I've mentioned before my choice of Google alerts that includes virtual teams and, of course, narcissistically, my name. Too bad I'm not a bold face name or this might be some fun.
Instead, I've been receiving alerts in the past week generated by blog posts from students in a graduate course in Interactive Communication taught by Alex Halavais at Quinnipiac University. Turns out a chapter from our 1997 book, Virtual Teams, is this week's reading in what appears to be a true "the medium is the message" class. In addition to the traditional approach, i.e. read, write a paper, students are required to keep individual blogs where they discuss the material.
Halavais keeps his own blog, with perhaps the most unusual name I've encountered yet: a thaumaturgical compendium. Worth adding to your list. In his "about," he writes: "The blog is a compendium of things I find to be magical; many in fairly superficial ways. Language and technology makes all things magical in some way."
But, back to the title of this post: several students have been struck by our suggestion that virtual teams meet face-to-face. Absurd they write (well, no, they didn't use the word absurd, but still...). Made me think back on writing that book (twelve months spanning '95 and '96) and how challenged we were in explaining the web, domain names, and online communication. Though, at that point, we were a couple of years into our website, on email for 15, and veterans of dozens on "computer conferences" (who even remembers that term), we still had to argue with the copyeditor about whether the "dot" in our domain name was, in fact, a dot and not a period.
Blog on, Paul, Sasha, Jessica, Bob, and the rest of the class. Appears from the syllabus that your prof really knows what he's doing (present company notwithstanding).
