🚀 go-pugleaf

I recall attending a short course at UCLA in the 60's and one of the presenters
had long hair and a beard.  At that time the long hair & beard hippie look had
not reached the east coast or the media.  Guess what, I didn't absorb much or
anything of what he had to say, all I could do was look at his weirdness.

At that same gathering I had my first view of mini-skirts by some "daring" UCLA
coeds, and do you think that helped in being able to study the material from the
course?  Wow, I'll never forget the experience.

Anyway, in some cases the emotional content of such scenes certainly do distract
from the purpose at hand.  But maybe the emotional content was just as important
as all that technical stuff, 8^).

I would also like to make the point that there are some people whose preferred
method of absorbing information are by sight and others by ear.  That is some
prefer to hear someone talk and others prefer to read the paper.  Those who
prefer to read take lots of notes when listening to a speaker compared to those
who prefer to hear what is said.  So, I think that for those that are "sound"
people they would not find this type of written stuff very satisfactory, while
those of us who are "sight" people can't see that audio is needed at all.

Now to change the subject -

About 10 years ago I took a graduate class in Small Group Processes (in the
Psychology department).  My theme paper was the use of computers in group 
processes.  At that time networking was just beginning, and some researchers
were investigating computer conferencing.  Thus I indicated that computers
would be used for recording individual's ideas, organizing them into inter-
related subjects, and then accessing the combined organized thought of the
group.  I also indicated that some statistical techniques could be used for
arriving at decisions based on an analysis of group members opinions (i.e.,
the "Delphi method").  I reported studies that showed that the Delphi method
produced better decisions than was obtained by having one "person in charge"
making the decision even after hearing or reading the same opinions that were
given by the group members.

In my paper I took a set of monographs entitled "Looking into Leadership" by
Dr. Warren H. Schmidt of UCLA Busisness School in which he identified 13
principles of group behavior.  I will present these principles below, but
omit my analysis of how the use of computers/networking would relate to them.
I will leave it to you to reflect on this.

1. Successful group productivity depends on the ability of the members to
exchange ideas freely and clearly and to feel involved in the decisions and the
processes of the group.

2. No group can be fully productive until its members are willing to assume
responsibility to the group.

3. An effective group has a clear understanding of its purposes and goals.

4. An effective group is flexible in selecting its procedures as it works
toward its goals.

5. An effective group has achieved a high degree of communication and 
understanding among its members.

6. An effective group is able to initiate and carry out effective decision
making, carefully considering minority viewpoints, and securing the committment
of all the members to important decisions.

7. An effective group achieves an appropriate balance between group productivity
and the satisfaction of individual needs.

8. An effective group provides a sharing of leadership responsibilities by group
members - so that all members are concerned about contributing ideas, 
elaborating and clarifying the ideas of others, giving opinions, testing the
feasibility of potential decisions, and in other ways helping the group to work
on its task and maintain itself as an effective working group.

9. An effective group has a high degree of cohesiveness (attractiveness to its
members) but not to the point of stifleing individual freedom.

10. An effective group makes intelligent use of the differing abilities and
interests of its members.

11. An effective group is not dominated by its leader or by any of its members.

12. An effective group can be objective about reviewing its own processes; it
can face its problems and adjust to needed modifications in its operation.

13. An effective group maintains balance between emotional and rational 
behavior, channeling emotionality into productive group effort.

In my conclusion, I noted that Managers tend to overlook the human aspect of
the group process all to often and superficially.  They focus mainly on
productivity, efficiency, costs, meeting deadlines, and quality of results; and
that for these reasons computers will be used in group process for the benefits
they will bring to these areas. 

The human aspects of group interaction will be diminished in the computerized
system.  However, there are some aspect which us humans would find desirable,
such as greater self direction, ease of contributing to the group product, more
flexibility in the times one works on the group tasks, and less travel or time
constraint in getting everyone together to interact;  but, for many of us there
is a joy which comes from the human interaction of sharing ideas over coffee
which would be sadly missed if all work were done over a computer network. 

Phil Pease 
My witty disclaimer - everything I perceive, through either sensory or
extrasensory means, has been filtered to such an extent that you had better not
attempt to attribute anything I say to anyone else.