Use your own brain to crack those wicked problems on internet

Washington, Dec 5 (UNI) Stuck with a wicked problem on internet? Try solving it alone as you might strike the right chord using your brain rather than discussing it with large group of your internet friends.

Wicked problems are those problems that by their very definition are so tangled that there is no agreement about their definitions, resulting in wastage of time.

''In this day and age of e-mail and the internet, our expectations are that computer-mediated group brainstorming, i.e.

across the web with no face-to face contact, is going to have the best results,'' one of the researchers, Mr George S Davidson said.

''What we found, however, is that people working as individuals are at least as effective and possibly more so than those brainstorming in a group over the web when trying to solve 'wicked,' tangled problems, both in terms of quality and quantity.''the Science Daily quoted him as saying.

Mr Davidson's team conducted the research on 146 people comprising employees, contractors and school interns.

They were broken into two groups -- those who worked alone and did not see the ideas of the other participants and those who worked in a group and were able to see and build on the ideas of the other members in the group via the Labs' intranet.

Of the 120 employees and contractors, 69 contributed ideas.

During the experiment, participants logged onto the website anonymously and saw the question displayed at the top of the screen.

They were asked to input their ideas , the more the better.

While individuals working alone nominally faired better in this study, Mr Davidson said, the research also indicated that group on-line brainstorming can be effective when ideas were needed from large number of people.

Another member of the research team, Ms Dornburg said the finding that individuals were more successful than groups in omputer-mediated brainstorming suggested a time- and cost-saving potential for companies.

Generally, when electronic group brainstorming is compared to face-to-face brainstorming, it is touted as having the advantages of shorter meetings, increased participation by remote team members, better documentation via electronic recording, and cash savings.

UNI