Thanks for a great summary of the ideas of the book, and the recommendation. It is now sitting on my to-read stack, hoping to get to it within a week or so. I've been reading up on SOPA and the broader Copyright Wars, and can't help thinking that the MPAA (and the rest) are playing a finite game, while the rest of us are enjoying (or trying to enjoy) an infinite game.

I'm excited about your new book; the questions of passion, great ideas, and how the brain/mind work in general are ones for which I have great interest. I was also looking forward to your visit to St. Louis, but unfortunately will be at the Strange Loop Software Developer conference - actually, the evening party - on 14 Oct. Maybe I'll catch you out and about on the town after your talk at Maryville?

John, The question of passion v. obsession is one I've often thought about. My son (now 18) is autistic, and one of the challenges has always been trying to figure out if he is obsessed with his interests, in which case we would need to try to redirect his energies, or passionate about those interests, in which case we would want to encourage him to continue to pursue them. Thanks for this great discussion of the two.

Matt, I've been reading quite a bit about #norewards lately, and this video was a perfect capstone to what I've been reading. Pink tells his story - I mean, makes his case - quite well. The challenge as I see it is coming up with a way to compensate your creative folks adequately enough that bonuses and other extrinsic rewards aren't needed. (Of course, that is on top of providing a job that actually exercises their intrinsic motivation!) I also couldn't help thinking about what the science of rewards/incentives would have to say about the greatest creative endeavor of all - living a good life. But that, I think, is a topic for another time and another place.

Liz, Thanks for the mention to the article. Having just returned from a couple of trips that included some golf, I'm working on a follow-up to that post applying these ideas to learning and playing golf. I'm also looking forward to your post on the DSM update process as it applies to autism. Brett

Jim, I had many of the same thoughts when I read that article this morning (I rarely actually read the Sunday paper on Sunday!). One of the challenges with getting many people to respect and adopt a blog mentality about their web presence is the negative reputation that 'blogging' has. There are many excellent sites out there now that are 'blog-based' (in terms of underlying system) but are not what most people think of as blogs. The other challenge is that many people, unfortunately, are still thinking about the web as if it were still 1998. Slow but sure, we're getting there though.