Can Incentive Intelligence Find Bin Laden?

I posted a bit lately on the way incentives are structured and how incentives can cause undesirable behavior.  This post on the Freakonomics blog highlights some of the things that incentive programs must include.

The Freakonomics post talks about the $25 million offered as reward for Osama Bin Laden.  I've thought that $25 million should have delivered Bin Laden to us before the last zero was written on the big, fake check I'm sure they would present.  But it hasn't happened.  The post goes on to talk about the Senate voting to raise the incentive to $50 million.  I'm sure that extra $25 million was the problem.

The post does point out the most probable reason the incentive hasn't worked.  To quote directly...

"Much more important, but harder to do, would be to find a way to make it credible that we will actually pay the bounty."

I'm guessing the value of the incentive is so far above the comprehension of the average person in that part of the world that it isn't a real reward.  Remember the old saw... "if it sounds to good to be true it probably is."

Here's a more intelligent - and I would guess more successful approach.

1. Pay a lot of little rewards for anything that even smacks of information on Bin Laden.  Make it public and make it often.  This will create buzz around the reward and make it tangible.
   
   
2. Increase the amount for more substantial information - not too much - maybe 2 year's worth of income for the average person.  Do this often, but not as often as the smaller rewards, and make them public as well.
    
3. Publicize the amount of reward paid out in store windows and in the paper.  This starts to "normalize" the behavior (see post from Monday) and makes that behavior more acceptable.
    
4. Once the population begins to see that we're serious and that others like them are getting theirs - put a time limit on a much bigger reward - something they can visualize themselves actually getting - maybe in the $5 million range.
    
5. Then I'd take one of the many, many leads - and publicize it as one that almost worked and hand out half the $5 million.  Then I'd extend the time limit on the reward.

That should do it.

If you don't see a post from me in a few days it's because I'm in Washington doing my duty.