An experiment I tried once, when I was helping mediate a 60-person round-robin discussion group (1), was to give everyone in the room four colored index cards: red, blue, green, and white, and assign them meanings by convention: red = “I disagree with what the speaker is saying” green = “I agree with what the speaker is saying” blue = “I have a question about what the speaker is saying” white = “I do not care about what the speaker is saying”
My theory was that by establishing a communication channel that supported multiple simultaneous inputs, I could get the flow control to be a lot more efficient.
The experiment mostly failed, in that people didn’t use the cards, so I can’t really speak to results. It still seems plausible to me, and I haven’t seen it done elsewhere.
My theory was that by establishing a communication channel that supported multiple simultaneous inputs, I could get the flow control to be a lot more efficient.
I think people already do something like this, using facial expressions and body language. Using your cards probably felt redundant, condescending (implying the speaker can’t read the standard signals), weird, or too explicit (e.g., when you want to signal disagreement/disinterest but also want plausible deniability).
So I guess I was hoping for some tips on how to read/send the usual signals, and what to do when someone rambles on despite sending the usual signals. Another idea I just thought of is to have a smartphone app that allows one to send a covert anonymous signal to the speaker (but it would probably take too much work to get everyone to set it up and use it).
I think people already do something like this, using facial expressions and body language.
Certainly. Those mechanisms weren’t working terribly reliably in a conversation that involved 60 people, which is precisely why I’d been looking for ways to augment the normal mechanisms.
An experiment I tried once, when I was helping mediate a 60-person round-robin discussion group (1), was to give everyone in the room four colored index cards: red, blue, green, and white, and assign them meanings by convention:
red = “I disagree with what the speaker is saying”
green = “I agree with what the speaker is saying”
blue = “I have a question about what the speaker is saying”
white = “I do not care about what the speaker is saying”
My theory was that by establishing a communication channel that supported multiple simultaneous inputs, I could get the flow control to be a lot more efficient.
The experiment mostly failed, in that people didn’t use the cards, so I can’t really speak to results. It still seems plausible to me, and I haven’t seen it done elsewhere.
===
1 - Don’t try this at home.
I think people already do something like this, using facial expressions and body language. Using your cards probably felt redundant, condescending (implying the speaker can’t read the standard signals), weird, or too explicit (e.g., when you want to signal disagreement/disinterest but also want plausible deniability).
So I guess I was hoping for some tips on how to read/send the usual signals, and what to do when someone rambles on despite sending the usual signals. Another idea I just thought of is to have a smartphone app that allows one to send a covert anonymous signal to the speaker (but it would probably take too much work to get everyone to set it up and use it).
Certainly. Those mechanisms weren’t working terribly reliably in a conversation that involved 60 people, which is precisely why I’d been looking for ways to augment the normal mechanisms.