Signal vs. Noise LO2627

Bud Murphy (Bud_Murphy_at_AHR-CMDNT1@mail.hq.faa.gov)
Wed, 30 Aug 95 09:15:59 EST

Replying to LO2614 --

In LO2614 Carol Anne Ogdin responds to LO2591, Michael McMaster. In
one of her paragraphs she says.

"In practice, especially in interpersonal communications, there is
truly noise, and there is information which masquerades as noise. An
example: Our job is to decide what vehicle to use to convey some
products somewhere. We consider trucks, rail, airplanes. Somebody
says "horseback." Is that noise, or the seed of a new idea? Depends
on context (are you delivering to the High Himalayas?). There is,
however, true noise for which there is no substantive information to
be extracted that is relevant to the context ("Did you see the story
in the paper today about the grass fire that got out of control?")."

My comment:
One way around the apparent dilemma of wanting to promote creativity
on the one hand and minimize process loses due to noise (potential low
signal to noise ratio)is to have the group clearly move between two
separate processes, 1) divergent and 2) convergent, each with a
different primary intention. This is especially relevant when you have
something like GroupSystems and can capture the signal and noise mix
during the 1) divergent process and can apply various criteria
(filters) to what you have captured during the 2) convergent process.
This is one way to avoid the lose of a potential "signal" that at
first seems like "noise". ("Did you see the story in the paper today
about the grass fire that got out of control?"...they used an all
terrain vehicle that can deliver our product to the High Himalayas and
they used GPS and radio communications to locate and guide the
delivery. I think we can use both of those ideas with some adaptation
to our delivery challenge...)

--
"Bud Murphy" <Bud_Murphy_at_AHR-CMDNT1@mail.hq.faa.gov>