Buzz sessions

I thought the idea of "buzz sessions" (chapter 11 - p 210-11) was pretty interesting. Essentially it is like a large brainstorming session, or an interactive version of an idea web graphic. If you have a large group with a lot of different ideas, you break off into smaller groups, and all the groups give a small presentation on their ideas of solving the problem. I thought this was interesting because, first and foremost, it seems like this is what we do in school a lot. With a group of 30 or so students, this is a great way to present topics that do not need in-depth lecturing, or topics that deserve more discussion. I think this is a great way to cover a lot of topics and ideas, but it's also a great way to keep things fresh and moving, as well as to present different views and facilitate new ways of learning. Another great benefit of buzz sessions is that it offers us insight into how group interaction is facilitated in different forms and how we choose roles of leadership, etc (basically, everything we have been learning about in this course!).

Competitive & Collaborative conflict resolution

Last year I had a COMM class and had to do a group project. When we were given the assignment, I quickly jumped on an idea that came to me that I felt was brilliant. When we were given our groups, I quickly shared my idea and the group loved it. I had planned out the entire presentation based on my idea. However, that is not very ideal for group projects, and it did not really facilitate group interaction, so when we began discussing ideas on how to add to and improve my presentation idea, I had to compromise a lot. I gave up a lot of ideas I had, including specific segments of the presentation that I really liked, but in order for everyone to participate, we had to compromise and collaboratively settle what would be included and what would be dropped. To contrast with competitive conflict resolution, I could have held firm and told the group that my project absolutely needed to be the way I thought up or else we had to choose another way to present our topic.

Public presentation formats

Forums, panels, colloquiums, and symposiums are all different means of group presenting a topic and offering their solutions. They all end with audience interaction, which as we already have learned, is valuable feedback as it can offer alternative views and solutions to the problem at hand, and it also lets the senders know how well their message was interpreted by the receivers.

Forums provide the most open means of problem solving, allowing multiple participants speak in an orderly fashion. Forums can be thought of as large, orderly brainstorming sessions.

Panels are mostly informative, where a group of experts pose different answers and alternative solutions to the same questions. While audience interaction is often limited, forums are often better for audience members who want to learn more about a subject, as opposed to audience members who think they already know the answer.

Colloquiums are generally a discussion between experts with little audience interaction. Similar to a panel, these are often informative in nature.

Symposiums are the most informative of the four, and are essentially technical speeches given by an expert with only questions and audience discussion at the end.

As for which format I would prefer for giving a public presentation, symposium is definitely the most speaker-friendly, that is if the person is a good public speaker. I feel that I am good when I have a prepared speech, and if I am knowledgeable on the topic. If I had a group presentation to do, however, I think I want want a little more relaxed atmosphere, possibly the forum or panel format, where audience interaction was welcome, and I was given more of a chance to explain our ideas and have different views expressed.

Something I found interesting - Gibb's Comm Climate Comparisons

I really enjoyed the section on Gibb's Communication Climate Comparisons. It is so true that depending on how you word things, people will react and respond differently. This is very clear at my workplace since we have only 4 managers, but they are all very very different. Our GM is demanding and very bold and blunt. The one opposite her (more or less) is a young guy who is also a bartender and therefore has to deal with a lot of the same problems we do. He is like the "friendly" manager. When people have problems, I often try to resolve them with him instead of the GM because I know he will do better at sparking creative solutions to the problems rather than handing down orders. More or less, because of his open mindedness, we are able to be more creative and our workflow is much smoother. It is good to have description of the problems rather than evaluation, have a "we" orientation against a problem, be spontaneous, and empathetic as well. Similarly, the sense of equality is the biggest factor in why we try to go him instead of the GM.

Five barriers to creativity

There are a lot of cultural barriers to creativity. Some of the ones I can think of:

1) Race. Sometimes when we are in a mixed race group, we expect certain races to say or do things a certain way. When they do something different, we might discredit them because we think they don't have the experience or cultural background to have proper insight on the subject.

2) Gender. This one is similar to race and probably occurs a lot more than gender. If you are in a group with only one woman, you probably look to her for the "female point of view." Similarly, if you are trying to brainstorm about something geared towards males, there is a probable chance that her ideas won't get as much attention because the rest of the guys will think she doesn't know what she is talking about.

3) Age. Similar to race and gender, age gets a lot of stereotypes and therefore has a lot of cultural boundaries. A lot of older people in classes I'm in seem to back off when we talk about technology or something that has to do with Internet or computers. While they probably have good ideas, they always back off and let the younger people brainstorm and talk more.

4) Pop culture. If you are in a group and a few people are able to bond over music or movie, you probably notice that they are going to come up with their own ideas and act as a mini-group.

5) Being embarrassed / fear of rejection. A lot of times, people don't speak their mind because they are afraid people will laugh or perceive their idea as ridiculous. When it comes to creativity, there is really no right or wrong at the brainstorming stage. Sure some things sound better than others, and in the physical stages of trying out an idea you can see what works and what doesn't, but when you are brainstorming, any reasonable idea is a good one.

Creativity - Youtube as a scholarly source

The book discusses creativity as thinking outside the box. Essentially, it is building on something that is already established and coming up with a new form of doing things. I always look at the iPod and the iPhone as a great example of creativity. A portable music player was not a new idea – cassette players (walkmans) and CD players (discmans) were very popular, and as the digital age grew, it was bound to happen. Then of course the iPhone just combined and iPod and a cell phone. Of course a lot of the selling points in it are the sleek designs and interfaces with touch screen, but the idea of it is very creative – combining old ideas with new technology.

Personally, I applied that concept a few years ago, my first semester of junior college. We were doing an ENGLISH 1A paper and the professor told us to think outside the box for sources on our topic. I went to Youtube which was a brand new website at the time. Back then there was a lot less users online, and it was more informative than what it is now.. Or at least, there was less silly stuff. I got video clips of a documentary on electric cars and used that as source material. My professor was very impressed and I can remember him writing down the URL of the site for everyone to check out for their topics as well.

I always remember this because Youtube has grown into a phenomena but at the time I got creative and used it as a new resource to write a paper. Now plenty of scholars use it for source material and it’s a very well-known website.

Audio and Video conferencing

I think audio and video conferencing is an interesting topic in communication these days. It seems like we are finally getting it right. The accessibility of high-speed internet and webcams coupled with free software like Skype and Facebook video chat are making things a lot easier. Also of course there is FaceTime with Apple's iPhone, which is like a direct acknowledgment that sometimes just hearing a voice is not enough. In group comm, these factors are very important because when dealing with multiple people, especially strangers, responses are important and feedback, even if very minimal, can help or hinder a speaker. The book discusses video delays and audio clipping which can hurt the speaker but also limit and muffle feedback, which can cause the speaker to think he is not going over well. These are some of the downsides of group comm over CMC, especially in audio/video format.

On the plus side of course is that audio and video conferencing is the closest thing we have to F2F comm, and it is the most promising in terms of expanding the reach of who we communicate with. If a team of doctors can be formed using video conferencing and it can include bright minds from all corners of the globe, we are more likely to make advancements in medical technology and cure diseases than we would if we had to communicate via text only, or had to stick with physical F2F comm.

Anonymity, group size, and proximity

Anonymity, group size, and proximity are all major factors in CMC and can often have both positive and negative influences on group decision making and group success.

Some positive effects of anonymity are that stereotypes and body language and expressions are generally dismissed. If you don't know the person you are communicating with, while you may make some assumptions, there is a good chance you won't make any stereotypes based on race, gender, age, or looks. Similarly, group size can be good if it is small because that way a couple people can limit ideas, and if it is large, many ideas can be bounced around. Finally, proximity is important because if people respond quickly, they are more likely to be heard and the group is likely to utilize some of the earlier ideas rather than jump on late-comers.

There can be some downsides to these as well. Anonymity can be a bad thing because it can limit the connection the group feels and how well it communicates. Some people may figure that since it is anonymous they don't have to try as hard, and they may feel like they are less important, or that others are less important than them. Group size can be tough as well because a small group online can leave too much for the group members to handle, and large groups of course can cause confusion and too much information flow. Finally, proximity can be a problem because everyone could be speaking (or trying to communicate) all at once and some messages will get lost. Similarly, if everyone is further away from each other, the culture and thought climate could be different. Someone in Japan is likely having different experiences and has different feelings and ideas than I do.

CMC vs F2F

By now it should be no secret to any of us that communicating over the internet is way different than face to face interaction. We can all relate to the differences of this online class versus a traditional classroom. The book points out some notable differences and one section that stood out to me states, "CMC group members focus more on the task and instrumental aspects of the process than on the personal and social aspects of the group. Thus, they tend to be more content oriented..." (297). I thought this was a great observation and although obvious, the important part is that they tend to be more content oriented. It is so easy to get off task in a face to face situation – whether it’s over social or emotional aspects of the group, or whether everyone is distracted, or if everyone is putting in their two cents. While there may be a lot of distractions on the internet (how many of us have Facebook open while we work on this class??) it is also easier (in my opinion) to focus on a set of information if you have all the text in front of you and numerous tools on a computer in order to help you. If I don’t understand a concept, I can just google it.

Another big difference, as the book states, is lack of eye contact, body language, and facial expressions, especially for feedback. The book calls this “richness” and while it doesn’t exist in a lot of text based CMC mediums, it can be found in videoconferencing and audio communications. But that is not to say that CMC is completely free of emotion – many of us put emotion and personality into our posts every week.

The last concept that I liked from the book was the idea that CMC often times takes longer. I suppose there is the physical aspect of waiting for replies and such, but also I think we move slower and are more precise when we are using computers. Every group project I’ve done moves very slow and is very detail oriented when we communicate only by computer. Whenever we are all face to face, things move much quicker.