u03d1 Asynchronous and Synchronous Communications

Chenista Rae Straubel

Business 4011, Section One: Virtual Team Collaboration
Prof. Gregory Gotches
July 20, 2005

Rich-media Synchronous
Rich media often refers to interactive synchronous styles of communications that
can include dynamic motion or feedback such as video, audio, and animation or
a combination of these features. Rich media offers a level of individual attention
(personal focus or social presence), accommodates a variety of language types
(text or oral), serves multiple cues, and offers immediate feedback almost
instantaneously. Examples of rich-media synchronous styles can include face to
face and video conferencing. Often telephone conference calls can be
considered rich-media because they do feature an immediate feedback loop
such as voice fluctuations while providing a personal focus.

Synchronous electronic media exchanges, such as instant messaging, offers a

text-based feedback that can interjected into conversations by participants who
can use “emotion-icons” or certain attitude cues often offered by surrounding the
text-based cues with symbols such as <<giggle>>.

Synchronous communication styles are effective when used in brainstorming or

idea generating sessions, troubleshooting and problem solving, polling or voting,
and outlining and annotating.

Lean-media Asynchronous
Lean-media asynchronous communication tools serve in the transfer or request
of ideas and facts or in the collection, dissemination, and distribution of
information. This “at will” communication style is used to locate or request
reference materials when immediate feedback is not necessary. Lean-media
styles provide a “documentation trail” that can be used for accountability,
measurability, and responsibility. Examples of lean-media communications
include email; snail-mail; application software such as groupware calendars,
schedules, and project management tools; weblogs; bulletin boards; and shared
databases.

Lean-media are tools best utilized in learning organizations to help team

members or employees readily locate, distribute, and use information. Company
Intranets are often used as lean media communication tools providing a place for
staff members to post requests or to respond to requests that can be viewed by
anyone with access to the Intranet.

In electronic asynchronous media exchanges, members of teams can post

questions which can be responded to by anyone at anytime, you need not be
present at any particular moment which provides a great tool when parties live in
different time zones or locations and have access to the posting areas through
the Internet.
 u03d3 Virtual Communication: Mailing Lists and Discussion Boards
Chenista Rae Straubel
Business 4011, Section One: Virtual Team Collaboration
Prof. Gregory Gotches
July 20, 2005

Mailing Lists
Mailing lists are used to send the same information to multiple recipients whether
through snail mail or email.

Electronic Mailing Lists (Email) have certain drawbacks to using Internet mailing
lists to disseminate information including the following:

Commercial, public, or business email clients or webservers will often not

allow you to view content that is not approved. Due to the nature of some
websites, many commercial, public, or business Internet access points
may block the site due to the mention of any content considered
controversial content (guns, etc.) even if delivered innocently. Individuals
within an organization, when collaborating with external team members or
vendors, have n control over commercial, public, or business access
points therefore delivery or access to the site or the newsletter from
commercial, public, or business Internet access points cannot be
guaranteed. If you are viewing from publicly available Internet access
such as that available at airport terminals, etc. you may not have access
to certain material based upon the security settings of the access point.

Sites and HTML (hyper-text mark-up language) email is often optimized or

tested to perform reasonably well using dial-up access at modem (56
Kbps) and land-line speed (analog telephone lines) greater than 42 Kbps,
and using a common web browser such as Internet Explorer (IE) version
6.0 with service pack 2 (SP2), that is Java enabled, and has FLASH
installed (both of which provide interactivity or animation). Performance
cannot be guaranteed if the analog equipment available to you through
your land-line provider and Internet Service Provider will not
accommodate the bandwidth required to view the site or email.
Performance noticeably deteriorates with older operating systems
(Windows 98 SE or older), computers with less than 128 Mb of RAM
(random access memory), and browsers that are not updated or enabled
to accommodate JavaScript and FLASH content. Again, viewing from
publicly provided Internet access points cannot be guaranteed due to the
bandwidth required (which is controlled by the access point).

Snail Mail Mailing Lists typical drawbacks include the reliability and dependability
of the postal service as well as an individual’s attention to “junk” mail.
Information disseminated through snail mail lists often makes it into the trash
receptacle without even being opened by the intended recipients.
Discussion Boards
Internet or Intranet forums such as online communities, newsgroups, bulletin
board systems, weblogs, etc., feature a “threaded” discussion area. Discussion
areas within our classroom environment can be termed a discussion board.
These areas are nothing more than containers for member participation that can
include ideas, brainstorming, information, or other impartations as required.
They are flexible and can often be secure areas providing limited access to
individuals based upon logon information or requirements specified at the time of
development. Theme-based in nature, they can provide a wealth of collaboration
ideas that can be viewed by individuals based upon their own time frames. Ideas
can be freely exchanged and notions can be imparted that can include other
feedback such as <<giggle>> or <<pondering>>.

C Straubel