Gooooooo Team!

Teamwork Created in Tag Galaxy

 {Click link and type in 'Teamwork.' Tag Galaxy will load images. 

Click on the Sun and watch! Rotate and click on images as you travel around the sun!}

 Vicente's next step on the Human-Tech ladder is teamwork, hence the image above! I agree that as you bring more individuals into any relationship, for whatever reason, the connectivity and interaction between and among the participants becomes complex and somewhat unpredictable. Each, as Vicente says, brings their physical and psychological make-up to this new set up, which certainly impacts the complex wholeness of the group. Communication is inevitably a concern. Even for our project groups this has been a complicating factor that we have all had to maneuver around or find innovative ways to deal with it! Finding a time that all can get together, be it face-to-face or using Skype, for example, has been challenging. it has helped enormously to use a communal wiki and email.

You Turned On Me by Sammie

Then we have the delicate task of trying to assign roles within the group, although this seems to improve the more individuals work together. After all, people have to become accustomed to the individual nuances of each others ways of looking and reacting to the world! But who takes charge? Who delegates tasks? How do you share responsibility and accountability? How do you allow for different viewpoints and approaches? How, in other words, to you become a viable unit?

As Vicente recognizes, these barriers to effective team work have to be overcome for successful design both of hard and soft technologies. He states, "Designers must create a system that is tailored to the characteristics and needs of the team as a distinct entity in its own right." (p. 156)

I was astounded at how this inattention to designing technological systems to fit people working together as a team played out in the Florida Everglades Flight 401 crash. It would be funny if it weren't so tragic! Here, the "dysfunctional team" failed to attend to leadership and to designation of roles-especially when faced with an emerging situation. Sadly, I am  too often of in situations like this, although thankfully, the consequences are not of such enormity!

It Came To Rest by BrutalSF

For example, a minor household accident and EVERYONE tries to attend to the same tasks!
All race for the brush and shovel, say, to sweep up broken glass, and, voila, more accidents happen due to the bustle and hassle! It's inevitable it seems!

People, in general, are not prepared or trained to work in teams. In many situations this would seem to be imperative, especially when it comes to issues of safety.
Here is where the magic of simulation technology can be used to great effect. 

Learning how each plays an important and essential role for the aggregate was paramount in the videos below!

Awesome Teamwork

 

Not so Awesome Teamwork!

  

Gooooooo Team!

Make It and Say It Like It's Meant to Be!

 Jeannette's Wallwisher for Minding the Mind
Each image was retrieved through FlikrStorm  
using the non-commercial and no-derivatives search function. 

The Wallwisher above can be scrolled both ways in order to read all of the postings. Click on the link below the frame if you prefer to see the full wall and/or if you wish to add your own thoughts to the wall! Please feel free to add your ideas!

I created this wall of posted sticky notes as I read though Vicente's chapters 4 and 5 titled, Minding the Mind I: Everyday Psychology (pp. 89 - 110) and Minding the Mind II: Safety-Critical Psychology (pp. 111 - 153).  This was a way for me to pick out and note the questions which product designers should think about that relate to those Human-Tech psychological factors which impact the relationship between a technology and its user. In other words, the second level of Vicente's Human-Tech ladder deals with the human mind and how it attempts to make sense of the world: designers should pay heed to the limitations as well as strengths of people's mental processes. A major consideration during design and development of a product should be to create something that has a good fit with the humans who will use it - physically and psychologically. The technology should embody respect toward the intended users both in catering to human limitations and to human capabilities. In addition, guides for use should clarify not obfuscate any functions and processes. 

Here is a very different, and amusing, view of the way everyday psychology can effect your relationship with various products. Rory Sutherland demonstrates how advertising adds value to a product by changing our perception, rather than the product itself.

 Rory Sutherland: Life Lessons from an Ad Man

In other words, Make It and Say It Like It's Meant to Be!

Keeping It Real: Communications, Connections, Considerarion.

Where Good Ideas Come From, Steven Johnson: Animate by The Cognitive Media

The above Animate talk was created with Riverhead Books to promote and celebrate the publication of Steven Johnson's latest book, Where Good Ideas Come From.

Steven Johnson maps out the story of how humanity generates ideas and innovations and concludes that,
"individuals have better ideas if they're connected to rich, diverse networks of other individuals. If you put yourself in an environment with lots of different perspectives, you yourself are going to have better, sharper, more original ideas. It's not that the network is smart. It's that you are smarter because you're connected to the network."  (From Salon Interview)

Accepting that modern technologies allows for multi-tasking lifestyles and constant distractions he also posits that these same technologies allow for increased connectivity and are, in themselves, drivers for creative ideas, innovation, and invention. As he says, "Chance favours the connected mind." So, like Norman, Steven Johnson believes there are many positives that we enjoy due to our increased ability to interact no matter where we live or work. As Norman says, "throughout the last one hundred years, as technologies have changed, the importance of communication has remained high on the list of essentials." (p. 148) Obviously, for Steven Johnson, it seems that only good things can come from an ever increasing variety of ways to communicate and connect, along with technologies that reduce barriers for sharing ideas, 'hunches,' and blossoming synergy.

Tele by Rebecca Anne

I agree with Norman that in the past "people who separated physically would often separate socially and emotionally as well." (P. 149) When my family first emigrated to Canada the cost of a telephone call to England was prohibitive and therefore the normal mode of communication to keep in touch with our physically distant family was by writing letters and then going to the post office to mail them. Over time this became tedious and did nothing to retain a sense of close family ties, although we tried. Today, I communicate with our daughter, Collette, who lives in Ottawa, through video chat - at no cost! We are able to reduce that 'social and emotional' distance by not only talking with, but seeing each other. It is indeed a wonderful thing!  We are even in the process of setting up a free Skype account for my parents so that they too can talk and see their other daughter and related family who are still far away in England.  To keep in touch with friends within the city of Liverpool (where I was born) used to cost quite a lot per call. Now, our daughter Corrina calls me every day for a quick chat, and we don't have to consider the expense! Again, how wonderful! I can attest to the comment, "The ability to keep in touch throughout the day maintains a relationship, whether it be business or social." (Norman p. 151) And my family has yet to embrace texting - although iChat is becoming popular for us! 

Communication Age by Dom Dada

However, I hope that I never forget "that one person's 'keeping in touch' is another person's interruption." (Norman p. 153) Too often I have been enjoying a  face-to-face conversation with someone, trusting that they too are amenable to the chat, only to find that suddenly your special time together has been usurped by the ever needy cellphone: it doesn't seem to matter who is on the other end! Or else, you are watching a movie or theater production and suddenly someone's needy communication tool wants attention. We have all witnessed this I know. I agree that "the person engaged in the cell phone conversation feels emotionally satisfied, while the other feels ignored and distanced, emotionally upset." (p.153)


A new phenomena I have experienced is what I will call the "In group" and "Out group" SmartPhone culture. It seems that those with this type of technology are, as a group, taken with comparing, sharing, and playing with the technology: almost individually participating in  a group experience, if you will. The participants appear unaware of others within the social set that do not have such products - a similar diemma  to the telephone snafus mentioned above. 

Carphone by Sweens308

As for distracted in the car! 

As Norman emphasizes, "your visceral and behavioral levels of processing still function well, but not the reflective, the home of planning and anticipating." (p. 155) I have witnessed this too often on roads such as the high speed Deerfoot Trail, here in  Calgary. It seems that people cannot afford to 'waste' time: sitting and 'just' driving appear to be occasions for catching up on those conversations that one can't fit into 'busier' and 'more productive' times of the day. I know because I have participated in this dangerous behavior. Now I am trying hard to keep these words of Norman's in my head as I drive, " Continual switching of attention is normally a virtue, especially in the world of social interaction. In the mechanical world, it can be a peril." (p. 156)


With all of this mind, we shouldn't forget to Keep It Real!