Dear Susan Cain,
I really enjoyed your article “The Rise of the Groupthink”.
The importance of solitude in fostering creativity is an idea that I have often
suspected but never heard explicitly stated. I must admit you made a very
compelling argument and had me thoroughly convinced of its importance.
Reflecting on my own experiences in groupthinks, last semester many of my
classes had me collaborating with groups for final projects and it was
certainly a challenging experience. In hindsight, I must say that given the
opportunity to work alone, I am almost certain I could have put together better
projects for all of those classes. Many of the hindrances to our productivity
as a group were the exact reasons you highlighted in your article, whether it
was social, sexual, conformity, interruptions, fear of rejection and so on.
That being said, I learned a lot from your article in terms
of how to maximize productivity. Finding the right balance between solitude and
group work is certainly a challenge, but being aware of this challenge at least
increases the chances of getting it right. Your point at the end of the article
that computer monitors offer the best of both worlds, in providing a screen of
solitude as well as a collaborative and creative environment is one that draws
many parallels to Clay Shirky’s article “Personal Motivation Meets
Collaborative Production”. The idea that
websites like Wikipedia allow people to in a sense “Groupthink” over a page in
a never-ending process is in essence the same idea as your point and perhaps
this is why Wikipedia proves to be such a popular and efficient website.
Interestingly enough, it seems as though the easiest
solution to this problem is to have people collaborate in an online setting
whenever group work is necessary. Google Docs is an application that comes to
mind and one that would solve a lot of the problems that group work often
creates. Could it really be so simple?
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