USA Debate Champion is Now Columnist

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Rich Lewis was USA NDT National Champion as a first year student while debating at Harvard.

From http://cumberlink.com/articles/2009/10/22/opinion/columns/rich_lewis/doc4ae042e140bfd384383943.txt

EXPLORING THE POWER OF FUN

By Rich Lewis, Sentinel Columnist, October 22, 2009

Last updated: Thursday, October 22, 2009 7:59 AM EDT

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We all would like to make the world a better place — you know, cleaner, healthier, safer, smarter.

The problem is that most of the things we have to do to achieve those goals are boring or painful. Eat fresh vegetables. Walk instead of ride. Turn down the thermostat. Stuff like that.

Sometimes it seems we have to be like Garrison Keillor’s famously grim Lutherans in order to do good. Or agree with British writer A.P. Herbert’s sour Lord Light, who declared, “People must not do things for fun. We are not here for fun. There is no reference to fun in any act of Parliament.”

But why? Can’t we do serious things and still have a little fun?

Well, that’s the exactly the question being posed in a way that has the Internet buzzing.

Let me back up a bit.

About a week ago I was prowling the Webs and came across a short video in which we see an escalator next to a set of stairs inside a subway station in Stockholm, Sweden. Hundreds of people are riding the escalator. No one is using the stairs. The question appears on the screen: “Can we get more people to choose the stairs by making it fun to do?”

Think about that for a second. How would you encourage people to get some exercise by walking rather than lazily riding?

The video then offers one cool answer.

We watch as workers convert each of the stairsteps into giant piano keys, both black and white, that sound notes when stepped on. For the next few minutes, we see people walking, hopping, skipping and dancing up the musical stairs — old people, young people, little kids, people with dogs, couples holding hands. Each produces a little song, by accident or design. And everyone is having a great time of it. Even the people who still choose the escalator spend their entire ride staring at the people picking out tunes on the stairway.

We learn the results when the words, “66 percent more people than normal chose the stairs over the escalator,” appear on the screen.

The video was so fascinating I immediately posted it to my Facebook page with the comment, “Inspired strategy!”

Not long after, I found out I wasn’t the only one delighted by the video. As of Wednesday morning, it had been viewed 3,866,873 times on YouTube and millions more times on other sites. It has, as they say, gone viral, in a big way. A blog that tracks video virality shows that this one has been a hit worldwide — from the U.S. to Russia to Australia. It has also generated a huge jump in the number of people using or searching for the words “piano” and “fun” online.

Among the thousands of comments viewers posted at YouTube: genius, wonderful, sensational, awesome, fantastic, brilliant.

It turns out that the video was part of an advertising campaign developed for Volkswagen called “The Fun Theory,” which has its own Web site (http://www.thefuntheory.com/), which explains, “This site is dedicated to the thought that something as simple as fun is the easiest way to change people’s behaviour for the better. Be it for yourself, for the environment, or for something entirely different, the only thing that matters is that it’s change for the better.”

Now that’s an interesting thought. Sure, we’ve heard it before from time to time, but here it is again in a fresh way that seems to have caught a lot of attention.

And, yes, people might get bored with the piano stairs and soon flock back to the escalator. But maybe not, and if so, that just means coming up with a another fun idea to replace it.

You can watch the piano-stairs video at the “Fun Theory” Web site and two additional videos demonstrating the power of the idea. One is the “Bottle Bank Arcade Machine,” aimed at encouraging the recycling of glass, and the other the “World’s Deepest Bin,” an attempt to reduce littering.

And here’s why you might want to do so: Volkswagen is conducting a contest to uncover other ideas for marrying fun to good behavior. You can get all the details at the Web site, but the entry deadline is Nov. 15 and first prize is 2,500 euros — which is about $3,800. The 10 best entries are scheduled to be revealed in Stockholm in December. It appears you can simply find “evidence” for the theory in some existing situation — or come up with an original idea to implement it.

I’m not shilling for Volkswagen, but this is a neat challenge, whether or not you enter the contest. Certainly, making it fun to do the right thing is likely to be a lot more effective than scolding, giving electrical shocks, imposing fines or administering some other punishment for doing the wrong thing. As Andrew Carnegie once said, “There is little success where there is little laughter.”

Now there’s a robber baron who knew the power of a good giggle.

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Rich Lewis’ e-mail address is rlcolumn@comcast.net.