Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!rutgers!sri-unix!hplabs!hplabsc!taylor From: taylor@hplabsc.UUCP (Dave Taylor) Newsgroups: mod.comp-soc Subject: Re: Computer Networks and Literacy Message-ID: <910@hplabsc.UUCP> Date: Mon, 1-Dec-86 16:20:50 EST Article-I.D.: hplabsc.910 Posted: Mon Dec 1 16:20:50 1986 Date-Received: Tue, 2-Dec-86 20:06:28 EST Reply-To: hplabs!seismo!philabs!pwa-b!mmintl!franka@hplabs.HP.COM Organization: Hewlett-Packard Laboratories Lines: 41 Approved: taylor@hplabs Reference: <882@hplabsc.UUCP> This article is from seismo!philabs!pwa-b!mmintl!franka@hplabs.HP.COM and was received on Mon Dec 1 10:21:50 1986 Steve North writes; >computer networks bring everyone down to the lowest common denominator. >[...] the chairman of the dept. or someone else that projects a Presence and >knows how to control a meeting or read the look on his audience's faces is >deprived of his position and non-verbal information. This is a great oversimplification. The skills required to be effective in net discussions are different from those required for meetings, but they do exist. Skill in argumentation is valuable, more so than for face to face meetings where force of personality often outweighs force of argument. The lack of non-verbal information is offset by the potential to take more time to consider arguments, both one's own and those of others. Finally, it is simply not true that position is irrelevant. A net message from the head of the department is still identiable as from the head of the department, and receives correspondingly more weight. It is not surprizing that those who are skilled and experienced at running face to face meetings, and unskilled and inexperienced at running net discussions, should find face to face meetings more effective than net discussions; but this doesn't really prove anything. In any event, the net can do things which are not possible for face to face meetings. The maximum number of effective participants in a discussion is larger: about 20 vs. about 8. Net discussions can involve people for whom face to face meetings are not practical, because of distance. It is absurd to think that the net will ever supercede direct meetings; this does not mean that it is useless. p.s. re 7:30 meetings solving problems vs. 11:00 meetings filled with "yammering": I suspect this difference is due entirely to the number of people at the meetings, not to only those really concerned showing up. The "night people" in that department, for whom getting up for a 7:30 meeting is a real inconvenience, not a minor schedule adjustment, probably feel annoyed at being left out of the decision-making process -- and rightly so. Frank Adams ihnp4!philabs!pwa-b!mmintl!franka Multimate International 52 Oakland Ave North E. Hartford, CT 06108