A Cold Warrior's Rant...

[Stitch]

While all of those various methods of communications you bring up are itneresting they are not really germane to my argument.

"The god damn Germans got nothin' to do with it!" (couldn't resist . . . . .).

[Albany Rifles]

Steve,

While all of those various methods of communications you bring up are itneresting they are not really germane to my argument.

Once again, I am seeing a failure of staffs being able to operate effectively.

At the end fo it all they are failing their commanders and, by extension, the Troops.

[SteveDaPirate]

My thinking with face to face communications not scaling well is that at a certain point, the group becomes so large that communication becomes a 1 way interaction instead of a personal 2 way communication. With just a handful of people, each participant can continue to read the body language of everyone else and participate in the conversation.

On the other hand, when a single person is addressing a large group, it becomes a man talking to an audience, but the audience cannot participate in the conversation the way they could in a 1 on 1 situation. This starts to erode many of the advantages of talking face to face until you reach a point where a man on stage addressing a large crowd may as well be a video recording.

This is still more effective than a text message, but it is an entirely different animal than a discussion between a pair of people.

[Doktor]

rsm?

That is no.

Regimental Sergeant-Major

[SteveDaPirate]

never seen a rsm in action, have you?

rsm?

Face to Face
Cons:
Does not scale well with large groups

Never seen a RSM in action, have you?

[SteveDaPirate]

I think that people often try to use forms of communication that don’t mesh well with what you are attempting to convey to the other person. Ending a relationship via a text message isn’t going to go over very well because it is more of an emotional message than an informative one, and text messages do not convey emotion very well. Use the right method for what you are trying to accomplish.

Texting
Pros:
Doesn’t interrupt the people around you or the recipient
Allows people to refer back to the messages after the conversation
Can be sent to multiple people simultaneously
Cons:
Requires you to look at the screen
Not as fast as verbal communication
Doesn’t convey emotional subtext (easy to misinterpret sarcasm/irony/etc.)


Email
Pros:
Great for group communication when not time critical
Allows people to refer back to messages after the conversation (good for lists, addresses, etc.)
Can include pictures/attachments as a visual reference
Cons:
Not good for time critical information
Not well suited for rapid small messages back and forth
Doesn’t convey emotional subtext


Phone
Pros:
Instantaneous communication (you know the other person is on the line, they may not see your email for hours)
Can carry voice inflections to communicate some emotion
Good for rapid back and forth interaction
Doesn’t require the use of your eyes
Cons:
Not great for things people must later recall
Interrupts recipient
Disturbs people around you (can also be overheard)
Not great at conveying emotion (better than text)


Face to Face
Pros:
Body language can carry an entire subtext of emotional information besides what comes out of your mouth
Can mesh visual, auditory, sensory, and emotional communication
By far the most effective in most situations
Can form an emotional connection to improve later use of other forms of communication
Has been ingrained into humans for 10,000+ years
Cons:
Requires physical proximity
Interrupts the activity of the person you are talking to
Does not scale well with large groups

[Albany Rifles]

Automation as some sort of robot/machine gets the order and packs the needed materials?


Take an Army warehouse....it has a REceiving, Shipping and Storage Section along with a Control section. Each section has computer terminal tied into an enterprise system augemented by handheld scanners. This allows Soldiers to scan barcaodes which tells them which shelf to place the item on or which customer bin to place it for pickup (customers have their own scanners tied to the enterprise network which lets them scan a barcode so the items is properly catalogued and the unit is charged appropriately). This network ties into a parrallel network in motorpools where a repair parts clerk orders a replacement starter, tires, engine, etc for a broken item. And the company supply room and arms room have their own work stations which tie intot eh newtork to order their items they need.

In this instance the automation is a tool to move repair parts and supplies through the supply chain....new stuff forward, broke stuff back.


How do you make people ACT? You can't physically harm them and for many that's the level of tolerance.

Leadership....training....counseling.....employmen t advancement....and employment termination if needed.

[Doktor]

Doktor,

Do not assume what Ben says is true for the Israeli Army is true for the majority of other Western Armies.

I was not. For a simple fact that you, like us don't have conscripts.

The combat service support personnel (supply, maintenance, warehousing, transportation) are professional Soldiers (same in the USMC, Navy & USAF) who are taught those tasks in basic training. In our Army it is not "grunt" work. It has a large degree of automation tied to those tasks and skills required.

Automation as some sort of robot/machine gets the order and packs the needed materials?

And e-mail is a tool in the tool box. But too many use it as the only tool.

We have that problem in the company, as well.

...

I am talking about all of the information which has to flow to make a modern military organization successful...and people able to ACT on that information....not send another e-mail.

How do you make people ACT? You can't physically harm them and for many that's the level of tolerance.

[Blademaster]

DesertSWO,

Being an "ambulance chaser", I can shed light on why your case is taking a while to settle. Despite the kid admitting his guilt, it is the insurance company that makes the decision on whether to settle or not and the fact that the kid was under the age of 18 and without the presence of his parent, so the ins co may argue that it is not admissible. However that is not the point, it may be ironic or sardonic but the fact that the ins co did not settle and is arguing in litigation may be good news for you because if your state's laws are anything like Florida's laws, once the ins co refuses to settle to policy limits despite your offer of settlement up to policy limits, and you go into litigation, and you get a big victory with a million dollar judgment, you have a chance at bad faith claim against the ins co. and the ins co.will have no choice but to pay the million dollar lawsuit instead of the policy limits. Keep in mind that only works if your state has bad faith claim laws.

[Albany Rifles]

Doktor,

Do not assume what Ben says is true for the Israeli Army is true for the majority of other Western Armies.

The combat service support personnel (supply, maintenance, warehousing, transportation) are professional Soldiers (same in the USMC, Navy & USAF) who are taught those tasks in basic training. In our Army it is not "grunt" work. It has a large degree of automation tied to those tasks and skills required.

And e-mail is a tool in the tool box. But too many use it as the only tool.

That is not staff operations.

And Ben, your task as a gunner for those command vehicles is not what I am referring to.

You are talking spot reps/battlefield reports.

I am talking about all of the information which has to flow to make a modern military organization successful...and people able to ACT on that information....not send another e-mail.

[bigross86]

Jeez, Ben, lighten up! I'm sorry already! For the record though, I don't swallow . . .

That wasn't meant to keep attacking you, I was just explaining the motivation behind my various posts.

Yes, I do sometimes have issue with too much cellphone usage, and like I said, I will do my best to make sure that my kids last as long as possible before they are hooked. Society makes it harder and harder, with 2 year olds already having favorite games on their parents' iPads.

I think this thread has stumbled out into several issues:

1) The gluttony of data and turning it into information

2) Email/Phones vs face-to-face interaction

3) Smartphones yea or nay.

[desertswo]

Taking that into personal life, the same thing holds true. There are times when a face-to-face works best, there are times when a phone conversation or email are best.

The previous post was more against the Captain's assertion that people on their smartphones need to be put out of their misery.

Jeez, Ben, lighten up! I'm sorry already! For the record though, I don't swallow . . .

Meanwhile, in all seriousness, don't you find the image of literally hundreds of people milling about some plaza or square in a city like New York, their heads facing down, eyes intently staring at a roughly 2X4 inch piece of plastic, and thumbs working feverishly, while they are totally oblivious to what is going on around them just a bit disturbing? I'm not joking Ben, when I say that situational awareness on the part of the average person on the street in the US in particular, but I am sure the situation is similar in any First World nation, has decreased in a manner that is inversely proportional to their awareness of the latest bit of wizardry that the little miracle in their hands is now capable. I'm serious; it is frightening, not the least because such a situation nearly put paid to not only my time on this mortal coil, but that of the lady seen below with the younger of my two Corgis who, unlike me, is impervious to her charms.



That would be my wife of nearly 40 years, in a photo ironically taken right around the same time as the accident that I've referenced. It was her side of the car that took the most damage, and she, who already has an artificial right hip from an injury incurred in a bank robbery (she was the "robbee" not the "robber") in 1981, suffered the worst of the bodily harm. The young man, who admitted to police what I already knew, that he was texting instead of paying attention to his driving, was unharmed. He's a good kid, whose father is also a military (Air Force) officer. I knew he was texting because having been a high school history teacher for six years before retiring for good, one learns how to quickly spot all of the furtive gestures that indicate attempts to disguise the elicit use of personal electronics. Having one's head pointed in the general direction of one's lap instead of focusing on the events around them (like me, their teacher as but one example) being the most obvious. The reason that the damage to both man and machine were not worse was because we were school zone where the speed limit was 25MPH, and when contact was actually made, our relative speeds, according to the Pythagorean Theorem was "only" about 35MPH, vice the 50MPH it would have been had we collided head on.

I provided the representation (I learned a little something about drawing "cartoons" whilst hanging around with all of those Army and Marine Corps guys at the War College and on the Joint Staff) below so you could get a feel for the situation I was in. My wife and I were in the purple car, and the kid who hit us was in the red. The green "cars" represent all of the parked cars along that side of the street. On the other side of the street is, as indicated, a little strip mall with a supermarket, the back side of which is seen from that street. The rest, thankfully, was open desert with no curb or sidewalk separating it from the street. This was the middle of the day, with school in session, but the young man who hit us has a job flipping burgers at McDonalds and as a high school senior, is granted the privilege of having his last class hour counting as an "early release" period to accommodate his job. Arizona is one of the states that does that. Anyway, the wife and I were heading home, ironically after a doctor's appointment, and he was leaving school to go to work. Otherwise, no other traffic on the street. He got in his car which was parked on that side of the street where the mall is, and there is a curb and sidewalk to accommodate parking in that area, and almost immediately he starts drifting, diagonally into my lane. I was going strait but was watching his erratic behavior and checking out my own options.

I couldn't turn right, which would have been the preferred maneuver because of all the parked cars, but I'm also not too cool with having a broken nose and a face full of anti-collision air bag if I take it head on, so I'm thinking that if he doesn't correct his course, I'm going to have to make a maneuver that you only do at sea in an "extremis" situation; turn to port!! (bad juju . . . no other way to view it), anyway, I start tapping the horn and he finally looks up. I'm close enough to see his face now, and he's definitely not looking ahead. I'm praying that he just slams on his breaks and does nothing else, so that when I turn left, we will miss each other. No such luck, I turn left and actually step on the gas to kick it in the arse so I can get around faster, but he turns right, and because of that, he collides with my right front passenger door. This was a 2007 GMC Acadia CRV. The damage to the door, right front panel and fender is extensive, and both my wife and I suffer some spinal injuries, and her right hip is now compromised, so she will needed a revision to the artificial one she has sooner than later. Revisions to artificial joints are never good.


Anyway, am I more sensitive to the issue of lack of situational awareness because of personal electronics use because of the accident? Probably, but only because I'm now better informed with regard to the potential costs, in terms of both blood and treasure. Regardless, they are wonderful tools, but I'm sure there is a happy medium in there somewhere, but until it's found, people need to be more careful about when and where they are using them. That's all I'm really saying. I only really pull out my piece when someone is trying to rob the Circle K and I'm buying a six pack of Diet Coke. ;)

[Doktor]

Usually the logistics departments are run by NCOs, and the gruntwork is done by the soldiers doing their mandatory service.

Gruntwork being loading and delivery?

Makes sense. Otherwise, no list, even if written with 24pts font wont be accurately done. Seen a lot of major fvck-up in my field of work to even imagine the horror of appointing a conscript to do anything above loading/driving.