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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
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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