job rather than simply casting a wide net and seeing what you may land. Despite no work experience, you still must find out how to compose a resume that includes your educational qualifications, other helpful skills which you could have, student posts that you might have held, summer jobs which you can be been in etc.. Most experts concur that the previous 15 decades of your career are enough. Its a good idea to be sure it stays current, even when you arent actively job searchingyou never understand when you will need it for a promotion or volunteer prospect. Video resumes are especially helpful if youre in a profession that demands strong communication abilities. Things You Wont Like About Resume Tips and Things You Will Also, if youre able to, have someone that has lately gone through an IT job search look at your resume and provide you suggestions. Speaking of unique, the principal purpose of your resume is to make you stick out from the remainder of the folks applying for equal job and another means to create that happen is to use action verbs and power words (also known as resume verbs). As a way to effectively write anything, its critical you realize the people youre targeting. The easiest one is to check through the ready resumes online. Employing a free resume template is a significant idea. The majority of the time the individuals that are reading the resume really dont have a thing to do with the job and dont have any direct experience with it. A video resume is an excellent approach to showcase something from your background thats guaranteed to impress the hiring manager, particularly if you tell it in the shape of a story. Know the purpose of your resume Some folks write a resume as though the function of the document was supposed to land work. What You Need to Do About Resume Tips Starting in the Next Seven Minutes For instance, you may require a resume summary or a resume objective, but you ought not incorporate both. If youre asking for a job which has unique requirements, you might need another edition of your resume to totally demonstrate your qualifications. Writing the resume in the most attractive way including all the necessary information is among the biggest criteria. As part of selecting the best resume builder, consider whether it provides you with the flexibility to modify section headings.

The Leaked Secret to Writing Center Tutor Responsabilities Resume Discovered

The Leaked Secret to Writing Center Tutor Responsabilities Resume Discovered Writing Center Tutor Responsabilities Resume - Dead or Alive? Theres no need to incorporate a GPA. Whether youre looking for fine-tuning certain abilities, catching up in key places or support with tests, I am ready to tailor to yur requirements. Its vital to make sure your work experience listed on your resume reflects your abilities. Relevant work experience is also likely to boost your odds of being employed. Vital Pieces of Writing Center Tutor Responsabilities Resume The Professional Profile is intended to give the prospective hiring manager a reason to keep on reading your resume. Resumes ought to be brieftypically a couple of pages. Write each section and after that return and see how much you are able to cut or shorten it. The education section ought to be the previous section of your resume. In the end, the tutor should check in from time to time to see whether the tutoring approach is working. Next, he needs to help the student reach his or her goals by overcoming whatever the issue is. He needs to find out what the issue is that is causing the need for tutoring. French tutors are in demand for a wide selection of ages. Writing Center Tutor Responsabilities Resume - Overview Caring for children often involves a great deal of stress. Teachers must be prepared to commit to students for months at one time possibly over the summertime. They must be willing to commit to students for months at a time. To find out more on what it requires to be a Tutor, have a look at our complete Tutor Job Description. Locating a job isnt easy, and thats why our Student Job Search can help you to find work outside your house country. Flexible working is just one of the key benefits of private tutor work. Foreign language teaching jobs are offered at the K-12 levels and the college level. A Secret Weapon for Writing Center Tutor Responsabilities Resume The hiring company is not only going to wish to know that youre a skilled candidate, but you will excel in the role and be a fantastic fit for the position. It is possible to also place either the work title or the company name in the very first line based on whether you wish to emphasize the position or the firm. Therefore, if you think you have the skills to have a position, you will want to convince the employer, even in the event that you havent held a position identical to the one advertised. Below you will discover the most frequent skills needed to fulfill an office manager position.

The New Fuss About Things to Put on a Resume

The New Fuss About Things to Put on a Resume The Tried and True Method for Things to Put on a Resume in Step by Step Detail Some is excellent advice, but some can land you in hot water when it has to do with applying for jobs. In the majority of cases it serves an individual well. A new nurse has to be in a position to convey who he or shes outside of just a number. If youve got higher degrees, you dont need to bring the high school you attended. On the flip side, once the work applicant has strong experience, there isnt any need to trust the academic training any longer and it doesnt need to get mentioned. Anyway, you should speak to your references about a particular position before they are called in buchung that they will be better prepared to offer you a shining recommendation. Make certain you contact all parents for whom you babysat and request a reference. If you own a computer with word processing capabilities you may use the salesperson resume templates below. Chec k to make sure that the service has the skilled and legal personnel that may develop a strategic use of your references. You may also move sections around depending on the way you wish to prioritize your information. Add key skills throughout your experience section and be sure you include experience that matches whats needed by the work offer. Youre better off to showcase your skills by your experience or have a short and descriptive collection of only the vital skills needed by the employer. Also, you need to make sure you list because many skills from the work description as possible. Languages you might need to think about including a section titled Languages should you speak several. A resume ought to be straightforward, so be as easy as possible with language. Knowing complex languages isnt the only requirement to land a job with a major company. The Things to Put on a Resume Cover Up Next, you should avoid resume mistakes which make recruiters angry. Dont use the exa ct same CV for each and every job that you apply for. You will need a traditional resume to comply with a few employers requirements. Employers want to realize that you have continued education, if applicable. The Advantages of Things to Put on a Resume You should find out more about the company that you wish to apply to if you are considering adding an image of yourself to see whether it would be acceptable. Possessing the capability to communicate in person is critical, but having the capacity to communicate via technology is a developing hot commodity in the modern workplace. A digital resume gives you much more freedom and creative flexibility to inform your story, states Perotto of DocuSign. As soon as its unquestionably a time consuming procedure, writing a superb technical resume is possible. When theres something which you think is vital for a prospective employer to understand, save that explanation for your cover letter The absolute most important consideration to bear in mind when writing both is that you dont tell an employer what you would like. You may focus solely on the skilled or add a little personality. The very first person to really take a look at your resume (and decide whether to keep it) may not be of your special world. Remember how little time youve got to produce an impression. One more thing is to be sure you dont take anything for granted. Well, the very first issue is experience. Additionally, you will have the chance to stop references from saying things that arent true or inaccurate.

5 Best Practices for Employee Referral Programs

5 Best Practices for Employee Referral Programs 5 Best Practices for Employee Referral Programs Organizations with highly driven referral cultures have always looked at best practices revolving around the basic principles of the program itself like responsiveness of the referral program, referral rewards, communication, etc. Following best practices in referral programs can help you benefit from the positive experience of others who have experimented with new referral initiatives with a great deal of success. It also gives you the opportunity to learn from the mistakes of others so that you have a greater gunst der stunde of success with yours.1. Brand your Employee Referral ProgramIn todays world, the success of the program depends on the marketing effort behind it. A well marketed program with flaws has a greater chance of succeeding than a fantastic program being run without any marketing effort behind it. Brand the referral program with a catchy name and logo like Microsofts Sp readtheLove website or Hewitts Gift a Hewitt Life. A catchy name and tagline gives the referral program a purpose beyond merely staffing the company and entrusts upon employees the cause of organization building, a much more compelling and motivating objective to work for. The name, logo and tag line should be arresting and catchy enough to catch the attention of employees and generate recall whenever displayed. Market the program through posters, events, and distribution of collaterals with the program name and logo prominently displayed. Referral merchandise prominently displayed in the office can be a big hook to draw employees to the referral program.2. Create awareness about your referral programClosely tied to marketing of the referral program is communication. A referral program which fails to reach the employees will never be able to fully engage them and make them willing participants in the referral program. In todays technology-driven world, there is no dearth of communic ation channels, be it emails, 24-hour help line, employee chat, blogs, online videos and tutorials newsletters and even town-halls- any and all of them can be used to constantly update employees regarding the referral program, share successes and take feedback for program improvement.3. Integrate Social Media to the referral programNo employee referral program today is complete without social media integration. Advanced employee referral tools like ZALP use social media to unleash the potential of your referral program. The online world today is as much a part of our everyday life as the physical world we inhabit and hence maintaining an active presence online has become a key social imperative for everyone. Social media presents organizations with the unparalleled opportunity to tap these employee connections for organizational hiring through referral programs. With an integrated social media platform, employees can share job postings with all their networks as well as upload profi les of their social connections for job openings at the click of a button. The vast reach of the social media means that employee job sharing can potentially reach hundreds of thousands of people in virtually minutes, something which would require the organization to invest millions of dollars to achieve in the physical world.4. Have a reward management systemReferral rewards continue to be the biggest driver of motivation for employees to participate in the referral program. However, referral rewards can only motivate if they are in line with employee expectations, else they might turn out to be counter-productive, harming the cause of referrals more than helping. Introduce a reward program that seeks to reward everyone in some or the other way for participating. The bumper reward remains for the employee with the successful referral, but it is also important to recognize the contribution of employees who have referred but whose candidates have not made it to hiring. Recognition ca n be by way of hand written appreciation notes, public acknowledgement of contribution in newsletters and town-halls, gift cards and even small tokens like reserved parking space for some days. This helps keep employees proud and happy to be participating in the program and keeps referrals coming in.5. Keep your employees updated on the referral statusLastly, nothing beats a referral program that responds to employees within a quick time window. A program that responds fast to employees conveys the simple, yet strong message that it cares for employees and their time. Ensure that employees receive regular updates on candidates referred by them employee queries are responded to within definite timelines and feedback on candidates, whether good or bad is shared within reasonable time frames.These small measures can go a long way in building an organization with a world class employee referral program, one which will help the organization hire the best talent in town and achieving high er output, by incurring only a fraction of the cost.

Why ambition is overrated when it comes to innovation

Why ambition is overrated when it comes to innovationWhy ambition is overrated when it comes to innovationBeth Comstockis the Vice Chair of GE and is the leader of GEs efforts to accelerate new growth. Every month, she leads a discussion with a game-changing author and thinker in GEs Changemaker Book Club, streamed live on Facebook. Recently, she joined bestselling authorSteven Johnsonfor a conversation on the future of innovation- and its often unexpected origin.Steven is the author of ten books, includingWhere Good Ideas Come Fromand, most recentlyWonderland, which highlights the influence of wonder and delight on the movements that shape history.Follow Ladders on FlipboardFollow Ladders magazines on Flipboard covering Happiness, Productivity, Job Satisfaction, Neuroscience, and moraThis conversation has been edited and condensed. To view the full conversation, click the video below.BethI think all of us are trying to figure out how to navigate the world with so much innovation and change surrounding us. What led you to writeWonderland?StevenWonderlandcame out of a project I did calledHow We Got to Now, about the history of innovation. It welches looking at all ansicht elements of the modern world that we take for granted, like electric light, and tracing the history of where unterstellung technologies or innovations came from. That welches a really fun project, and I wanted to do a sequel of sorts.This time, the argument is that in the history of innovation, theres a surprisingly important role for what I call play, but includes delight, and amusement, and wonder. The things that people initially did just for the fun of it, with no utilitarian purpose. Those playful explorations have often led to world-changing ideas in science and technology.BethReally, youre saying the future starts with play. Walk us through one of the best examples that brings this to life.StevenThe book actually begins in Baghdad more than 1,000 years ago at the height of the Islamic Go lden Age. At this point, Baghdad was the most advanced city in the world, and the seat of incredible scholarship. There was a place in Baghdad called the House of Wisdom, which was this mix of a think tank, translation bureau, and maker lab.A group of engineers inside the House of Wisdom built all these incredibly ahead-of-their-time engineering projects. They included these advanced hydraulics systems, flow regulation systems, float valves, advanced clocks, some of the most advanced engineering technologies the world had ever seen. Yet almost every object they built was a toy.One of the things they created was called The Instrument That Plays Itself. It was basically an automated organ that you could get to play notes automatically by encoding the notes in a little pinned cylinder, a rotating metallic cylinder with little pins corresponding to the notes, like a music box.This was just for amusement, but what was so radical about this idea was that, if you wanted to change the notes that the instrument played, you could take out the cylinder, encode it with a new set of notes, and put it back in, and it would play completely different music.BethSounds like early coding.StevenIt was the first programmable machine.BethWhat year was this?Steven800 AD. The idea of this separation between hardware and software becomes imaginable at that time. In fact, it stays alive in the world of music for almost 1,000 years before people first think about programming patterns of fabric. Then, finally, people start to think about encoding digital information and programming in modern computers.BethJust reading yur work and hearing you, you have a very nimble mind, but youre able to make connections. Have you always been this way, or have you had to train yourself to make those connections? What advice would you have for people trying to do what you do?StevenI dont know. I think what Ive always had is curiosity. When I stumble into a new field, I have a great sense of, Oh, I have to learn everything I can about this.BethYou named your book Wonderland- as I hear you talk about it, its almost like youre Alice in Wonderland. Youre going down that rabbit hole, and you dont know what youre going to find.StevenWhen I was in my 20s, I had a pair of friends who were writing a screenplay, and they had a minor character that was based on me. I was comic relief. The joke was, no matter what anybody was talking about, my character would come in and say, That is so interestingThe fun of play, particularly playing games, is developing resilient, adaptive strategies to respond to unpredictable events.BethA number of world-changing machines were developed simply through trial and error, not science. Whats the difference between trial and error and play, or are they the same thing?StevenWell, one thing about play is there has to be, by definition, a certain level of surprise and having your expectations challenged. This is the difference between a game and a fixed narrative. What makes a game interesting is that you dont know whats going to happen. Thats why so many games involve chance. You have dice or cards because you need a level of unpredictability.When we play, we are opening ourselves up to experiences that are going to surprise us. The fun of play, particularly playing games, is developing resilient, adaptive strategies to respond to unpredictable events.Thats one of the reasons why play is so valuable in the classroom. If youre just trying to get people to learn things, then formulas, facts, lectures, and tests are a great way to do it. If youre trying to get people to think creatively and respond to situations that you cant anticipate, then play is much better.BethIn Wonderland, you say, The networked nature of technical progress is that inventions are almost never solitary, isolated creatures. They depend on other inventions that complete them or endow them with new applications their original inventor never considered. What have you learne d from that? Any lessons on collaboration?StevenWhat happens is a network of people will come up with an important invention in one field. That solution can be borrowed by another field, seemingly unrelated to the initial field, and it unlocks a new door of possibility.One of the technologies that we rely on every single day is the keyboard. Typewriter keyboards, alpha-numeric keyboards, were actually invented very late. We should have been able to invent typewriter keyboards in the 1600s or 1700s, but in fact, they werent invented until the late 1800s. The idea for it came from music. We had musical keyboards for almost 2,000 years before typewriters were invented. We had clavichords and harpsichords and pianofortes, and finally, people began to think, Wait, we could take this metaphor of using all 10 of your fingers to create notes and switch it into letters and numbers. The first typewriter was actually called the writing harpsichord.BethThats quite beautiful. Play is the fuel fo r all growth and creativity. I work in GE, a company of engineers. Are engineers playful?StevenThe campuses of a lot of the big tech companies are very playful. We sometimes make the mistake of thinking the volleyball courts and the foosball tables and the musical instruments in those offices are a perk of success. But I think theyre actually one of the reasons why those companies are so successful. Theyve created an environment where the mind is constantly at play, even if its doing serious work.Theyve created an environment where the mind is constantly at play, even if its doing serious work.BethThats so interesting. GE was born out of Thomas Edisons brain. We went and did some research. Thomas Edison wasnt very playful.StevenEdison was a very interesting figure. Hes an example, actually, of one of the ways in which a story is often mis-told, in the sense that hes often credited as the inventor of the light bulb, when in fact there were multiple inventors of the light bulb. It was very much a network invention.What Edison did brilliantly is create the first innovation lab. Those that were coming up with ideas in the lab were very collaborative and very diverse in their fields of expertise.BethDespite all this, were taught to be serious and stop playing. What are you learning about education? How have you changed your parenting skills?StevenI spent last summer designing a board game from scratch with my nine-year-old son. We sat there brainstorming what the rules should be, and made a little board with magic marker and cardboard, cut out some cards, things like that. That process of collaborating with your kid and dreaming up a game is an incredible educational experience. Its a great bonding experience.BethYou said the process brought out the child in you and the adult in your child.StevenKids are experts at games, so theyre sitting there like, Dad, that will never work. That dynamic was great, but the other thing about it was this concept of emergence. When youre designing a game, you have to go through this exercise of saying, Okay, with these rules and these objectives and this board, I think its going to be a great game.Then you sit down and play it the first time, and its terrible. Its too easy or its too hard or theres not enough strategy. The game properties are an emergent property of the rules youve created. Then you have to modify those rules. Thats the trial and error.BethSpeaking of which, on page 281 you say, When the world surprises us with something, our brains are wired to pay attention. Psychologists have long understood that this appetite is an integral part of the human mind. Countless studies of newborn infants have shown that, before we can crawl or grasp or communicate, we seek out surprising phenomena in our environment. This need to seek out something new is genetically coded in our makeup.StevenIts beginning to be coded into artificial intelligence, too. This is one of the ways in which we train computers to be more human-like in their intelligence. We give them a bunch of information about the world, let them make predictions about what will happen next, and when theyre wrong, you encode the system so that it pays extra attention to those mistakes. Its learning from mistakes.Play takes that interest in having our expectations challenged and puts in safe boundaries. We evolved brains that were interested in being surprised, so that we would learn from surprising events. A tiger jumping out of a bush and attacking us is very surprising. Play lets you rehearse those moments of surprise with the stakes being lower.Music, in a way, is this controlled environment of surprise. When we dont like a pop song, its because it sounds too familiar. When we listen to completely atonal music, we cant find a pattern at all, so were not surprised by it. It just seems like noise.What works for music is that middle zone where its kind of surprising and kind of not.That also seems to be the zone where people learn the most effectively.A tiger jumping out of a bush and attacking us is very surprising. Play lets you rehearse those moments of surprise with the stakes being lower.BethMany of us at GE use games to improve collaboration, but the games are very focused on generating outcomes. Is there a middle ground between the serious games and the purely social ping-pong table?StevenWell, theyre both valuable parts of the spectrum. On the ping-pong side of it, inWonderlandI have a whole riff about spaces that are designed just for recreation, like bars and taverns and coffeehouses. Those spaces have been very important, because when you create an environment where people are more casual, where peoples identity is more fluid, all these new ideas are more likely to percolate. Thats the role of the ping-pong table, where were not trying to solve the problem that weve created this role-playing game to solve. Were just hanging out and its more relaxed, but in that fluid, social space, youre ope n to new ideas.BethThis book has really made me think about how I dont have enough play in my life. Have you had to rediscover play?StevenWell, I guess Ive always had an appetite for it. The big element of play in my life is that Im an amateur musician. I have a whole recording studio in my house and a bunch of guitars and keyboards. I probably recorded a hundred songs over the years that Ive written and played all the instruments on. I think maybe eight people have heard those songs. Its a beautiful thing because its just for me, and its liberating to have something where you have great passion and no ambition.BethI love that. Great passion and no ambition. Is that maybe another definition of play? Do you need ambition to play?StevenI dont think you always do. Thats one of the things that makes it playful, youre liberated from that. Ill sit there and crank away on a book for hours and hours. Then, Ill be working on a song, and Im very focused, but its a completely different way of thinking and being in the world.Its liberating to have something where you have great passion and no ambition.BethPeople are recognizing you because theyve seen How We Got to Now on PBS. How We Got to Now leads toWonderland, and now youre writing a book on long-term decision-making. Is there a common thread?StevenThe decision-making book is one that I came up with and sold the proposal for almost 10 years ago. Its been sitting in the background, which is a great way to work, by the way. Right now, I am technically working on three books. When youre researching one thing, you stumble across something thats useful to Project B or Project C.I have this thing called the Spark File where I write down every random idea that I stumble across, even if I dont know where it goes. I try and revisit that whole massive document. What happens is the idea that you had in 2011 was just a hunch, just a piece of something. It didnt fully make sense to you. But when you revisit it in 2017, suddenly be cause of something thats changed in the world, or something thats changed in you, or a new collaborator you have, it makes all the sense in the world.BethIts kind of like dear diary for your hunches.StevenPut them all in one place. Dont try and file them away, because if you file them away, you never find them.BethWhats this slow hunch theory?StevenIts the anti-eureka moment. Everybody talks about the light bulb moment, the eureka moment, the ah-ha moment, but actually, it doesnt happen that way. What happens with really big ideas is that they start in this hunch-like stage, but theres something interesting there. People keep those hunches alive for long periods of time and continue to develop them, making connections or partnering with people who can fill out the hunch in some way. Those tend to be the biggest ideas in the long run.BethIf you could synthesize all of your books and musings, what would be the major principles youd want people to take away?StevenThere are a lot of dif ferent themes, but two run throughout all the books. One is the creative, playful side of innovation. When we think about things like STEM, were so focused on, Okay, we have to do science and math and engineering. Well, there is this creative side to it. If you dont emphasize that, its not fun, and we lose something.And the second is the extent to which diversity drives innovation. Groups are more creative, more inventive when theyre diverse, when we have different worldviews, different cultural backgrounds, different genders. I think right now thats a pretty important message.This article first appeared on Heleo.