Group Think, Transactive Memory, and Surveillance

Group Think is an odd theory. It refers to when groups are overly cohesive, in the sense that they are hesitant to critique each others weak ideas. Because they are thinking too much about the group and not enough about the task at hand, the results produced are often lacking. The group inadequately analyzes the problem, causing them to limit their solutions. Whenever i think of issues like this one in relation to surveillance, it reminds me of technological dystopias and movies like Equilibrium and the Matrix. In Equilibrium, government groups come up with the solution to eliminate emotion in order to bring peace to the nations. Ideas that come from group think are often smart, but it is usually very easy to spot the problems.
I hope that most of our governmental decisions are produced using transactive memory. Groups that use transactive memory feed off of each other by triggering each others good ideas. They are able to call upon more information in order to form a solution. This makes their solutions better suited for the initial problem. These groups tend to be more dynamic. In terms of surveillance, our government has probably come up with many ways to watch us, without us feeling like were being watched. Though this point can be argued, they have to respect certain lines of privacy and have complied to doing so.

Experian Problems (Fan, please respond)

After answering the identity security questions, I got this message:

For security reasons, we are unable to provide immediate access to your personal credit report. However, within 24 business hours we will mail you a letter with a special Report Number and a link so that you may return to our site to view your report instantly. To continue your order, select "Yes" below. If you select "No" you will need to call 1 877 FACTACT (1 877 322 8228) to order your report for delivery by U.S. mail, or request your report in writing using the request form at www.annualcreditreport.com.

What should I do?

Groupthink/Transactive Memory + Gaming

Group think is when a group of people work together, collectively towards one common goal – but with minimum conflict. This can be beneficial to a group because when all members are aware of the way the work within the group in order to be more effective, the overall out come can be better than one person working, or several people working without concern for others. However, when everyone is trying to get along – and work together, there can be serious retardations in the progress of the group in terms or originality and “out of the box” thinking. If everyone is trying to get along, then they will all try to stay within one range to keep everyone happy, this approach with limit the amount of conflict, but prove very ineffective for coming up with new, innovative techniques. Because no one is really explaining why they think what the think, further developments in each thought will be hindered by a lack of communication. If one were to take the ideas of someone else, and modify them, then real progress would be possible. In something like group think, the “to each his own” mentality will not open its self to combined thoughts and original solutions.
Transactive memory is a useful process where each person in the group is kind of responsible for remembering, and mastering their own area. Though disadvantages can come out of this, I believe this is more a positive, helpful technique than a harmful one.
Both these techniques are obvious in the gaming world. In order to work as a team, in person or virtually, people must compensate and compromise. Using both transactive memory and group think, people are able to collaborate effectively, and quickly, in order to achieve what ever it is they are working towards.

This Friday

Hi, all:

For this week, please bring your writing on the group think and transactive memory to the class, we will go through that since we didn't manage to do that last week. Besides, please go to blackboard and write down all the scores you've achieved up till now and bring it to me, I'll work with each of you to see how we could improve your final score based on that.

Thank you!

Fan

groupthink/transactive memory

Group think is suppose to allow a groups of individuals to work together to reach a common goal without conflict--however, when too many people in a group start to think alike to reach consensus, they may discount opposing views. For the world of gaming, group think can be benefit because people work/play together on game to develop and improve it to win. However, this does not allow room for an individual to progress on his or her own and may actually hamper the development new strategies to win.

With transactive memory, the idea is that people have certain pieces of information which they can recall on their own. Working as a group, each member is to know each others specific knowledge and apply it within some context to accomplish a common goal. With gaming, you can have certain players do certain things to win the game.

Assignment 3

When is this due?

Problems with Experian

Hey,
For the past two days, i've been repeatedly trying to do the Credit Report assignment and each time, have received an error message. After filling out the initial form and selecting Experian, they say they cannot access the report at this time and to try again later. I was wondering if anyone else had encountered this error message?
Thanks