Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!decwrl!ucbvax!agate!brahms.berkeley.edu!lippin
From: lippin@brahms.berkeley.edu (The Apathist)
Newsgroups: comp.groupware
Subject: Re: Groupware Effects on Hierarchies
Message-ID: <1990Jun29.180641.18465@agate.berkeley.edu>
Date: 29 Jun 90 18:06:41 GMT
References: <2004@east.east.sun.com> <1138200028@cdp> <1990Jun24.130413.16511@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> <2092@east.East.Sun.COM> <WEX.90Jun28162053@sitting.pws.bull.com>
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Reply-To: lippin@math.berkeley.edu
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Recently wex@sitting.pws.bull.com (Buckaroo Banzai) said:
>I've been looking at this issue with an eye to implementing some groupware
>systems.  One of the things I've been finding in talking with potential
>users is that people really resent having something authoritarian-seeming
>made explicit in the computer, even when they deal with it in real life.
>
>For example, Subject 2 was observed to have this interaction:
>
>	Subject 2: "What are we doing about the XXX contract?"
>	Peer:  "I've set up a meeting at 2.  You'll get the agenda as soon
>		as the secretary finishes typing it up."
>	Subject 2: "OK."
>
>However, Subject 2 explicitly rejected the idea of having an electronic
>calendar system which would allow his Peer to schedule this meeting
>automatically, with him being able to remove it if he didn't like it.  That,
>he said, was "too authoritarian."

I think the problem here is territorialism -- by putting something on
Subject 2's calendar, Peer would be trespassing.  I've never worked
with anybody -- manager or peer -- who would have the audacity to
write something on my calendar, even if it was just penciled in.

The accepted protocol is to ask me to put it on my calendar, leaving
my calendar as my private domain.  This also has the advantage of
making me aware of each thing that goes onto the calendar.  I can then
ask for rescheduling or clarification.  If it went straight on, I
could more easily overlook it.

					--Tom Lippincott
					  lippin@math.berkeley.edu

	"Self meets Self at a cocktail party, exchanges business
	 cards with Self, and thus becomes Self Proper."
					--Jim Bolin