Happiness as Your incorporating the human drive for
fulfillment into your core business
Business Model

there was this dude

wrote this book

It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the
brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but
from their regard to their own interest...
The Wealth of Nations, Book I Chapter II

yikes. well, thank goodness there was an

By pursuing his own interest he frequently
promotes that of the society more effectually than
when he really intends to promote it.
The Wealth of Nations, Book 4 Chapter II

but what is even more awesome is that this
invisible hand ain’t so invisible anymore

it’s a big freakin’ obvious hand and it
comes in the form of...

and we are using these tools to produce all sorts of
content online like

as we raise our voices, we are doing the stuff that
is making us really freakin’

we are raising our voices to our

we are sharing knowledge and becoming really
stinking

and we get to do ALL of this while hangin

this rocks. it is an ideal economic situation.

okay. lemme take that back.

it’s an ideal economic situation for the people who
are part of

i heart economics

it is still trying to figure stuff out

if only there weren’t those darned people in the
equations, everything would go smoothly

see, most traditional economics see the world as
filled with

Homo Economicus

characteristics of homo-economicus
• efficient
• predictable
• motivated by the best deals
• influenced heavily by marketing
• will always work in his/her own best interest
• mostly rational in buying decisions

(forgive me while I pause to roll my eyes.)

you and I both know that the people in the
marketplace look a great deal more like

Homo Feelgoodonicus

characteristics of homo-feelgoodomicus
• inefficient
• unpredictable
• motivated by what makes him/her happy
• ignores marketing messages where possible and rails against marketing
messages that annoy
• will sometimes cut of his/her nose to spite his/her face
• buys crap that makes no sense whatsoever, like those big foam fingers for
$10 at sports games

you just can’t build prediction models for this stuff

besides

...is a multi-billion dollar industry

[insert staggering stats here]

the key is in helping homo-feelgoodomicus feel
good

and this is where I segue into

lets talk a little about the history of positive
psychology...

psychology had a long history of being focused on
the negative stuff, like

but in 1998, Martin Seligman, proposed a focus on
the study of POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY.

positive psychology is the branch of psychology
that “studies the strengths and virtues that enable
individuals and communities to thrive.”

pretty complicated stuff

...but WHY happiness? why does this matter?

7 reasons that happiness is key to success
1. happy customers talk to more people about their positive experience
2. unhappy customers talk to the MOST people about their negative experience
3. happy customers are repeat customers
4. happy customers will pay more for an awesome experience
5. happy customers are loyal
6. happy customers will drive your marketing for you
7. happy employees are more productive, creative and loyal

so, what is happiness anyway?

exercise: what makes you happy?

for as many people there are on the planet, there is
a different answer for what makes us happy.

but the American Psychological Association dug
deep down into our hearts desires and found that
there ARE some universals. and they are...

autonomy

autonomy includes:
•feeling in control of one’s surroundings
•understanding one’s own resilience
•feeling of agency
•empowerment

competence

competence includes:
•confidence in one’s abilities/knowing one’s strength’s
•feedback from others on one’s performance
•learning and growing skills
•self-actualization
•doing meaningful work
•getting into flow

relatedness

relatedness includes:
•interacting with others
•connecting with people and connecting people
•giving to others/being generous
•feeling loved
•emotional security
•acknowledgement and support (mentorship)

self-esteem

self-esteem includes:
•your ‘set-point’ or natural (genetic) confidence level
•something you can work on through cognitive
behavioral therapy, meditation or medications
•not influenced from the outside world, but apparent
when triggered by events from the outside world

the pillars of happiness
• autonomy
• competence
• relatedness
• self-esteem or set point
from the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, published by the American Psychological Association (APA) 2007.

what is really important about knowing these pillars
is to understand what works AGAINST happiness
as much as what creates it.

fear

contributors to fear
•ignorance
•misinformation
•insecurity
•inexperience
•fear-mongering
•mistrust

pew internet research noted that the majority of
people ages 50+ who are not online are not online
because of the scary stories they hear.

confusion

what leads to confusion
•paradox of choice
•noise ratio
•lack of clear information
•secretiveness
•half-truths

loneliness

what causes loneliness
•isolation
•distrust of others
•fear of rejection
•lack of acceptance
•insecurity

lack of control

what leads to lack of control
•loss of control over the circumstances of one’s life
•loss of agency
•withheld information
•secrecy
•uncontrollable circumstances

struggle for survival

remember maslow’s hierarchy of needs

you
can’t
get here
without
all of
these
being
taken
care of

barriers to happiness
• fear
• confusion
• loneliness
• lack of control
• struggle for survival

the axis of misery

industries that seem to be

hell bent on delivering miserable experiences

car rental companies

airlines

telcos

very consistent in helping their customers feel like

in order to be an agent of happiness, you need to
either create the environment for it or you have to
intervene in the barriers...

which means where there is the axis of misery,
there is the opportunity to make $$ making people
happy

(the bar is set amazingly low)

car rental companies

zipcar

airlines

southwest

telcos

skype

these companies have flourished in the void where
the axis of misery entirely misses the point.

exercise: name an experience that made you
miserable. Could you build a business that does
the opposite? Discuss.

so...it’s one thing to remove the barriers to
happiness, it’s a whole other thing to

figure out the basic principles of

and be aware of them when we are designing our
websites, products or services, then we can

be agents of...

so for instance let’s take

autonomy

we need to take the stuff that leads to people
feeling autonomous and build it into what we are
doing...

5 ways to create feelings of autonomy
1. give people tools to personalize their experiences
2. build tools that democratize previously inaccessible industries
3. offer clear and attractive choices
4. be open and transparent
5. don’t lock people in

competence

5 ways to increase feelings of competence
1. create flow...simple entry point to more complex systems
2. allow ways for mentors to interact with newbies (create rewards)
3. build consecutive levels of achievement into the experience
4. plant ‘easter eggs’
5. don’t talk down to your customer

“flow” - mihaly csikszentmihalyi (cheek-sent-me-high)

The flow state is an optimal state of intrinsic
motivation, where the person is fully immersed in
what he or she is doing. This is a feeling everyone
has at times, characterized by a feeling of great
freedom, enjoyment, fulfillment, and skill—and
during which temporal concerns (time, food, ego-
self, etc.) are typically ignored.

achieving flow
• skills acquired along the way
• clear goals
• feedback provided along the way
• user control
• facilitate concentration and involvement by making the activity as distinct as
possible from so-called reality

relatedness

5 ways to increase relatedness
1. build in multiple ways for customers to interact
2. have many collaborative experiences
3. create simple ways for customers to share with a friend
4. design for generosity
5. create online/offline meeting experiences

case studies

zappos.com

makes customers happy by
• WOW customer service (autonomy)
• comments/shared feedback on shoes (competence)
• twitter, blogging interactions (relatedness)
• 10 core values (all of the above)

zappos.com 10 core values

deliver WOW thru service

embrace and drive change

create fun and a little weirdness

be adventurous, creative and open
minded

pursue growth and learning

build open and honest relationships
with communication

build positive team and family spirit

do more with less

be passionate and determined

be humble

the core values of zappos.com lead to an
incredibly rich set of relationships - with customers,
vendors and even competitors

customers employees
win + win + win = win
vendors zappos

moleskine

makes customers happy by
• giving choice in style of notebook - but not too much choice (autonomy)
• connecting the experience with turn of the century intellectuals (competence)
• moleskinerie (relatedness)
• social object (relatedness)

twitter

makes customers happy by
• creating a tool for simple spurts of self expression (autonomy)
• ability to learn more advanced functions (competence)
• api allows people to build and be more creative with the core (competence)
• simplicity of tweeting questions and getting instant answers (competence)
• following others gives stream of consciousness (relatedness)
• learning about others day to day mundane to deep thoughts and emotions
(relatedness)

ma.gnolia

makes customers happy by
• holding regular PIBB chats, VIP program (autonomy)
• the ability to follow others and form groups around gathering knowledge
(competence)
• give thanks (relatedness)

ma.gnolia’s

wordpress

makes customers happy by
• plugin architecture and templating system allows for total personalization
(autonomy)
• open source and transparent (autonomy)
• really simple hosted solutions all the way to self-installed (competence)
• lots of easter eggs (competence)
• sphere plugin, promotion of popular blogs, comment systems and trackbacks
(relatedness)

exercise: applying the principles of happiness to
YOUR company

I wonder what

would say if he were alive today to see his

turn into the much more active

of online communities

whatever his reaction, I bet he’d be delighted with
how the free market has been moved by the

of its players

because ultimately, the

IS about the

autonomy

competence

relatedness

of everyone involved

the

of your business relies on the

of your customers

licensing:
http://www.slideshare.net/missrogue

about those rockin’ images:
• Many are from iStockphoto.com (totally cool site) except
for:
• kissing couple: http://www.flickr.com/photos/teointarifa/490408075/
• robots with penny: http://flickr.com/photos/frogmuseum2/240455686/
• web 2.0 montage: http://flickr.com/photos/stabilo-boss/93136022/
• wiki chalkboard: http://flickr.com/photos/teemow/29921948/
• moleskine: http://flickr.com/photos/confusedvision/226129765/
• twittering: http://flickr.com/photos/laughingsquid/420074166/ (http://
www.laughingsquid.com)
• zipcar: http://www.zipcar.com
• southwest airlines: http://flickr.com/photos/smartjunco/421611105/
• skype cards: http://flickr.com/photos/ndm007/284882959/
• misery license plate: http://flickr.com/photos/mollyeh11/931046867/

some references
• Craig Newmark Quote: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/
2004/08/15/NEWMARK.TMP
• Avant Game: http://www.avantgame.com
• Cruel 2 B Kind: http://www.cruelgame.com
• Microformats: http://www.microformats.org
• OpenID: http://www.openid.net
• Creative Commons: http://www.creativecommons.org
• BarCamp: http://barcamp.org
• Coworking: http://coworking.info
• Ma.gnolia: http://ma.gnolia.com
• API (Application Programming Interface): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/API
• Friend Wheel: http://apps.facebook.com/friendwheel
• Great internet stats: http://pewinternet.org
• Whuffie: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whuffie
• Porn addiction recovery: http://www.no-porn.com/

Tara Hunt
tara@citizenagency.com
415.694.1951
skype: tarahunt747
www.citizenagency.com
www.horsepigcow.com