From Inky Unson:
In my reaction to "24 Hours in Cyberspace," I said that having "backups" for the existing groups might be helpful. And after experiencing the hard work of being mission control, I would like to stick to what I said that having "backups" would be helpful.
I believe that if each of us in the mission control had an "assistant," the flow of uploading would have been faster and more efficient. Honestly, I worked slowly and I even made mistakes during my shift as mission control. I did not have the time to edit my work anymore because of the "time pressure" we had. I noticed that I tend to forget some little details in the command such as the size of the image being placed on the page or the image source to put. Because of this, some of my uploaded files contained errors at first (which, fortunately, we were able to fix afterwards). But if I had an assistant, my work could have been error-free from the start because there would have been someone to check my work before uploading it. It does not necessarily mean that the mission control would be that dependent on the "assistants" if ever there were really some. I mean if I had one, I would not even ask him/her to do half of my job. Having someone to edit for me would be enough. I just really find it hard to be editing and fixing files to be uploaded at the same time. Besides, the "assistants" assigned could be the next batch of mission control. Being with the original mission control would be their practice before they work as mission control.
I also said in my previous reaction paper that knowing your co-workers would result to more efficiency. But after being mission control, I realized that it does not matter that much whether you know your co-workers or not. The important thing is that you have the same goal (such as getting the work done as perfect as possible) and that you are able to distribute the work well among yourselves. I am able to say this because when I was in mission control, only one among my three co-workers is someone I know personally. The other two are just acquaintances and I thought that we would have a hard time working with each other. But I was surprised and happy afterwards because our work turned out to be pretty okay considering that we were not close with one another. It just proves that as long as your group/team is working towards your common goal, you will not have a problem in terms of working relationship among yourselves.
The last point in my previous reaction paper is the proper division of labor. I believe that proper division of labor is applicable to almost every work involving more than one person. This is also true when my group was mission control. Each of us was assigned one job for the entire shift and it turned out that we were able to do our respective jobs well enough.
For me, the class project would not have turned out okay if not all of us cooperated. The live update was a product of hard work and team effort as well.
From Sherilyn Leong:
A project as big as 24 Hours in Cyberspace was made possible by the strategic division of labor and the prepared templates to be used as the project progresses. After experiencing how it is to be part of a live webcast, I realized that the prepared templates make the work a lot faster. It saves those in mission control the trouble of producing a new template over and over again in effect saving a lot of time.
In 24 Hours in Cyber Space, a person is assigned a single job and he is tasked to do only what is assigned to him. In my experience with Kuwentong Kalye, that kind of system works because overlapping of tasks is avoided. Also, one can concentrate on what he is doing, producing quality works. More importantly, a certain workflow is created by dividing work this way making the process more organized and faster.
Those in the mission control of 24 Hours in Cyber Space were probably prepared and very knowledgeable of what they are supposed to do. This I think is what was missing in my experience in working in the mission control of Kuwentong Kalye. Not everybody knew what was going on. More time was spent in correcting each other's mistakes than actually processing the story sent to us.
Also, I believe that in 24 Hours in Cyber Space the right people were assigned to right job. The editors edited the stories and so on making them familiar if not experts with the task assigned to them. In Kuwentong Kalye, however, the division of labor was random. I think that if the assignment of tasks was not the way it was, we could have worked more efficiently and productively.
Despite all the flaws, I think that mission control was able to do their task properly. They were able to comply to what was required of them. What made this possible is the teamwork that was strongly present in all the groups and also the knowledge of some on how the whole process works.
From Russ Ramilo:
24 Hours in Cyberspace seemed like a "dream" at first. After reading the article about it, I was quite aware that coming up and doing something like that required a great amount of planning, thinking, and coordination among the people involved while the actual webcasting is done.
Of course, the article has given me an idea that my classmates and I were to carry out something almost like 24 Hours in Cyberspace and I pretty much understood the process and responsibilities that come with the whole thing. The live webcast is not that bad after all. For almost everyone in the class, since we are all first-timers, being in mission control was probably the scariest thing there is because of the pressure put on you. Well, it is not that if you were out on the field, the work is not that demanding. Being out on the field also mandated responsibility and a lot of quick thinking - as one ought to choose and write the story, which of course has to be significant, and the photos that come with the story must be relevant, as well.
As people say, "Practice makes perfect." I personally think that a drill for a day or two (or even less) should have been done. Perfect is a loaded word-what I mean to say is that, the drill would have surely minimized the boo-boos and blunders that happened on "real" days that we were on mission control and on fieldwork. As a whole, the live webcast is not as complicated as I thought. Mission control or fieldwork, one should know the power that he has gotten in his hands-the mere fact that the medium the whole is group is using is the Web.
Overall, the process does seem complicated at first, but once you get the feel of it, it is not that difficult. Only, the whole thing demands a lot of time and you cannot really just assign people to do things - the competencies of each of the members of the team must be known so that they are to be assigned a task wherein they will be able to work efficiently and effectively. In general, KUWENTONG KALYE for our live webcast has been a great and truly a learning experience in spite of the troubles, errors that we have done.
From Meryll Yan:
I was right, well, partly. Webcasting is a game, planning does make or break, and multi-tasking is inevitable. Yet one thing I failed to emphasize, was the paramount importance of teamwork. I should have said webcasting is a team game, not just a game.
Planning, or the lack of it, really spelled the difference between smooth operations and nerve-wracking confusion. The primary reason why some mission control teams fumbled and fretted was they were not yet familiar with the templates and how to upload them. What made matters worse was when the stories and pictures came in one fell swoop. Mission control had to literally scramble to get the stories edited, the pictures properly cropped and indexed, and all of the above uploaded the right way, in the right template, and at the right (meaning fastest) time. During those peaks hours of stress, mastery of the templates was not just an asset, it was a necessity. Unfortunately, some mission control teams learned this lesson the hard way, which led to several mistakes.
When I was part of mission control, I was fortunate enough to be grouped with people who made the webcasting experience a fun and cheery one. I think what put the fun in our webcasting experience was not just the people, but the fact that we took the time to study the templates and to teach each other how to go about them. We were lucky enough not to have the nerve-wracking moments because we were able to plan ahead and communicate well with each other. I think the rapport among us, greatly contributed to the smooth sailing of our webcasting experience.
I said before that multi-tasking is the name of the game. Well, it is, but at some point or another, each of us also has to rely on other people. Hence, I have come to the conclusion that multi-tasking does not necessarily equate with independence. In fact, interdependence is a requirement given the situation we were in. Although it is true that we had to do several things all at the same time, we also had to coordinate with our teammates and distribute tasks among us in order to make the webcast more efficient.
Which leads me to the topic of teamwork. Our group, I am proud to say, was really a cohesive (not to mention, jolly) unit. The fact that we were all friends may have contributed to this cohesiveness. One thing is for sure though, teamwork regardless of whether you are friends or not, is absolutely necessary in webcasting. We were all aware that we were part of a mission control team. But I think the biggest mistake of the Kuwentong Kalye group was that some of us forgot that they were also part of a bigger team, which is the Kuwentong Kalye team.
The main objective of the Kuwentong Kalye project is for us PRINPRO students to learn the comings and goings of a webcast. A webcast without stories is just like a game of basketball with the ball missing. It is sad, then, that some groups actually "forgot" this universal webcasting truth. I think it all boils down to lack of teamwork on the part of the Kuwentong Kalye group. We were made aware that it was a one-for-all and all-for-one situation and whoever screwed up pulled everybody else down. Unfortunately, people did screw up and all our other efforts got flushed down the drain.
If there is a lesson to be learned from all this, it is that the success or failure of webcasting (like other group endeavors) relies on the efforts of each individual and of that individual's role in the group. Everybody deals a hand in a webcast whether as input or output. We learned that even few hands could make or break us and they did the latter. The Kuwentong Kalye project was really for a team. We lost because we weren't a good one.
From Paolo Navarra:
*
