A nice 18 minute talk by cognitive researcher Nancy Etcoff who looks at happiness from a scientific perspective. Followers of The Virtual Happiness Research are allready familiar with what happens in the brain and how social interaction is key for happiness.
But… this presenation is from 2004! It’s nice to look at it now and [...]

Today Jim Stolze gave a talk at TED University about the Virtual Happiness Project. It’s a six minute talk about his month offline, the results of the project and 5 practical tips how the internet can make you happier.

Looking for the slides of this presentation?
And here’s the transscript:
Could you live without the internet?
Ask yourself [...]

Bas Haring is a thinker and an asker of questions, a writer and a speaker. In a clear and stimulating manner he aims to imbue science and philosophy with meaning for our lives. He does this by writing books, columns and making TV programs.
Haring tried to paint some white in a black world. He [...]

Ruut Veenhoven studied sociology. He is currently professor of social conditions for human happiness at Erasmus University Rotterdam, in The Netherlands.
Veenhovens definition of happiness is “enduring satisfaction with life as a whole”. It is commonly assumed that humans have an innate need for meaning, and that gratification of that need causes happiness. However, that [...]

Prof. dr. P. de Blot holds the Business Spirituality Chair at the Nyenrode Business University. The objective of the chair is to develop a high quality knowledge centre to improve the quality of the way business is done in general and the renewal and revitalization of business in particular using organizations’ own spiritual strength.
Prof. [...]

Onno Hamburger (1969) studied psychology at Leiden university in the Netherlands and he specialized in the science of happiness at work.
Hamburger is looking for evidenced based psychological tools in the area of happiness. In this way he fulfils his own mission by helping his clients to become happier and consequently more effective at work.

He [...]

Maarten Vansteenkiste is a Professor in Psychology at the Ghent University in Belgium. Throughout his work he tries to map out the reasons that motivate people’s behavior and the goals and ambitions that people pursue throughout their lives.
He examines whether particular motives and goals are more likely to be associated with enduring persistence, high quality [...]

Dick Swaab is team leader ‘Neuropsychiatric Diseases’ within the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience. The Netherlands Institute of Neuroscience is a merger of the Netherlands Institute for Brain Research and the Netherlands Ophthalmic Research Institute.
Mr. Swaab talked about different brain regions and how they are related to things like social pleasures, higher order pleasures, epileptics and [...]

2. An evolutionary approach to quality of life
Bjørn Grinde is a biologist working in the fields of genetics and evolution, with a particular interest in human evolution. Presently he works as a chief scientist at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health and as a professor at the University of Oslo.
His presentation answered question like “Was [...]

Tara Hunt is a fantastic speaker on conferences that are on the verge of marketing and digital media. A few months ago she also did a workshop at Thinking Digital UK: “Happiness as your business model”.
Here are her slides:

You can also follow Tara on Twitter.