Cohousing-L Mailing List: RE: Communicatons

[Rob Sandelin (floriferous]

It is my observation that communication problems are the norm, it is a rare
community over 20 people that has an all encompassing communication process
that works flawlessly. That said, you can examine your group and what its
abilities and liabilities are regarding getting communication needs met. The
key word is needs. Determine what is needed by all  vs what is desired by a
few.

  For some groups, especially those who have poor meeting attendance, email
may be a key method of communicating. There also might be some readily
observable patterns, that if you get somebody to pay attention to, you might
find some important learning and benefit from. In what situations does Email
work best, Does face to face work best, does a note on the commonhouse work
best? For example, it was discovered in our group that a certain person
rarely answered phone messages, because their message system did not alert
them to new messages in a timely way, and they rarely bothered to dial in
and check for messages. Thus any phone tree message left there, died there.
Sometimes things are announced at Community meals, which in my community
misses many of the households. Sometimes things are posted on the
commonhouse doors, etc. Sometimes people choose an inappropriate
communication path and are dismayed by the unhappy consequences. Apparently
somebody announced at dinner that their kid had chicken pox, and expected
that everybody would somehow hear about it. Well, no surprise, they did not,
and got exposed.

Multiple pathways seem to work best. A paper posting on a bulletin board,
coupled with email, coupled with a phone call to the NON-email phone tree
might get the word out as best as can be accomplished.  No matter what
system is used, there seems to always be a gap, where some people did not
hear about it. (Maybe they choose not to)  After several exposures to this
phenomenon, you simply take it for granted, that no matter what system is
used, somebody will miss the information. When it happens to be you that
misses it, well, I encourage you to take it with a light hearted shrug.

If there are chronic gaps, examine where they occur and then try out some
systems to fix them. But don't expect perfection. And if you keep what ever
system you create simple, and not very time consuming, then it might have a
better chance of actually working.

My own expectation is that in living with 90 other people, there are things
I am missing, and if something really important involving me is about to
happen, like a meteor is heading right for my house, somebody will go out of
their way to ensure I know about it.

Remember, it is possible that some people DON'T want to know about your dog,
kids grades, marital problems, etc. It's OK to set boundaries about things
you don't want to hear about as well. Sometimes this boundary is
situational. I got so fed up once with a neighbors  divorce stuff that I
just told her that I was on Delete and Avoid mode until the situation ran
its course. She actually thanked me for my frankness. She apparently began
asking people before dumping on them, a large improvement by most peoples
measure. Another person goes about telling details about her sex life. More
than I wanted to know thank you.

Communications in a large group is like riding on the ocean in a small boat
crammed with people. What you can see in the boat is only a small fraction
of all the ocean water surrounding you. The ocean around you is huge and
full of murky deep things, and light shiny things which influence the way
people behave and how, what, and when they communicate.  I have lived with
one person for 20 years now, and even after all that experience, I get
surprised from time to time. So be open to surprises with your neighbors,
and accept communications glitches with as good a humor as you can, it's
part of the adventure of community.

Rob Sandelin
Sky Valley Environments  <http://www.nonprofitpages.com/nica/SVE.htm>
Field skills training for student naturalists
Floriferous [at] msn.com


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