Making Vectorworks Fun

I was reading the Konstrukshon web log the other day. Steve has a movie on the piano stairs. These stairs are next to an escalator. most people choose the escalator, until they installed the piano stairs. Then, 66% more people chose to use the stairs, because they were fun to use.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lXh2n0aPyw

Next, is the rubbish bin (trash can) that sounds like the world’s deepest bin. The engineers made the bin sound like something falling a long way. In one day the bin collected almost twice as much trash as a nearby bin. People went out of their way to put rubbish in it, just because it was fun.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbEKAwCoCKw

This got me thinking. If you can change people’s behavior by making stairs or a rubbish bin fun, could you increase productivity by making work fun? If you look at the link, you will see that I’m late coming to this, but I’ve got there at last. You can make work more fun, and you will get more productivity from your workers. Of course it’s not just about giving away a party hat, it is certainly not about letting your workers goof off.

I used to work in a small office. We were not allowed to share a joke, or listen to the radio, or ipod, the boss did not communicate his intensions, thoughts and wishes. It was a very unhappy office and they had a high turnover of staff.

I once worked in the opposite of this in south London. It was a fun place to work, and even after 15 years, I still have fond memories of working in Vauxhall. It was the atmosphere, the bosses and all the staff.

Here are some links to blogs about making work fun:

Managing People - Motivation

Increase Productivity, Profitability, and Morale and Make Work Fun

So, there seems to be some evidence that you can increase productivity by making work more fun.

I like using Vectorworks and I have fun using it. When I attend a user group to answer questions, I like to have fun there too. After all, the people there have given up their evening, shouldn’t they have a bit of fun?

I believe that knowing more about Vectorworks makes it fun to use. Have fun learning, make Vectorworks fun, visit http://www.archoncad.co.nz