Tips to avoid conflict and miscommunication in writing emails

According to the many surveys majority of all conflicts in the workforce stems out of miscommunication. When working in virtual teams or working across the region, miscommunication is magnified by the lack of proper writing skills, whether in emails, memos, instant messaging (IM) or even blogs and other social media.

These are few simple things that you can keep in mind when writing an email:

• · Simplify your messages. The more simple your message will be, the less misunderstanding it will cause. You should keep your messages short and to the point.

• · Use bullet points. Bring your main ideas to the front to help reader familiarize with your ideas quicker.

• · Never write full sentences in CAPS. Capital letters symbolizes shouting. Nobody likes to be yelled at.

• · Use calm colors: Using red font usually means anger or danger. Use calmer colors like green or blue unless you need to mark very important date or number.

• · Don't send emails without subject. Subject will help using search functions in email browsers. Also subject shows basic email content.

• · If you send an email at 1 am then you are implying: "you can call me anytime you want". Respecting Work Life Balance is extremely important. Unless it is urgent don't send emails after working hours, you can always schedule to send later.

• · Avoid the URGENT and (!)High importance/priority signs: Some people are used to overuse signs like HIGH IMPORTANCE or HIGH PRIORITY to a point that people just ignore them all.

• · And finally, read the email before sending it. We discover a lot of mistakes just by reading it again. If it is an email going to important person, try to get a colleague to read it as well. Some sentences might make sense to you but not to the reader.

References:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook-help/12-tips-for-better-e-mail-etiquette-HA001205410.aspx

http://www.ehow.com/way_5286494_group-email-etiquette.html

http://www.ideasgrp.com/blog/blog-entry/9-tips-avoid-conflict-and-miscommunication-writing-emails

Subversion in cooperative software developement

Software development companies are frequently working on large projects. These projects demand cooperative work of database analyst, graphic designers, developers, testers and project managers. The key problem in development process is how to collect, backup, maintain, versioning and revision the source code, models, documentation and other data from different team members.

One of the best know versioning and revision control system is Apache Subversion, also known as SVN. Apache Subversion consist of two main parts - client part and server part.

Server part of SVN contains repository (central storage). Repository physically contains files of all involved team members and also former versions of these files.

The main role of client part is to provide functionality for obtaining copy of actual data from repository (Update, Checkout) and to send modified data back to repository (Commit).

The important feature of SVN is that team member who is modifying some file can lock this file, to prevent modification of this file by another team member at the same time. SVN provides functionality for merging different versions of specific file to one new version. SVN also backup all older versions of file and it's easy to restore the former version.

Simple example of using SVN:

1. Developer downloads actual data from server repository to local folder (Ckeckout).

2. Develpoer modifies the file or add new files.

3. Developer sends modified files or new files back to repository (Commit).

4. Next developer can download modified file from server (Checkout) and provide his own modification.

SVN is developed by CollabNet and it's an Open Source multiplatform software provided free of charge also for commercial use.

Lot of Integrated development environments (IDEs) like NetBeans, Microsoft Visual Studio or Eclipse offers add-ons provides functionality of SVN directly from IDE. There is also a lot of external tools which provide easy interface for using SVN, one of the most common is TortoiseSVN.

References:
http://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.5/svn-book.pdf
http://subversion.apache.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache_Subversion
http://tortoisesvn.tigris.org/

Trolling!

Trolling is no longer just the act of acquiring delicious frutti di mare and Trolls are no longer brutes living under bridges demanding tributes. The term has gained a new meaning in the Internet, referring to both 'Trolls', people who haunt Internet messageboards in order to get their jollies from provoking forum members into exaggerated emotional responses, and 'trollin', the previously mentioned behavior.

Trollface, popular caricature image of a
Troll in an act of succesful provocation.

Prelevance: The act of trolling is generally more or less universal in the internet. While this sort of behavior would be regarded as borderline sociopathic in a real life setting, many people engage in it in an online one. Personally I do not believe that the environment itself exactly 'turns' people into troublemakers that they would not in other setting be, but that the internet simply provides ideal opportunity for it: Not only is concealing and falsifying your identity exceedingly simple, the environment of Internet also shields the perpetrator from both idenfication and even physical harm, which would be a very real possibility if such hijinks were attempted in another setting.

Entymology: The word trolling originates from the practice of fishing, and refers to the act of attracting or 'baiting' gullible users into the conversation [Free Online Dictionary]. This term assumably leads to the word 'Troll' being used to describe people who practice the said behavior. Since Troll refers to particularly unruly mythological creature as well [Kvideland, Reimund. Sehmsdorf, Henning K.] the word gains a fitting double meaning.


Source:
[Indiana University] "University Information Technology Services", fetched 24.01.2011
( http://kb.iu.edu/data/afhc.html )

References:

[Kvideland, Reimund. Sehmsdorf, Henning K.] "Scandinavian Folk Belief and Legend." University of Minnesota Press. 2010.

[Free Online Dictionary] http://www.thefreedictionary.com/trolling, fetched 24.01.2011

Creating music through groupware software

Mostly groupware software usually seems to be noted as communication tools and social collaboration. The collaborative software could be used for serious creation as well, as for example handing out pieces of code or programs or other information and buildind one bigger work from various locations. My interest in this blog post in the otherhand is towards the possibilities of groupware software in creation of music and exchanging musical ideas between artists.

Trough globalization and internet the people are also changing their aspects into more international way of thinking. Also there are many artists worldwide who are skilled musicians and have somekind of a homestudio options for recording music, trough groupware software it is possible also to build up recordings internationally. For example musicians could have a whole band kind of a project without leaving their homestudios. As it also was noted in Ville’s post earlier this week a group is: “people having a shared purpose, being aware of each other, interacting and communicating with each other”. That purpose could also be creating music and exchanging ideas with other musicians. In one case these people shouldn't even need to be familiar with each other in real life, they just need to have a common goal.

I have been trying to use google to search for this kind of international collaborative music projects, which wouldn’t really include people meeting each others in real life environment. At the moment I didn’t find any, maybe because I didn’t know how to search for them correctly, but I know these kind of projects do exist, so if someone has more information, it would be kind to post a comment.

I was able to find an article about cooperative music notation using the Moods system. (Music Object Oriented Distributed System). ACM: http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=568515 . Though this article is interesting it is more of a music composing and notation, than about realtime remote music creation. I could imagine many different groupware applications, as the simpliest email, could be used in creating music and sending parts of recordings to each participants of the project and so the piece could be in cooperation trough the home studios. But I could also imagine a recording program that could work in realtime, like for example google docs and wiki’s work for collaborative document creation. Though maybe that kind of applications already exist, I just am not aware of them or maybe that is just a vision of a future home recording.

As it seems, the purpose of this blog post is not to be a very informative one, but more of challenging people think that how groupware software could also be used for music and for other kinds of art as well and if possible it would be great to hear different aspects around this topic and also build my own information more around it. I believe the possibilities for collaborative creation could be endless, if the tools just would be right.

Definitions of Groupware

Groupware is a term I have no memory of running into before I took the course, so I figured I could take some time to think about the definitions of groupware in my first blog post. There are multiple definitions for groupware, but to put it simply, as I understood it, groupware is computer software that helps a group of people achieve their goal by helping them communicate and collaborate more effectively. There are multiple alternative terms for groupware – like collaborative computing, multiuser applications and computer-supported cooperative work (Grudin, 1994).

Examples of groupware include some very familiar applications, like email and instant messaging. When thinking about it, I quickly formed the impression that nowadays almost any software is, to some extent, groupware. This may be the result of web 2.0 and the rise of social media applications, in which communication with others are greatly supported.

It is also important to define what a group is. According to the lecture slides, a group is a set of “people having a shared purpose, being aware of each other, interacting and communicating with each other”. It was said in the lecture that there may be a difference between a team and a group. My impression was that in a team there is a stricter structure and the responsibilities of each individual are defined in greater detail than in a group.

As a sidenote, I started to wonder if videogames and such can be considered to be groupware. It is common that players have shared goals and collaboration to reach these goals is required. However, it should be noted that in these cases the goals are generated inside the software itself and only exist inside the software. Thus, strictly speaking, the game is not “supportive software” to reach the goals, but rather a requirement. Then again, it could also be argued that some individual elements inside the games are groupware – for example party chats.

Wikipedia's WikiProjects

In my bachelor's thesis I wrote about cooperation in Wikipedia's WikiProjects. WikiProjects are groups of WikiPedia users with a common interest in a particular subject. Some of these groups are alive and doing just fine where others struggle due to a lack in active contributors.

In my thesis I tried to figure out what exactly motivates people to write articles under these WikiProjects and what is the role of group veterans in activating and motivating new wikipedians to write quality articles. In online groups such as Wikipedia's Wikiprojects there are no fancy tools to support collaboration, so the interpersonal communication in a group plays a huge role. New members have to have the feeling that they are welcome and that their contributions are vital for the group.

As a veteran members, sending a greeting message to a new group member is not enough. You have to reward new editors and if they have done something wrong, correct them in as nice a manner as possible. The new members must feel like being a part of a community straight from the beginning.

Religion in public relations

Biologists studying evolution is wondering why religion is so important thing for people. Why they sacrifice a lot of their time and money and sometimes even their lives for when looking from biological aspect useless activity.

Last decade specialists from different disciplines - neuropsychologist, sociologists and anthropologists - come to help for biologists with a lot new data and researches. Newest studies show that religion is like social glue holding public in one social unit. Religion not only sets the morals but also creates some sort of sign language which shows with who can be trusted and who can't be trusted.

Most important thing - religious rituals must be very expensive and time consuming. Otherwise if it doesn't cost you to prove that you are trustworthy then it is easy to fake it. But if it is very hard to prove your religious devotion then it is not worth for pretend it. Studies show that religious people are thought to be more reliable and helpful.

In society that is based on mutual trust the highest treat raises from cheats and scamps. Principles and rules that are hard to keep is the way to sift those who only take and don't give back. Principles and rituals also foster confidence, they show that other people keep the same rules and are trustworthy and sincere.

For example: antelope is jumping up looks like showing off and wasting energy. She does not understand why she is jumping but tiger sees that she has lot of energy and he would not catch her. Signal truth value lies in antelope not understanding it and tiger thinking that is correct because otherwise wasting power would be foolishness in that harsh surroundings. In other words the more energy action requires the more action is convincing.

Same as antelope people sends right signals when they don't understand being trustworthy and willingness to cooperate - when they behaves sincere.