I live in one of the cooperative living houses on campus, commonly known as co-ops. We do a lot of things together as a whole group of all 27 housemates, or within smaller subgroups. We hold house dinners, birthday celebrations, live band shows and things of this nature several times a month. I consider all of the house members as a cognitive system where our goal is a successful event, with friends, food and fun.
The initiation of the idea for the event may start as an internal thought and is represented by spoken words between a few people. Then, it takes a written representation when the idea is emailed over the house listserv for approval and support. This is when the specifics of the event are discussed back and forth. The details in this part are typically requests for rides to go get materials or contributions or invitations to people etc. This can go on anywhere from a couple hours to a couple weeks depending on the size of the event. Occasionally we have house meetings where the bulk of the idea generating can happen verbally with everyone present so then the written representation over email consists more of reminders to everyone to do their part.
Other than the monthly meeting, this part of the event planning stage is pretty loosely coupled and relaxed. Our conversing happens mostly over email, although a few select people who take leads in the event might have more tightly coupled interactions with face to face discussions.
The next stage of preparations involves transforming the representations into results and involves tightly coupled tasks. Usually a group of people transform their written or verbal contributions into a physical task of buying materials needed the day before. A couple hours before, some people usually cook or clean to prepare, leading into the very tightly coupled part--the event itself, which involves the most group interaction and can involve people outside of the house.
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When you said that "the next stage of preparations involves transforming the representations into results and involves tightly coupled tasks," it made me think of something that Olson and Teasley (1996) wrote:
ReplyDelete"For collaborative activity to succeed," they say, "it is important to understand what each other knows, and to build a base for trust and commitment. Therefore, meeting in person and sharing more than work tasks can be crucial" (424).
I can see that when it comes to purchasing materials and preparing for an event, tightly coupled in-person interaction (which establishes trust and commitment) is important. Trust is needed, of course, since in some cases, money is changing hands (with purchases), and commitment is important because if people do not follow through with their assigned tasks, the event could fail (with respect to both purchasing and preparation obligations).
It's great to see that you work so hard to make these events work! I'm sure that all of the co-op residents appreciate it very much.
:)
The same sort of point hit me as Eric said. The trust within your house seems to be really good with the amount of money that changes between hands pre and post event. I know within my house, the same thing happens with just whoever is buying food for a dinner or anything, we just all expect it to even out because we all act (or take food) in the same way.
ReplyDeleteI kinda want to take this a step farther though because it seems that there's needs to be a lot of motivation to plan an event. What really motivates this cognitive process when an event is very independently planned? I know for myself that when I plan an event for a group that I am a part of, I want to make sure it goes off well and without a hitch (our concert for example) so I involve a lot of other people to make sure I'm not missing anything. Has this happened? What would happen if these events were more tightly coupled to begin with (during the planning stages)?