I ordered Douglass Rushkoff's latest book "Get Back in the Box" quite a while ago but it's only just filtered it's way to the top of my reading pile. I've made a couple attempts at getting started on it but never quite got hooked until last night. While I've only just read a few a pages his discussion of play and flow has me completely fascinated.
The main point is that we should put the play back in work. Which does mean that it's not serious, but rather that when we're having fun at a task (be it programming or downhill skiing), we are fully engaged in the process. He quotes Mihaly Czikszentmihaly's book on the psychology of optimal experience, "Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience", which found that "deep satisfaction with work had less to do with the job at hand than the way in which the job is approached." Flow is defined as, "the way people describe their state of mind when consciousness is harmoniously ordered and they want to pursue whatever they are doing for its own sake."
All of which rings incredibly true. So with that in mind I'm thinking that I might embark on writing a "playful resume", where I try and define my skills and workplace desires framed around the ideal of maximising "flow". All very frufru I know, but I think this is going to be both fun and enlightening.
