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Once in a while you can, in retrospect, put your finger on the precise moment your whole life stopped, changed course, and started off again in what would prove to be an entirely different direction. Such change was at work in the early months of 1992 for both of us.
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In January 1992, Zane Berge started work at Georgetown University as the Assistant Director of Academic Computing and Director of the Center for Teaching and Technology. Part of his vision for the Center was a place for scholars who were researching and using technology in teaching and learning to gather. To further that idea, Zane decided to start a completely electronic, scholarly journal--a radical notion in 1992. From his previous marketing experience, Zane knew that a journal has to have an identified and identifiable subscription audience, authors who are willing to contribute and researchers/scholars who are willing to serve as on an editorial committee. The reputation of a journal has to be built through the publication of quality articles, and subsequent citations in various indexes.
After further thought, Zane decided the best way to get started on the journal project was to start an electronic discussion list that would attract scholars interested in educational technology and more specifically, areas related to collaborative design in that general field. He decided to call the discussion group "Interpersonal Computing and Technology,"-with the idea that while the 1980s were the decade of personal growth in productivity due in large part to the use of technology, the 1990s would be a decade of increased collaboration and interpersonal productivity. This would initially be the pivotal discussion area for the group. While getting the technical arrangements made at Georgetown for his discussion list Zane started to advertise and promote his new list, by sending announcements to various lists where he thought that likely subscribers might already be reading and contributing.
One of those announcements crossed the screen of Patty Crossett, a librarian at Dartmouth College. While not interested in joining herself, Patty wondered who might be, and decided to forward the message to her friend, Mauri Collins, a graduate student at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Patty had met Mauri on a religious discussion list that Mauri occasionally moderated and knew that Mauri was interested in a wide range of computer-mediated communication forms Mauri was working at this time in the Faculty Development Center, sponsored by University of Nevada System Academic Computing, as she finished her Masters degree in Sociology at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV). So Mauri subscribed to this new list at the end of February, 1992 and received the first postings, suggesting that the new subscribers introduce themselves. Mauri promptly did so, describing her academic background and interest in the social dynamics of computer-mediated communication.
Zane was still relatively new to electronic communication in January 1992, having started using email the preceding fall. All at once, he was struggling to learn the nuances of the mainframe mail program, the intricacies of managing the mail distribution program, the cryptic language of servers returning undeliverable mail and the painful process involved in editorial decisions. Mauri also noticed that Zane was having some difficulties with the postings and appeared new at moderating and managing a list , so she sent some suggestions directly to Zane. By this time, Zane was totally overwhelmed by the success of his new discussion list and was working up to 16 hours a day on its management and agonizing over each decision and potential contribution to the list. Mauri's messages were temporarily buried under this flood of mail, postings and multiple returned messages (bounces) from the server that had been sent to incorrect email addresses.
IPCT-L was and is a moderated list, and every message is reviewed by the list moderator before it is posted, so this entailed, for Zane, constant attention to the list. Most experienced moderators tend their list 3-4 times a day, depending on the traffic; Zane was dealing with each message as it arrived. The membership of the list grew quickly, and the conversation attracted many scholars in Communications rather than the educational technologists that Zane had expected. The confluence of a dynamic new list, immediate growth to nearly 1000 diverse subscribers from dozens of cultures worldwide, and his novice status as a list moderator and owner, all served to demand Zane's constant attention to the list.
Mauri was ten years Zane's senior, raised and educated in a large city in England, and had earned two degrees in Sociology while working part-time and raising a large family. She had work experience as a general office worker, a professional calligrapher and teacher of calligraphy, as assistant director of public relations for a large Las Vegas Strip hotel, as a mental health technician, and had spent time working with persons with AIDS. She had also spent half a lifetime raising nine children, then ranging in age from 14 to 32. Her work habits were undisciplined, depending on "feeling like" getting something done. While her writing skills were such that she rarely had to rewrite her papers, she inevitably waited until just before (or after!) they were due before starting to write. She tends to be an extrovert, at her best surrounded by people, as interaction seems to energize her. Making presentations in front of large audiences appears easy to her. Mauri is a highly verbal person and tends to speak in '"flow of consciousness" mode and frequently forgets what she has said, unless she writes it down, and then often forgets to check her notes.
Zane was born and raised in a small, rural, central Pennsylvania town where his father worked as a guard at the nearby federal penitentiary. He earned a BS in Photo Management from R.I.T. and a doctorate in Educational Technology from Michigan State after winning an international doctoral fellowship competition. He has work experience as a training consultant, in photo marketing as a national salesperson for a photofinishing corporation and management/ownership of a small chain of camera stores. Zane married in his early thirties and has two children close in age to Mauri's grandchildren. His work habits are very disciplined and orderly. He usually has several papers under research at any one time with resource papers filed in neat folders, and writes multiple drafts, always finishing on or ahead of deadlines. Zane tends to be an introvert, preferring the company of one or two people at a time as he finds interaction with large groups very draining. While he can make excellent presentations, he prefers to write, research, manage and direct from the background. He chooses his words very carefully and precisely, thinking first and choosing each word before he speaks, but prides himself on keeping his word once given.
The success of his new list had quickly given rise to Zane being asked to write an article with a sociological focus for Educom Review. He wondered who would be able to help him with that particular focus as it was well out of his realm of experience.. He remembered having reviewed posts to IPCT-L from Mauri expressing her interests. He also had noticed her writing style that seemed to match that of this particular publication more than his own. He discovered the helpful messages from Mauri as he was able to clear out his overflowing mailbox. and subsequently sent an invitation to her to discuss writing the article with him.
Mauri received the invitation with some surprise as she and Zane had not officially "met" yet ( i.e. exchanged private email). While this invitation led to further private correspondence, most interactions between them still took place in the public forum of the discussion list.
A turning point in the relationship between these two, very different people occurred shortly after these initial email discussions about the article. Zane knew that he would have to go to England for two weeks in April to attend a conference that Georgetown would be hosting the next year. He considered hiring a local graduate student to moderate the list while he was gone, but was reluctant to leave his "baby" in unknown hands. Mauri, hearing about his dilemma, decided to offer her services. After all, she thought, she was a graduate student and had previous experience moderating discussion lists. That 2500 miles separated Mauri from the list host site was, she felt, immaterial, when electronic messages could traverse the distance in nanoseconds.
Zane considered and then literally proposed to Mauri to form a professional partnership, with work starting on the Educom Review article and joint ownership and moderation of IPCT-L. Mauri wasn't quite sure of the parameters of the partnership being offered, but was copied on some email conversations between Zane and the security-minded systems manager, as Zane tried to arrange login access for Mauri to his server. She was uncertain if what Zane was saying about Mauri being co-owner of IPCT-L were just "words" to reassure the systems administrator, or if they meant something more than her just being a temporary guest editor. So, being rather direct, she asked. This was Zane's response, indicating clearly his commitment to a working partnership, describing the dimensions of the partnership he envisioned and revealing much about himself:
From: "Zane Berge, Ph.D." 29-MAR-1992 15:34:24.57
To: mauri collins
Subj: Proposal
So, let's talk a minute about this co-ownership business. Let me tell you
a quick story....
As I may have mentioned, I have been in national account sales and business
long before education. Good sales people (and we ALL sell things such as our
ideas to our boss), do something in the business called "trial closings."
Rather than spring a "buy this" on someone right out of the blue,
homework has to be done; beating around the bush... call it what you will.
At some point, the question has to be asked, will you buy this idea. But people
that are good at sales, 9 times out of 10, know before asking what the answer
will be. If a "No" is suspected, and time permits, objections are
identified and overcome, and more trial closings, etc., etc.
You can take the man out of sales, but you can't take the sales out of the
man (or something like that). When I proposed to my wife, I did so in a hot
air balloon over Michigan, on her birthday. Since it was Nancy, myself, and
the captain of the ship in very close quarters, I handed her a card I had
drawn (sketch of a hot air balloon) with THE question inside, "Nancy,
will you marry me?" Believe me, I wanted to be as SURE as I could be
before getting up a couple 1000 feet, with no where to hide and a long way
down, that the answer to that sale was "yes." A long winded story
to say, I do trial closings subconsciously.
So, mauri, will you co-own the IPCT-L discussion list with me?
____
The more I think about this list, the more a partnership makes sense. But,
business partnerships are in a lot of ways, like being married. No kidding,
I was principle owner and vice-president of Alpine Photo Inc in the late seventies.
The president, Terry White, and I were "married" in a business and
emotional way in that small business (sales under $2 million), as much as
he and his wife at the time. I was not married then, but reflecting upon it
after I did get married (but subsequent to leaving Alpine) I was married to
that business and a business relationship to Terry that was as deep and emotional
as that now with my wife.
IPCT-L is NOT that large of a commitment on either your part nor mine. But,
proposing a co-ownership is serious business to me, Georgetown, and you. I
think it makes sense rather than finding a student assistant (who has little
commitment to this venture), to find a partner. I think you and I can work
together (yet to be tested, of course). And the risk is still relatively low.
As far as the list's readers are concerned, the next couple weeks will look
exactly like it would if you were guest moderator while I am out of town.
At some point down the road, however, I am going to have to deal with the
reality that if you and I become co-owners, I have to be willing for you to
not just be a "proxy" for me. You will have ideas that you want
to try, etc. I won't kid you, that is ALWAYS hard for an entrepreneur, like
me.
Also, we have both mentioned that we don't like to "maintain"
things, necessarily. That is why I latched on to the notion of eventually
finding some editors to help out. BUT I DON'T LOOK AT EDITORS AS BEING ANYTHING
BUT PEOPLE WHO DO ACT AS PROXIES FOR THE OWNER.
I really have not talked to you in depth about my overall plan for IPCT-L.
I do have an agenda. It may be half baked right now, because I never had to
articulate it to anyone. But I started this with a couple ideas in mind, if
it worked, that I need to talk about with you in a month or so when I hopefully
have a bit of time (e.g., the notion of a peered journal that I sold to my
boss--the main reason Georgetown University let me spend lots of time on this).
I think that I can psychologically become a partner again. This is especially
true since it will take a couple months for each of us to see how the other
works and decide. I think we have a pretty good notion that it will work or
we wouldn't proceed. But one never knows until one is committed how working
together will actually be.
I suspect, and I am being perfectly frank, that I will be very good at being
a senior partner (or a president with you as VP; or with you as holding 49%
or the stock and me 51%). I don't want someone that is only good for being
editor; yet, I don't want to fight about the goals that I had in mind when
I conceived of IPCT-L, or decisions I think would endanger the list.
The list is taking on a life of its own, too. I don't know what preconceptions I had for the content of the list before starting it, but whatever they were, they are gone by now!
What do you think?
Sincerely,
Zane
Mauri's acceptance of this "proposal" is equally
revealing (including her ease with building a hot air balloon out of the characters
on her keyboard):
From: mauri collins 29-MAR-1992 16:08:58.45
To: Zane Berge
Subj: thank you for your proposal
____
/ \
| | I accept!
\ __ /
\/
I@@I
and I am sitting here in tears...silly me!
You have no idea how long I have been looking for a working relationship like this...talk about an answer to prayers :-)
I don't want to be a leader necessarily...I make a great 'wife' and a crackerjack 1st vice--- my favorite working mode is just exactly as you described in your photo business.
I am married to a very good salesman...and know all about trial closings, overcoming objections etc. That's how I identified the 'sales pitch' you gave the sysadmin...and you have recognized that I can pitch a good one, too!
This was SSSOOO important to me...partnership is...that I wanted to be sure. And I was checking out the same things you are...if you were 'pitching Mark' that was fine, and I could accept that...and the temporary guest-editorship of an international discussion list. That alone was a mark of great trust and appreciation on your part for me and I am sensible to that. I never dreamed that I would even have the opportunity to do that much and certainly not so much more.
But if the possibility of being co-owner was for real...I just had to make
sure before I took off into the ozone in my excitement!
I pledge to you all that a good business spouse does...and offer you the very best of all I can do.
now, give me your phone number so I can at least say hello! er.. please?
I'm at (702)xxx-xxxx...
}|{ mauri
Mauri wanted to immediately widen the communication bandwidth and talk to her new business partner. She was not at all surprised when the phone rang soon after the above message was sent. Neither can remember much of that three hour phone conversation, except Mauri thinking how very young Zane sounded. But, for the most part, Zane and Mauri now started the difficult task of getting to know each other personally online, without benefit of the normal social context cues of setting, gesture or voice, or the memories of a face-to-face meeting.
Both Mauri and Zane were euphoric about finding a working partner again. Both realized how hard it was to attempt to share their interests in CMC with those around them, only to have peoples' eyes glaze over, because they had no knowledge of, nor interest in the Internet and what was occurring there. This was early 1992 and "Internet" was by no means a household word, nor had the educational potential of CMC been thoroughly explored. While Mauri was not acquainted with Education as a discipline, she was very interested in Zane's thoughts and ideas on that subject and very early on edited an article of Zane's that was later published in "Computers in the Schools.". Zane was delighted to have found the "techie" he so desperately needed to patiently explain to him the mysterious workings of the marvelous machines that made computer-mediated communication possible (and when necessary, to make those machines behave). Focusing on their similar interests and the growth and development of IPCT-L, they exchanged up to several hundred email messages a week.
Zane was still very concerned with their unfamiliarity with each others work styles and habits and realized that a lot of fundamental differences had to be bridged to bring them both into a comfortable working partnership. He decided one of their first tasks should be to write an editorial policy for the list so that there would be a consistent set of standards against which posts could be judged. In working on this project together it became increasingly clear that Mauri and Zane, while they had complementary skills in many areas, were both very opinionated, outspoken and forthright, with very different communication styles and work habits.
Zane and Mauri had many arguments on how much editing should be done to posts going to IPCT-L. Zane preferred to either post contributions "as is," or return them to the author for revision. Mauri had no hesitation about editing the text, as a newspaper editor would do. Zane's preferred moderating style was self-effacing with the moderator working "behind the scenes," while Mauri preferred to be an active contributor to the discussion and to work in a highly visible manner to encourage a feeling of "community" among list members. Zane's preferences, as senior partner, usually triumphed, but not until Mauri had made her opinions known.
Arguments carried on via email can be long and acrimonious when two people are so different in background and temperament but blindly assume that because they are using the same words, the connotations they each held were identical. The same type of comments that could lead to days' long volleys of emails airing hurt feelings or misunderstandings if online, often vanish when face-to-face with a conciliatory glance or a touch on the arm saying, "be patient with me on this point." Online they needed to develop effective conflict-resolution techniques or lose days of work-time arguing. Mauri had considerable training in therapeutic communication settings and worked hard at unraveling the worst of the misunderstandings. She developed the simple technique of saying "When you write that, I understand this. . . am I understanding you correctly?" giving both an opportunity to sort out miscommunications before they escalated.
Mauri later took a Speech Communications course that discussed at great length the difficulties inherent in two persons "making shared meaning," down to the level of the abstract words used to convey thoughts, ideas and feelings. These are the words that tend to acquire a load of idiosyncratic connotations keyed to an individual's life experiences. Mauri and Zane were often unpleasantly surprised at the amount of time and effort it took to literally hammer out a common set of shared meanings between them.
At this time, they finally exchanged photographs. Zane was surprised to see Mauri surrounded by a large group of her teenage children and Mauri grimaced at the strong resemblance she saw to her first husband. Zane left for England on schedule and Mauri took over the moderation of IPCT-L and continued with it for more than a year longer, but not without the occasional remonstrance from Zane when her more personable moderating style surfaced.
Gerald Phillips, then emeritus professor of Speech Communication at the Pennsylvania State University, a major contributor to IPCT-L and acquisitions editor for Hampton Press, suggested some research be done by the IPCT-L list members to prove that computer-mediated communication was a worthwhile activity for university administration to support. Stories were circulating at that time about the huge binary files of pornographic pictures being exchanged over the Internet and the hours students could lose in various network role-playing games. While research was eventually decided to be beyond the scope of the discussion list, a book was also proposed to help people in higher education sell the support of, and access to computer-mediated communication to administration. Phillips also suggested this book should be edited by Berge and Collins, the discussion list moderators. This led to another round of discussion between Zane and Mauri, who both agreed that their fledgling working relationship should be allowed to continue to grow. It did, nurtured by the exchange of several hundred email messages every week.
A call for chapters, distributed only through IPCT-L and a number of other electronic discussion group lists, brought in 93 chapter proposals. These were circulated for blind review, again by email, and plans were made for a face-to-face meeting of the editorial board, which included both Zane and Mauri in June, 1992 in State College, PA. Phillips had also suggested that Mauri apply for a doctoral program at Penn State, a move that was supported by several of her professors at UNLV. Mauri was disconcerted, but pleased when she was accepted into the Speech Communications Program as her academic interests were in the effect of moderator's activities on the conversations on discussion lists. She planned a trip to the east coast to check out Penn State. that would coincide with the editorial board meeting, her first face-to-face meeting with Zane, Gerald Philips, the editorial board and several other members of IPCT-L, including Faye Sudweeks, visiting from Sidney, Australia and with whom Mauri subsequently authored a chapter for the book.
Their first meeting occurred in National Airport in Washington, DC, where Zane, who had been delayed by traffic, was late to meet Mauri from her plane. Zane arrived looking and feeling harried and distressed. He hated to be late and got extremely frustrated when he got lost driving from one place to another and then had to spend extra time to find a parking place. (He tipped the parking kiosk person royally and used a space ordinarily reserved for foreign diplomats, US senators, congressmen and supreme court justices.) Mauri had collected her baggage and was sitting, patiently waiting, working on some cross-stitch embroidery. Mauri was rarely on time, didn't usually expect others to be, understood that there could be any one of a multitude of reasons for Zane's delay, and was prepared to wait, busy with her handwork and occasionally people watching, in the appointed place until he arrived. Mauri recognized Zane from a photograph, pushed his outstretched hand to one side and greeted him with an enthusiastic hug. Zane was immediately alarmed: he was very conservative and this was not his normal greeting to a "stranger.".
After a few moments of conversation, the disconcerting oddness of dealing with a physical entity dissipated as their conversation slowly connected the two intellects who had been communicating many times a day for several months. Zane, who is exceptionally near-sighted, explained how he had got lost, being new to the Washington area and unfamiliar with the route from his home to the airport, and remarked he was not a "map person" as he could rarely see the big green highway signs until so close as to miss his exits. Mauri, operating in her practical, problem-solving mode, reached for the map book laying ignored on the back seat of the car and promptly assumed the duty of navigator. Having finally met face-to-face, Zane and Mauri were able to understand each other's communication styles better and while this considerably eased their online misunderstandings, did not entirely eliminate them.
Spending almost two weeks in each other's company, they were able to observe how the other reacted in a wide variety of situations and to talk and talk and talk. This aspect surprised Zane: he knew Mauri was talkative, but would never have ascribed that adjective to himself. Zane took Mauri to visit his parents who still lived in the house his grandfather had built. He showed Mauri many of the places in which he had spent time growing up, including many of his favorite fishing places. Mauri fell in love with the lush, green Pennsylvania countryside and small villages of old Victorian-style homes that reminded her so much of the area in England where she had grown up, and that was such a contrast to the brown and dry Nevada desert and the raw "newness" of Las Vegas.
A technological addition soon significantly impacted their communication: a pair of accounts on Georgetown's VAX. With Mauri and Zane each logged into their own account, they were able to activate a utility called "Phone" which split the computer screen horizontally so they were able to type at each other in real-time. The arguments became no less acrimonious, but easier and quicker to resolve. "Phone" proved to be a valuable tool as they continued work on the book.
Mauri moved to Penn State just before the start of Fall semester, 1992, having divorced her last husband, disassembled a four-bedroom household and making arrangements for her two youngest children to live with their father. Her first semester at Penn State was a wrenching experience for Mauri, who went from being a well-known and respected member of the UNLV campus community to just student lost among 35,000 others. It humiliated her that she not only got lost among buildings on Penn State's sprawling campus, but even got lost inside them. Had her friends not stayed close to her - just on the other side of her computer-screen, she would have given up and gone home before the first month was out. Zane encouraged her fledgling interest in the educational uses of computer-mediated communication when, toward the end of her first semester, Mauri decided that she would need to know altogether too much about Speech Communication to earn a doctorate from that department.
Mauri changed her program to Instructional Design, and Zane's role enlarged to became her mentor and informal teacher. In Spring semester 1993, Mauri took a course called "Distance Education in the Corporate Sector," triggering an abiding interest in education at a distance; an area into which she eventually dragged a very reluctant Zane, kicking and screaming and protesting that there was no real difference between classroom education and education at a distance. This is a position Zane, to this day, still argues is essentially true and he still occasionally threatens to pull out his file marked "Taking the 'Distance' out of Distance Education," and finish that article.
The online editing of the chapters for the book proceeded slowly with constant disagreements between Zane and Mauri on time lines and schedules. Mauri felt somewhat put-upon with the extent of the clerical work involved and found Zane an impatient taskmaster. They both discovered the extent to which "e-time" is faster than clock time! When a letter is put in an envelope and mailed, the matter can be considered "off the desk" for days or weeks before a response is delivered by the letter carrier. Once an email message is sent, with delivery time counted in nanoseconds, one begins to assume that matters will be attended to immediately and that a message is being ignored when turn-around time stretches from minutes into hours. Time frames and expectations can become tightly compressed (and this spills over into off-screen life) when one's head begins to function on "e-time." Zane discovered, much to his disgust, that he would have to fib, and give Mauri a deadline that was several weeks ahead of the actual date, so that eventually work would be done on time. Mauri still can't understand all this fuss about deadlines.
In February 1993, Zane and Mauri made their first public presentation to a standing-room only audience at the AECT Conference in New Orleans. Zane wrote the presentation and Mauri delivered it, thus making the best of both their talents. Zane sat proudly next to Mauri who was standing at the podium, only to receive a lap-full of iced water as one of Mauri's more expansive gestures tipped over a glass of water . He now typically sits at a wary distance.
Since these rocky beginnings, Zane and Mauri have co-edited seven books, a dozen and a half articles, and made even more presentations. They have presented workshops and at conferences from California to Maine, and Wisconsin to Texas. As with any enduring professional relationship, they have grown together in their communication styles, academic interests and knowledge of each other. Currently, Mauri is the virtual conference manager at Northern Arizona University and Zane is Director of Training Systems at UMBC-once again they are 2500 miles apart from each other physically. Thus, their work is conducted mainly online, enhanced now by the occasional internet phone call, and bursts of frantic effort while attending conferences.
There are certain things partners must attend to if any partnership is to last very long. A few of these issues are unique to cyberspace, while others are the same as with face-to-face relationships, just made especially difficult due to these online communication channels.
Lack of cues online. The percentage of total communication that occurs non-verbally between two people who are face-to-face is substantial, often more than is conveyed by the words spoken. Much of this non-verbal communication is not possible when working online. Extra care must be taken to decrease the possibility that what is written will be misunderstood.. Over time online conversational partners "learn" each other's style just as they do face-to-face.
Time. While e-time is real-time unrealistically compressed, it can cause delays in other events. Building the trust necessary to enlarge and empower a partnership takes an incredible amount of time compared to face-to-face team building. . . Multiple drafts of a document can be passed and reviewed within a day or even within several hours even if the authors are on opposite sides of the world. This would be impossible or cost-prohibitive without email. It also tends to feed into Mauri's and some of her acquaintances' tendencies to wait until the last moment, knowing miracles can be worked as she takes advantage of e-time. Introductions to a multiplicity of people and access to their diverse ideas become quite common on an Internet that bridges not only time but distance. It is almost certain that Zane and Mauri would never have met except in cyberspace.
Trust. Building trust permeates all intimate relationships-professional or otherwise. The largest part of the early years in our partnership-building involved testing communication, setting boundaries for, and negotiating trust between us. Online communication over time appears to become compressed--with all the small talk and silences removed-and thus it becomes more intense. People share on cognitive, emotional and spiritual levels, so often reveal more of their inner selves than they would face-to-face. This often enhances the trust-building process.
Desire for increased communication bandwidth. There is a strong urge to increase the bandwidth and speed in interpersonal communication,. from completely asynchronous to a mixture with real-time;. from completely text-based communication with few non-verbal cues to face-to-face meetings when at workshops and conferences. Each of these increased the amount of communication per unit of time and allowed business and team-building to move faster. Zane and Mauri started as strangers with email and a photograph or two, and quickly added synchronous netwriting (i.e., one-line text messages exchanged in real-time), then something like synchronous chat (i.e., "VAX phone"), and now Internet phone. Desktop video conferencing can't be far behind. Mauri already has her camera on order. . .
And so our journey began in the early months of 1992. Six years later, it continues to take us to new and challenging levels in our personal, professional and intellectual growth. Last revision June 13, 2000
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Berge
Collins Associates
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September 9, 2006
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