Re: [debian.nl] English version: help requested.... (fwd)
On Mon, 18 Mar 2002, Gaby Rasters wrote:
> . . .
> I'm a Phd researcher from the university of Nijmegen, conducting research on
> virtual communication. I work in a EU funded virtual research team
> (conducting research on the e-mail use within different organizations), but
> this team I work in does not work at all! This team is very reluctant to
> use virtual communication and every decision that needs to be made is being
> delayed untill the face-to-face meeting. What are we doing wrong? I wrote a
> . . .
Studying a phenomenon is not always compatible with participating in it,
although this need not be the rule. However, I would suspect that you
would arrive at some sort of paradox if your study would conclude that
virtual collaboration is wonderful whereas your study group couldn't
do a thing with it.
I believe that strong motivation, a technologically inclined (sub)culture
and a common vision with a well-defined 'univers de discours' play critical
roles in successful virtual collaboration. The fact that Debian is scattered
across the four corners of the earth is not a conscious choice but a fact of
life and the organization which has subsequently evolved has been born out of
necessity in response to this state of affairs.
This is altogether different from a brick-and-mortar organization which elects
to go virtual as an added option. The road from brick-and-mortar to
brick-and-click has become notorious as one laden with resistance, thresholds,
mine fields and dead ends, only to be circumvented by a weighed analysis of the
particular organization's strengths and weaknesses, communicative style
and company culture, just to name a few factors.
Your challenge would in my mind be to define the added value or the
extension which virtual collaboration would lend to a general sociological
model of communication and cooperation. I wish you every success in this
endeavor.
Cordially yours,
Silvester Claassen,
InterNLnet BV
1024/34F7B755 D3AA A281 D971 054F 7F38 3675 C68D AF79 34F7 B755
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