Here are two articles for you today, both in some sense about Gilligan’s Island.

The first comes from Paul Bloom, a psychology professor at Yale. It’s about why Americans spend so much of their free time doing things that are not real. When examining our lives much of what we choose to spend our time doing – when not acting on behalf of our basic needs for survival – engages our imagination, like watching Gilligan’s Island.

The second is about the future of free time as described by Clay Shirky and Daniel Pink, two people who spend much of their free time thinking about how we spend ours. They suggest that technology is leading us toward a future where our free time is more productive than watching your average episode of Gilligan’s Island.

Two questions to consider:

1. How can your organization tap into the “cognitive surplus” of millions of people?

2. What will happen when our entertainment becomes more active and productive and less passive and imaginative?