Common Sense

Team Development: Jacob Chan Image: 13FEB2016 pixabay.com Lately in class we have been learning about collaboration and working in groups. Tuckman’s Stages of Group Development was developed in 1965 by a researcher and education psychologist named Bruce Tuckman. These Five Stages in theory, would prove to be ideal in many social situations where the creation of teams and groups. These groups were predominantly implemented in businesses and professional fields from coast to coast with very interesting results. Since then, Tuckman’s Model has been utilized and taught at the collegiate and professional level. Judith Stein was an American historian as well as an accomplished professor of history at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. In an article she wrote for MIT, she delved into the Stages of Team Development and how to implement the model in business teams. Her main focus was in differentiating a group from a functioning team . The stages are li...

Virtual Teams Real Success by: Jacob Chan Image: 3dman_eu/Pixabay This week has been about the difference between groups and teams as well as the type of impact that online coordination and collaboration have on our daily work lives. The author of the article: Getting Virtual Teams Right, Keith Ferrazi, iterates the important aspects of running an online team/ group. Keith Ferazzi is the CEO of Ferrazzi Greenlight (a consulting and trading company). Humans are used to working side by side together in person. We do our best when presented with face to face interaction with each other especially when functioning with one another to achieve success. However due to rising improvements and innovations in technology, a new system of a globalized economy means that that same success can be achieved through virtual teams of individuals in completely separate geographic locations. This type of business is conducted with a myriad of individuals who connect via the internet to comp...

Success in Groups and Leadership by Jacob Chan Image:  Gen. McChrystal visits Paratroopers in Gorbuz / Wikipedia Commons This week we reviewed the importance collaboration and leadership in class. Collaboration and leadership are crucial to success and they must function together in order to achieve success. Part of the lessons learned over the week were about group work based off of Tuckman’s 5 Stages of Group Development. A great example of effective and long-lasting leadership is Gen. Stanley McChrystal who commanded American forces during the War in Afghanistan. The tone of this talk consisted of Gen. McChrystal describing the relationship of leadership and working together to achieve a desired end state. He described how great leaders can and should allow their mentees/subordinates to fail, however not to become failures. Education, self-improvement, and leading from the front, are the core of developing the group. The intent of this dialogue was meant to i...

BITCOIN AND BLOCKCHAIN SOFTWARE Image: Michael Wuensch/ Pixabay Don Tapscott is an international business consultant, author, and speaker. In his TED Talk he spoke about how Blockchain software is a revolutionary technology and has the potential to completely change the economy by serving as a method of conducting many types of business in a streamline fashion. Blockchain will serve as the next new innovation that is transitioning current markets and creating new ones. Through the act of collective collaboration and cryptography, Blockchain offers peer to peer (P2P) interaction without the interjection of any financial middlemen or latency in transaction. This system allows Blockchain to execute with little to no delay and efficiency across time and space with decreased transaction costs. Ted Talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/don_tapscott_how_the_blockchain_is_changing_money_and_business/discussion