Abstract not found

We discuss findings from an ethnographic study of instant messaging (IM) in the workplace and its implications for media theory. We describe how instant messaging supports a variety of informal communication tasks. We document the affordances of IM that support flexible, expressive communication. We describe some unexpected uses of IM that highlight aspects of communication which are not part of current media theorizing. They pertain to communicative processes people use to connect with each other and to manage communication, rather than to information exchange. We call these processes "outeraction." We discuss how outeractional aspects of communication affect media choice and patterns of media use. Keywords Instant messaging, media theory, informal communication, computer-mediated communication, outeraction. INTRODUCTION Recent empirical work has shown the importance of informal workplace communication for effective collaboration. By informal we mean interactions that are generall...

This paper describes a fundamental dual tradeoff that occurs in systems supporting awareness for distributed work groups, and presents several specific new techniques which illustrate good compromise points within this tradeoff space. This dual tradeoff is between privacy and awareness, and between awareness and disturbance. Simply stated, the more information about oneself that leaves your work area, the more potential for awareness of you exists for your colleagues. Unfortunately, this also represents the greatest potential for intrusion on your privacy. Similarly, the more information that is received about the activities of colleagues, the more potential awareness we have of them. However, at the same time, the more information we receive, the greater the chance that the information will become a disturbance to our normal work. This dual tradeoff seems to be a fundamental one. However, by carefully examining awareness problems in the light of this tradeoff it is possible to devise techniques which expose new points in the design space. These new points provide different types and quantities of information so that awareness can be achieved without invading the privacy of the sender, or creating a disturbance for the receiver. This paper presents four such techniques, each based on a careful selection of the information transmitted.

Current developments in information technology are leading to increasing capture and storage of information about people and their activities. This raises serious issues about the preservation of privacy. In this paper we examine why these issues are particularly important in the introduction of ubiquitous computing technology into the working environment. Certain problems with privacy are closely related to the ways in which the technology attenuates natural mechanisms of feedback and control over information released. We describe a framework for design for privacy in ubiquitous computing environments and conclude with an example of its application. INTRODUCTION Information technology can store, transmit and manipulate vast quantities and varieties of information. Whilst this potential is essential to government, public services, business and individuals, it may also permit or entail unobtrusive access, manipulation and presentation of personal data (Parker et al., 1990; Dunlop & Kl...

Introduction Our paper presents a model for supporting group interaction in large-scale virtual worlds 1 . The model provides generic techniques for managing interactions between various objects in such environments including humans and computer artefacts. Furthermore, the model is intended to be sufficiently flexible to apply to any system where a spatial metric can be identified (i.e. a way of measuring distance and orientation). Such applications might range from the obvious example of multi-user virtual reality through conferencing systems, collaborative hypermedia and even databases and information spaces. 1 The theory described in this paper is being developed as part of the COMIC project, an ongoing European ESPRIT Basic Research Action which aims to develop theories and techniques to support the development of future large scale CSCW systems. We would like to thank our fellow comedians for their discussions and comments. This paper has been

Giant strides in information technology at the turn of the century may have unleashed unreachable goals. With the invention of groupware, people expect to communicate easily with each other and accomplish difficult work even though they are remotely located or rarely overlap in time. Major corporations launch global teams, expecting that technology will make “virtual collocation” possible. Federal research money encourages global science through the establishment of “collaboratories. ” We review over 10 years of field and laboratory investigations of collocated and noncollocated synchronous group collaborations. In particular, we compare collocated work with remote work as it is possible today and comment on the promise of remote work tomorrow. We focus on the sociotechnical conditions required for effective distance work and bring together the results with four key concepts: common ground, coupling of work, collaboration readiness, and collaboration technology readiness. Groups with high common ground and loosely coupled work, with readiness both for collaboration

Workstations and personal computers are increasingly being delivered with the ability to handle multimedia data; more and more of us are linked by high-speed digital networks. With multimedia communication environments becoming more commonplace, what have we learned from earlier experiences with prototype media environments? This paper reports on some of our experiences as developers, researchers and users of flexible, networked, multimedia computer environments, or "media spaces". It focusses on the lessons we can learn from extended, long-term use of media spaces, with connections that last not hours or days, but months or years. We take as our starting point a set of assumptions which differ from traditional analytical perspectives. In particular, we begin from the position that that a real-world baseline is not always an appropriate point of comparison for new media technologies; that a set of complex and intricate communicative behaviours arise over time; and that media spaces c...

). I.."how la operate a'8ice and USCl LUI"f"L.... J cd ments, & Computers!l'6, 249-255. pohon, P. G., & L,wi " C. H. (1990). Tb,my-b""d d"ign fo ',,,,ily ',"m

This paper re-assesses the role of real-time video as a technology to support interpersonal communications at distance. We review three distinct hypotheses about the role of video in the co-ordination of conversational content and process. For each hypothesis, we identify design implications and outstanding research questions derived from current findings. We first evaluate the non-verbal communication hypothesis, namely the prevailing assumption that the role of video is to supplement speech, and embodied in applications such as videoconferencing and videophone. We conclude that previous work has overestimated the importance of video at the expense of audio. This finding has strong implications for the implementation of such systems, and we make recommendations about both synchronisation and bandwidth allocation. Furthermore our own recent studies of workplace interactions point to other communicative functions of video. Current systems have neglected another potentially vital role of...

Media spaces integrate audio, video and computer networking technology in order to provide a rich communicative environment for collaboration. The connectivity which they provide brings with it important concerns regarding privacy, protection and control. In order to derive the fullest benefit from this technology, it is essential that these issues be addressed. As part of our investigation of media space systems, we developed a computational infrastructure addressing these problems our own working environment. A key aspect of this work is the relationship between two aspects of this control system---the technological components which determine how the system will behave, and the social components which determine acceptable use and behaviour. This paper discusses our experiences with the privacy and control aspects of our RAVE media space environment, specifically with regard to connection management, and compares them to the experiences of other research groups. We discuss the n...