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What time are YC apps due? First thing that comes to mind reading this: this could totally be a fairly easy but popular startup Base it on email to make it Po

What time are YC apps due? First thing that comes to mind reading this: this could totally be a fairly easy but popular startup Base it on email to make it Posterous-easy. joe@company.com sends an email to praise@workpraise.com and says "nancy@company.com did an aweosome job on her TPS reports. She rocks!" ... manager approves, praise can be redeemed for cash/products/paid vacation days ... morale goes up, retention goes up, productivity goes up. hr costs go down. profit.

lukesandberg 16y ago
I don't think this would work too well. For me at least, praise in the form of small gifts is not that worthwhile. I would much rather get honest direct feedback in the form of a conversation than an email with a link to 20 dollars of at applebees. (I mean the giftcard would be nice but it would feel belittling without the personal interaction) I think there's a joel spolsky article on inc.com about this, intrinsic vs. Extrinsic motivation.
- callmeed 16y ago
  Gifts aren't the end-game in my mind–sorry if I gave that impression. I think the value is simply knowing that other people notice your work, trickling that praise up to management, and making it super-simple to submit such praise. It would still be up to managers to look at the praise and do the right thing after.
  - lukesandberg 16y ago
    yeah, ok. However, if thats the case then it already is super simple to submit the praise...walk over to their desk/call them/ping them/email them...
    - mr_november 16y ago
      But your super simple methods fail to further a culture of feedback. If there is a central place where all employees can see positive feedback given to each other, it encourages everyone to continue giving this short notes of encouragement/thanks which keeps morales high (hopefully). I'm not sure if having a central repository of feedback is really what callmeed was getting at but it's what I've built with my small app so this was my line of thinking.
mr_november 16y ago
I've built this when I was trying to learn rails: http://www.peerlove.com http://www.peerlove.com Have been meaning to do a Show HN post for awhile now. 'Love' (as we call the positive feedback) thru email which populates the webapp is a feature as well. Needs some TLC but most of all, need to get the word out to see if there is a product here or not.

lukesandberg 16y ago

I don't think this would work too well. For me at least, praise in the form of small gifts is not that worthwhile. I would much rather get honest direct feedback in the form of a conversation than an email with a link to 20 dollars of at applebees. (I mean the giftcard would be nice but it would feel belittling without the personal interaction) I think there's a joel spolsky article on inc.com about this, intrinsic vs. Extrinsic motivation.

callmeed 16y ago
Gifts aren't the end-game in my mind–sorry if I gave that impression. I think the value is simply knowing that other people notice your work, trickling that praise up to management, and making it super-simple to submit such praise. It would still be up to managers to look at the praise and do the right thing after.
- lukesandberg 16y ago
  yeah, ok. However, if thats the case then it already is super simple to submit the praise...walk over to their desk/call them/ping them/email them...
  - mr_november 16y ago
    But your super simple methods fail to further a culture of feedback. If there is a central place where all employees can see positive feedback given to each other, it encourages everyone to continue giving this short notes of encouragement/thanks which keeps morales high (hopefully). I'm not sure if having a central repository of feedback is really what callmeed was getting at but it's what I've built with my small app so this was my line of thinking.

mr_november 16y ago

I've built this when I was trying to learn rails: http://www.peerlove.com http://www.peerlove.com Have been meaning to do a Show HN post for awhile now. 'Love' (as we call the positive feedback) thru email which populates the webapp is a feature as well. Needs some TLC but most of all, need to get the word out to see if there is a product here or not.