Group work. The carriage parabole

the last week, I read a blog about group work, which  reminds me something that I said to my students every time they have to work in groups. I don't know the new advances in pedagogy, but I always use the example of  the carriage, as shown in the graph, in which the limit for group work is three people.

This number is because in every team with three members of more, there is always the same configuration:

(1)

• The horse: the one who makes all the work. 
• the boss: the one who give all the orders to the horse.
• the freeriders: the one who enjoy all the work done by the team (that is why the happy face)

The typical configuration is 1 horse, 1 boss and 1or more free-riders, and when the total of members is greater than three, the increment of people goes most of the times to the free riders, a few times for the bosses and rarely to the workers.

This "parabole" was originally taught by  one of my teachers in my BA in Industrial Engineering in the National University of Colombia, and hope can be useful to you. 

 1. Image taken from http://www.edupics.com/coloring-page-carriage-i18769.html

Business, technology and medicine, what is failing in the mix?

How correct , and most important, how human is the logic of offering to a risk population, (understood as people who suffer -or can suffer- a disease ) new technological advances with the excuse of decreasing their visits to the doctor and therefore the use of the health system??

Who are the real beneficiaries of these advances: the people?, the government? the private health operators?

there are technological advances like chips around tumour cells (1), or sensors transmitting and storing the vital signs of the owner. But to which extent, these devices helps in case of an emergency?, have the hospitals or the health system, some special office in charge of  information analysis of the data generated by this technology?, do the make any personalised forecast with this information? (think about it, is a new business niche!!!, if somebody make a business about this, please contact me to give you my details, so you can send me for a good whiskey for my idea)

The figure present the interaction between the three main actors in this scenario (as google says is a beta version), but I think, shows why the Ambient and Asisted Living (AAL) projects are not working as they should actually do, and basically is because the actors are most interested in the development of their own issues rather than a real solution to the problems focused in the society. (of course is open to discussion), b

From the business side there are new initiatives, like the SIDE project (2) and SALT project (3) both in Newcastle university (where I am doing my PhD in Business) (4) that are working in this problem, but despite the fact of previous interdisciplinary projects/groups, the results (as far as I know, that is no much) are still isolated, amazing devices with no future in business, either for the cost of production and difficult marketing; a lot of information that no body cares (this line is not in the figure, showing the broken link), and for the few that really cares don't understand the information (just those "initiated" in medical science), and don't know how to work with it (line not present for the same reasons).

I wonder what will be the future of the medicine, but the creation of biomedicine (combination of electronics and medicine) gives a good tips about the direction, so maybe in the future, when you go to the hospital for an specialist, you will not know how to call it, doctor? engineer?

as a final thought by now, for who is a good business this technological advances in the long run? and how to make to reach the balance in the public health, between the well-being of the patients and money that companies can make of it (yes make money is fine!!)

I would like to hear from your interpretations about the graphic, and your opinions about the topic.

my twitter is @caosoriot and my google+



(1) http://www.kienyke.com/2011/09/04/un-microchip-en-tumores/
(2) http://www.side.ac.uk/
(3)http://www.ncl.ac.uk/biomedicine/news/newsitem.htm?id=north-east-leads-the-way-in-planning-for-an-ageing-population
(4) self promotion space, haha