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From: lippin@oreo.berkeley.edu (The Apathist)
Newsgroups: comp.groupware
Subject: Re: Audio & Video Needed for Group Support?
Message-ID: <1991Jan23.061359.27341@agate.berkeley.edu>
Date: 23 Jan 91 06:13:59 GMT
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Recently szabo@crg5.UUCP (Nick Szabo) wrote:

>Where the end product does not contain either emotions or sound/video
>-- the large majority of technical work -- groupware that communicates
>emotions, and for the most part sound/video capability, is not useful.

I design software which contains little emotion, sound, or video.
Nevertheless, when I'm considering new features or new ways of doing
things, I talk to people face-to-face, rather than by email.  I want
their emotional reaction to the changes, so that I can design a
product that will please people.

Wearing another hat, I'm a mathematician.  In this role, I attempt to
produce theorems and proofs.  I'm interested in my colleagues'
emotional reactions to these as well.  Why?  Because a good theorem
isn't just true -- there are scads of true theorems just lying about
-- it also has to be either interesting or useful.  Or both, for a
really good theorem.  If it's neither interesting nor useful, there's
no way it'll get published.

This brings me to a secondary product: communication.  I want the
papers and courses I put together to be clear and easy to follow.
Emotional feedback is essential in getting the presentation right.  I
greatly prefer one-on-one tutoring to classroom lecturing for this
reason.  Similarly, it's generally accepted that small classes are
more effective than large lectures.  And getting the reactions of a
test reader is a very good way to find the confusing spots in a paper.
(And a sense of confusion is *very* difficult to gauge through email.)

When considering needs like these for emotional communication in
technical fields, I'm hard pressed to find technical fields that
wouldn't benefit from working it better into their groupware.

					--Tom Lippincott
					  lippin@math.berkeley.edu

 "I enjoy working with humans, and have stimulating relationships with them."
					--HAL