Electronic follow up

[Murli]

At 11:32 PM 6/26/99 +0200, you wrote:
>At 00:43 26-06-1999 -0600, you wrote:
>>Koos's observations are excellent,
>>and I agree with him almost entirely.
>almost?? ;-)

I thought I'd leave an escape hatch open, just in case! ;-)

>>Three very critical factors, in
>>my experience, have been: whether or not the group has a history, whether
>>group members belong to one organization or are members of a relatively
>>open-boundaried community, and the task undertaken by the group.
>
>Yes, I can see that. Could you say some more about
>what kind of tasks in your experience are OK for
>electronic contact and what tasks aren't?

Shoot, there is a price to be paid for breaking one's silence;  one
actually needs to communicate clearly!! ;-)

Full disclosure; YMMV; void where prohibited; S&H extra; for entertainment
purposes only; etc.  Now ... (I'm trying to do this while my 5-year old son
competes for my attention)

Tasks with relatively high informative content vs. affective/emotive
content are the best, esp. for zero history groups, or groups that have had
no face-to-face (f2f) contact, and most esp. when both these conditions
hold.  Where the groups have had prior history, and esp. f2f contact, one
can drift into the emotive zone.  Personally, being a touchy-feely kind of
guy, that's when I drop the technology entirely and go off with group into
the woods, so to speak.

F2f interaction has an inherent structurational advantage:  Group and
process structuring can emerge very rapidly from the Group Plasma (for want
of a better term) -- the dynamic Hot Zone consisting of people, issues,
interactions, decisions, emotions, etc. generated during an f2f group
process.  There is no worthy equivalent in the electronic context (so far).
 The effort involved in creating and directing structure in the electronic
context is (relatively) enormous, and cannot happen without a lot of
cooperation from the participants.  And generating cooperation from a
"non-captive" group is challenging.  Consequently, a lot of the structure
has to be provided up front, and participants generally need to "sign-on"
to the structure, or stay out.  This may sound no different from OS and
other f2f processes, but there is a lot more faith that is demanded in the
electronic context (which may need to be substituted with information where
such faith is not forthcoming), than in f2f.

This list (OSLIST), has been in action for how long?  20 months?  We have
been having a lot of free-ranging discussion.  Bear in mind that
practically everyone on this list shared an interest in OS at the time of
joining, and many already knew each other in realspace.  Imagine trying to
organize an OS right off the bat, electronically.  Not impossible, I
concede, but challenging.


>
>>In
>>particular, there is a huge difference between an open community, which is
>>what OSLIST is, and members of an organization with multiple, ongoing
>>relationships.  The dynamics are very different.
>
>Sounds by all means reasonable. Nevertheless, if you have
>specific examples, it would help to grasp the idea.
>Thanks,
>Koos

Over the years of facilitating face-to-face (f2f) electronically mediated
groups (and from being part of such an organization) I have found that a
prior history of f2f interaction can both help and hinder computer
mediation.  The help part includes:  being able to interpret words as they
were "actually meant", and the dynamic, near instant co-accomodation (much
like a dance) that happens among participants.  The hinder part includes:
a potential loss of candor caused by the fact people almost always can
guess at who is saying what (one stated "benefit" of electronic mediation
is the ability to post items anonymously, if such is necessary).  Even when
anonymity is not an issue, members of groups with a history tend to fall
into overlearned interactional patterns which may be detrimental to making
a breakthrough.

---------

As an aside, anybody on this list been to CPSI Buffalo?  I'm a CPSI addict
<best drug for me, bar none>, and just returned from there.  Would love to
hear from you, and whether you see any possible linkages between there and
this forum (please communicate with me directly, to conserve list bandwidth).

Murli
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Murli Nagasundaram, Ph.D.
3356 N. Lakeharbor Ln. #107
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email: rismurli at cobfac.boisestate.edu
home page: http://cispom.boisestate.edu/murli