Clark and Brennan (1991) argue that in order for a conversation to be successful and efficient, the must exist common ground, mutual understanding of each others' utterances. The first example of this occurred when the following conversation took place:
Me: Aight, how do we go about doing this?
SM: i can set it up
Me: using what?
Me: wait
Me: lemme see your p-dank blog
This utterance may seem to not make any sense, but there are a few facts that allow me to say this without any explanation. First, I know that he goes to Providence College. Ever since he started calling Cornell "Cornhole," I needed a nickname for his school, so I came up with the clever name of "P-dank."
Much of our conversation had moments such as the one above. One of us would make a reference, but because of the repetition of our references, we share this common ground, and the references do not need to be explained.
There were a few aspects of grounding which made this exchange very efficient. First is the cotemporality. The chat is synchronus, so when creating the blog, our accounts, and other administrative details of our blossoming idea, we could give each other updates of our situations live. There was also the aspect of simultaneity. Since we both could send and receive messages, we could adapt based on the other's input. The messages are reviewable. this helped for two reasons. First, I can do this blog post. Second, if either of us missed instructions, we do not have to repeat them back. Finally, our conversation was reviseable. When coming up with a name for our blog, I typed in at least 6 names before actually sending out a serious proposal. Together, all these aspects created an efficient way to create what we hope to be a successful blog.
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Granted, this blog doesn't seem to be a time sensitive project, however it's interesting to note that you sent out 6 name suggestions "before actually sending out a serious proposal." The extensive relationship you have with your best friend obviously accounts for your productivity lapse, but I think it would be very interesting to encounter a study that attempted to map the time frame(s) in which collaboration technologies still maintained their usefulness to employees and employers. Eg. at what point would/does instant communication through IM become a double edged sword?
ReplyDeleteIt seems that the closer the two individuals, the less sense the utterances have to make (at least to an outsider). I feel that IM and text messages seem to follow this pattern because the medium doesn't really allow for much elaboration and chances are that the people who are talking via IM and text have a shared history together that random references will make sense.
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