My friends and I try to organize events almost every weekend to relax, have fun, and catch up with each other, and this often occurs in groups of approximately 10-15, depending on the nature of the event and the scope of entertainment. The goal of our group is to plan an event around an activity that is both novel and popular enough garner enough interest (e.g. seeing a movie, having a party, making dinner, going on skiing trips, attending sports games); additionally, we want to find a time that is convenient for people and involve people who get along. We use certain representations to allow everyone to share in the information—for example, we often send out a Facebook message and say “this is what we want to do” and people who receive the message can infer from the “Sent” list all of the people who are invited, and generally understand what kind of activity this might be (for example, going on a skiing trip with just the boys upstairs means intense skiing, but going on a trip with me and my girlfriends means we will have to stick to the bunny hills). This kind of representation is important because people will know if it’s acceptable to bring one or two outside friends, no one at all, or invite his entire Facebook network. The other important representation is people’s own schedules, plans, and moods, which include what visitors we are anticipating, how much homework people seem to have, and what other activities are already going on.
This representation is transformed several times during the planning process of the activity as we determine what kind of weekend to anticipate. People’s moods, plans, etc, which are kept in their personal spaces like agendas are transformed into a social space shared by friends, such as a Facebook message, text messaging, email, or hearsay. This is then transformed into actions, like buying supplies, driving, or attending the event, which all contribute to moving towards the goal state, having fun at the activity.
This task is usually tightly coupled toward the beginning when we are trying to determine the general activity and time and then loosely coupled to carry out the different tasks we need to make the event happen. Usually, ideas for activities spring when a bunch of us are hanging out and talking (face to face, lots of interaction) but later we will split up to pick up tickets, coordinate rides, or buy food.
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I find it surprising that you regularly organize events with groups of 10-15 people. Personally I find any coordination beyond 5-7 people is complicated enough. Matching schedules with interests at particular points in time would be very hard without the use of tools like Facebook in which we can house external representations. An interesting thing to consider in this situation is whether the coupling changes in groups of friends that meet regularly versus hodgepodge groups of friends. It would also be interesting to see if there are certain networks within the groups that experience a tighter coupling being that they are the "party planners" for most of the events.
ReplyDeleteI also think it’s quite amazing that you organize events for 10-15 people every week. Such a task requires a lot of cooperation and collaboration between group members, and my own friends, at least, would be much too lazy to do this. That said, I think an advanced tool such as Facebook plays a large part in your group’s ability to coordinate. It conveys so much information so easily, and it is easy to communicate back and forth between group members. Internal representations become Facebook comments, and this information becomes accessible to all the members in the group.
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