Rachel Schoenau Assignment #8

Last Monday evening, my group for the 3650 final project met to discuss our group progress. There are three members of the group, which makes it relatively easy to communicate and find times for all three of us to meet. Our last meeting took place face-to-face, but it began with only two of us, and the third member was a little late. This hybrid configuration led to a few issues.

The first issue that occurred was the “formation of in-groups,” which Dobbs and Crano claim that “people preferentially collaborate with in-groups, distribute resources to favor in-groups. Two in-groups formed; the first consisted of the two members who were on time for the meeting, and the other in-group consisted of the two members who share the same major. These in-group formations resulted because of collocation, as Bos et al. explains in his first and third hypotheses.

The formation of in-groups led to another issue of contrasting communication styles, which stem from “different communication cultures,” as discussed by Bos et al. Because the two members were at the meeting early, they were able to discuss ideas and establish common ground before the third member arrived. The two early members had to relay everything that was discussed before the third member arrived quickly to the third member, the telecommuter. The other in-group, which consisted of members who shared the same major, had a culture of their own called the “INFO SCI MAJORS.” This culture had its own terminology, such as the term “synchronous,” which was not understood by the third member who wasn’t an INFO SCI major, the telecommuter.

The third issue that occurred dealt with each member’s interaction with the display. We all discussed our group’s progress while one member took notes on her laptop. Other members were not able to see her monitor, which made it difficult to make sure we were on the same page, literally and figuratively. The two members who could not see the laptop took turns asking what the scribe had written down because they could not view her monitor. This wasted time.

Common ground in the in-groups was very well-supported. I suppose this shared common ground results from the effectiveness of communicating face-to-face in the same location. The members of the in-groups, who were at the meeting early as well as those of same major, were able to communicate smoothly with little miscommunication. Our meeting would have improved had all members showed up on time and had they all received common INFO SCI training. This would have reduced the likelihood of in-group formation. As stated above, it was very difficult to establish common group among all members because of the small display screen. Our meeting would have been much more efficient if our scribe had been taking notes on Google Docs so that all members of the group could have had access to the display.