So I'll have to admit that fan behavior is probably not my favorite topic, and I feel that my lack of enthusiasm was evident in class Monday night. My problem I think is that this question is huge. "How can we positively affect fan behavior?" First of all, what does it mean to positively affect something? How concrete to the results have to be? Secondly what is fan behavior? I think my not understanding the question fully prevented me from completing the post-it note exercise. I had a challenge generating the words and phrases to put on the notes that were associated with the question because I spent a lot of the time trying to figure out what the question meant. Still grappling with the definition, there was goal in mind--what are we trying to accomplish? I struggled because I could not figure out what I was supposed to be doing.
The exercise in general seemed to be excess work. Instead of starting simple with basic topics and categories and adding complexity as we started researching, we seemed to start complex with the various post-it note examples. We then collected those examples into organized categories and labeled them. Now we're going to synthesize those categories into simpler groups. Those groups will then be researched and details and complexities will be added so that we can then write policies about what we learned. This may not have made sense, but my point is that the exercise seemed to be an extra step. Why couldn't we have just brian-stormed topics and then added the complexity with the details rather than starting with the details and then going to the topics and researching the specific details.
On a completely separate topic, the readings. In Heuer's Psychology of Intelligence Analysis,two ideas resonated with me: we cannot get rid of our biases and hindsight is 20/20. The first idea struck me when Heuer was explaining the hindrance of memory. When we see something new, we try to make sense of it by applying what we already know, what we remember. However, this something new may be so completely different that there is nothing like it that we know. When this happens, we try to explain it by finding something as similar to it as possible without really seeing what this new item really is. We see it at a level that makes sense to us, and that may not, and is probably not, the whole of that issue. The second idea is that hindsight is 20/20. When reviewing an analysis and trying to decide if an event could have actually been predicted, it is impossible to make that conclusion because the known events already happened. There is no way to correct for the bias of knowing the result and trying to analyze if that prediction could have been made accurately. Instead of looking at all of the facts and seeing what they lead to, a reviewer will look at the events and see them leading to the event that happened.
In Wrong, I was struck by the thought that whether employees are rewarded for their work or not, wrongness is more likely to be the case than rightness. When a company does not reward for their work, there is no need to try and get the right answer. Data can be manipulated and results can be altered because there will be no benefit or punishment if the results are false. When a company, on the other hand, rewards an employee for right answers, works is likely to be falsified just so that the conclusion that will get the employee the promotion or benefit is achieved. There doesn't seem to be a push to work integrally.
Onto the topic of blogging. I like that we are given topics to write about as I am usually at a loss for what to say. I never got into journaling because I could not find an audience. I had nothing to say because no one was going to read it. In the case of PLA, there are classes and topics and people interested in what we right which makes it a lot easier. My complaints are thus: I do not like that we have assigned blogs on which we are supposed to comment and I do no like that both the comment and the blog are due Sunday night. I feel like it would be more natural to comment on blogs that we want to comment on, rather than being forced to comment on someone else's blog whose topic I may be completely uninterested in. With this system, I am only getting to know six members of the PLA, the three who comment on my blogs and the three on whom I comment. My suggestion is to have us comment on three different blogs during our week to comment so that we get to know more members of the PLA and can find blog topics that interest us. On the second complaint, I feel that it is unfair to make the commenters repeatedly check the blog site to see if the people they were supposed to write on have written this weeks post. To me, it makes more sense to have the blogs be written by Thursday night so that the commenters have the entire weekend to write their responses and know that the blogs on which they are writing will be posted by Friday morning.
I know it's long, but I had a lot to say. Happy start of a new semester!!
The exercise in general seemed to be excess work. Instead of starting simple with basic topics and categories and adding complexity as we started researching, we seemed to start complex with the various post-it note examples. We then collected those examples into organized categories and labeled them. Now we're going to synthesize those categories into simpler groups. Those groups will then be researched and details and complexities will be added so that we can then write policies about what we learned. This may not have made sense, but my point is that the exercise seemed to be an extra step. Why couldn't we have just brian-stormed topics and then added the complexity with the details rather than starting with the details and then going to the topics and researching the specific details.
On a completely separate topic, the readings. In Heuer's Psychology of Intelligence Analysis,two ideas resonated with me: we cannot get rid of our biases and hindsight is 20/20. The first idea struck me when Heuer was explaining the hindrance of memory. When we see something new, we try to make sense of it by applying what we already know, what we remember. However, this something new may be so completely different that there is nothing like it that we know. When this happens, we try to explain it by finding something as similar to it as possible without really seeing what this new item really is. We see it at a level that makes sense to us, and that may not, and is probably not, the whole of that issue. The second idea is that hindsight is 20/20. When reviewing an analysis and trying to decide if an event could have actually been predicted, it is impossible to make that conclusion because the known events already happened. There is no way to correct for the bias of knowing the result and trying to analyze if that prediction could have been made accurately. Instead of looking at all of the facts and seeing what they lead to, a reviewer will look at the events and see them leading to the event that happened.
In Wrong, I was struck by the thought that whether employees are rewarded for their work or not, wrongness is more likely to be the case than rightness. When a company does not reward for their work, there is no need to try and get the right answer. Data can be manipulated and results can be altered because there will be no benefit or punishment if the results are false. When a company, on the other hand, rewards an employee for right answers, works is likely to be falsified just so that the conclusion that will get the employee the promotion or benefit is achieved. There doesn't seem to be a push to work integrally.
Onto the topic of blogging. I like that we are given topics to write about as I am usually at a loss for what to say. I never got into journaling because I could not find an audience. I had nothing to say because no one was going to read it. In the case of PLA, there are classes and topics and people interested in what we right which makes it a lot easier. My complaints are thus: I do not like that we have assigned blogs on which we are supposed to comment and I do no like that both the comment and the blog are due Sunday night. I feel like it would be more natural to comment on blogs that we want to comment on, rather than being forced to comment on someone else's blog whose topic I may be completely uninterested in. With this system, I am only getting to know six members of the PLA, the three who comment on my blogs and the three on whom I comment. My suggestion is to have us comment on three different blogs during our week to comment so that we get to know more members of the PLA and can find blog topics that interest us. On the second complaint, I feel that it is unfair to make the commenters repeatedly check the blog site to see if the people they were supposed to write on have written this weeks post. To me, it makes more sense to have the blogs be written by Thursday night so that the commenters have the entire weekend to write their responses and know that the blogs on which they are writing will be posted by Friday morning.
I know it's long, but I had a lot to say. Happy start of a new semester!!
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