What motivates us at work? 7 fascinating studies that give insights

Reblogged from TED Blog:

“When we think about how people work, the naïve intuition we have is that people are like rats in a maze,” says behavioral economist Dan Ariely in today’s talk, given at TEDxRiodelaPlata. “We really have this incredibly simplistic view of why people work and what the labor market looks like.”

When you look carefully at the way people work, he says, you find out there’s a lot more at play—and a lot more at stake—than money.

Read more… 1,223 more words

Very interesting and not related to this blog's subject matter, I felt it was worth sharing. Enjoy!

 

Graton Rancheria, a Tribe that Doesn’t Want to Disenroll Its Own People

If anyone needed some good news today, Graton Rancheria has put some effort into amending their constitution to make disenrolling tribal members more difficult, as opposed to making it easier.

The news story is here.

While the constitutional amendments do not prohibit someone from being disenrolled (and that’s fine when it’s necessary), the changes have the following safeguards:

• “Members can lose their citizenship if their enrollment resulted from fraud or mistake — but there is a three-year statute of limitations.”
• “Members enrolled in another tribe are considered ‘to have relinquished (their) citizenship[.]‘”
• “Descendants of people who lose citizenship remain eligible for membership.”  (A good thing because oftentimes a tribe will disenroll someone and take several generations of descendents down with them).
• “The Tribal Council can suspend members — usually for behavioral transgressions such as violence — but their children remain eligible for membership.”  (Punish the wrongdoer, not the children).
• To protect citizenship during times of “political power shifts, the tribe’s laws governing citizenship can be amended only by a two-thirds vote of the General Council[,]” which is all of the adult members, or 800 people.

All in all, a good start.

 

Gone For A Bit

Sooooooo busy.

Assisting with trial for the past three weeks.  Before that, spending time with friends and family around the holidays, which is why I haven’t written anything since November 20th, 2012 (but what a great post the last one was).

The joys of being an attorney.  And I think I have another case coming soon.

Meanwhile, Indian Country continues to get interesting.  Hopefully I find time to document some of my findings.

Talk to you soon,

Erick

 

Not Dead, Either

Yeah, you heard me.  Just a little busy.  Wedding stuff, you know.

“Rest, Neo.  The answers are coming.”

 

Still Here

Yes, I’m still around.  Just got engaged, visited Yosemite (don’t think Hanta will be a problem for me, I didn’t stay in Curry Camp and those that died had already gestated the disease for a couple weeks before I even showed up), and also visited Monterey (where I got engaged).  Plus our firm had a trial which I assisted in.  We won.

I confess to procrastination and lack of motivation to go out and find stuff to write about when I’m tired at the end of the day.  Some blogger I am.  FAIL. 

 

Back in the Game

Bar is over and I’m ready to re-engage with the world.  Expect more blog posts coming.

Some interesting things happening in Indian Country.  Closer to home, what the hell is going on at Chukchansi?

Talk to you soon,

Erick

 

Happy New Year

Hey everyone,

2011 was a busy year, both personally and professionally, and 2012 looks to be just as challenging and rewarding.

Last year, my law school career came to a close upon my graduation from the San Joaquin College of Law.  As my time in academia came to a close, I have been blessed to have gotten to know many good people, including those who have gone on to become my best friends.  I am also thankful to say that I never want to go back to school again.  Gone are the stressful nights spent studying for midterms and finals.  However, I can’t be too proud since I am still dealing with the Bar Exam, a beast which requires much studying and mental refinery.

Second, I would also like to thank everyone who has read or subscribed to my blog or read my articles.  This year saw a big increase in traffic, especially as I turned Strict Liability towards the nuanced, bizarro world of Native American law.  I foresee this trend increasing as I give more attention to Indian law matters, rather than just a generalized “research blog” concept that I initially started with. I’ve gotten more attention and comments from Indians who focus on tribal disenrollments and those who have been disenrolled themselves.  And, as always, anything about tribal sovereignty seems to give me a boost in traffic.

In the meantime, I just have to keep doing what I’m doing.  Hope 2012 is the year you want it to be!

 

Study/Work Music

One of few good tracks you can have on in the background while studying or, as in my case right now, working:

 

Musings from the Web

I just realized I haven’t written anything in a while.  I hate getting side-tracked by life when I want to write on here.  If I had my way, I’d probably write something new at least twice or three times a week.  I wonder how all the other legal blogs do it.  Probably because the good ones are managed by at least more than one author.

A lot of good stuff to be found in the Internet today, which is I’m what I’m going to be throwing at you now, for lack of a clear subject to blab about.  Enjoy.

Law School – Subsidized Graduate Student loans will be kaput starting July 1, 2012.  Everyone else that has one (or several, as the case may be for law students) will not be affected.  Everyone I know is drowning alive in student loan debt, myself included.  Sorry to anyone affected by this.

Federal Courts – For those curious to see just how long it actually takes litigation to wind its way through federal court, the Federal Judicial Center stated the median time from filing the case to receiving the first scheduling order is 3.5 months.  Receiving a scheduling order just means you now have a list of deadlines that you and the opposing party have to file things motions to dismiss or summary judgment, disclose expert witnesses, complete discovery, etc.  The time from the first scheduling order to the discovery cut-off is 6.5 months.

Elections & Voting – An interesting Pew study about the voting habits of Americans.  People my age (Millenial) are increasingly Democratic, but are becoming disenchanted with Obama.  The current bulk of the Silent Generation (born between 1929-45, coming of age during the Korean War, the Truman, Eisenhower and Kennedy presidencies), are highly conservative, are mostly Republican but are unhappy with both parties.  The Millenials like Obama, but they don’t vote.  The Silents are angry and are behind Romney.  My people, on the other hand, grew up watching Presidents Clinton and Bush II.  We’re liberal and want an activist government.  The Silents want less government.  We love racial diversity.  Silents and Baby Boomers, not so much.  Both Millenials and Silents think the economy will eventually return while Boomers and Gen-X’ers think their retirement is belly-up and will have to be deferred.  Depending on who you ask, the greatest president of their lifetimes were either Clinton or Reagan.  None of us trust the government to do what’s right.

Native Americans – President Obama signed a proclamation proclaiming November 2011 as Native American Heritage Month, and that November 25th as Native American Heritage Day.

 

What Not to Do When You Want to Be in a Good Mood

If you wake up and you’re in a good mood, or things are just generally ok, here’s how not to proceed:

Start trolling Google News and blogs about our global economic forecast and the fate of the US currency/economy while listening to Scala & Kolacny Brothers’ rendition of Radiohead’s “Creep.” Every story will suddenly take on an ominous and horrifying tone.

Not that I had much hope for the state of our global economy anyway, but still, doing this kind of stuff doesn’t help.

And in case you were wondering, the song selection wasn’t deliberate, just started playing music on iTunes and it was in my library. D’oh.