Thanks to Hearistic for the link.

As always, you can post your comments here and on the PPND website.

Image: thanks to PVBroadz

Thanks to http://twitter.com/dannyfine for the link

Some of you might be wondering what the connection is between social media (aka social networking), business and positive psychology. The answer (or at least one of them) as far as I am concerned is performance. Both individiual and organisational performance depend on employee engagement and well-being, both of which can be increased through social networking.

As Will McInnes points out in this slide show (presented as part of Social Media Week), technological changes are unstoppable, so we’d be better off working out how we can use them effectively. Huge organisations like IBM have shown that it can be done – as this great blog from Casey Hibbard at the Social Media Examiner shows.

Of course there are headlines every day reporting the dark side of social networking, or about how many hours employees are wasting as they update their Facebook profiles. But technology can be used to change people’s behaviour for the better – McInnes gives the example of Toyota Prius drivers competing to better their MPG  ’score’ on the dashboard. You may remember that I touched on this subject with my posting on the so-called “Fun Theory” last year.

So if you want to engage your staff and take advantage of the social connections that people naturally make, think seriously about how social networking is being used in your organisation.

Here’s a great 25 minute documentary about the science of happiness, featuring Harvard’s Dr Daniel Gilbert (“Stumbling on Happiness”), Dr Angela Clow from the University of Westminster and my favourite,  Newcastle University’s Dr Daniel Nettle (“Happiness – The Science behind your Smile”).

Thanks to CoachFu for the link

• Off the Page - Dominic  Arkwright interviews my colleague and fellow MAPP graduate,  Miriam Akhtar about what happiness is and how she found it, as well as Dr Phil Hammond (a potential convert to positive psychology) and Guardian journalist Lucy Mangan (a dyed-in-the-wool sceptic). Miriam gives a very personal perspective on her discovery. You can find out how to do it for yourself using her Happiness Training Plan CD.

Fortunately, if you’re a shopaholic, you may be able to fool youself into thinking about material purchases as if they were experiences, and in this way derive some longer-lasting benefit from them!

Image courtesy of Lauren Close

If you can’t think of any positive future events to savour, even thinking about neutral events in the future can be beneficial, by reducing your level of anxiety. So as you start planning for 2010, why not try your own experiment, and see if future MTT works for you?

As usual your thoughts and comments are welcome here and on the PPND site!

Image: thanks to lepiaf.geo