This research examines a collaborative solution to a common problem, that of providing help to distributed users. The Answer Garden 2 system provides a secondgeneration architecture for organizational and community memory applications. After describing the need for Answer Garden 2’s functionality, we describe the architecture of the system and two underlying systems, the Cafe ConstructionKit and Collaborative Refinery. We also present detailed descriptions of the collaborative help and collaborative refining facilities in the Answer Garden 2 system.

Over the last 10 years, Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) has identified a base set of findings. These findings are taken almost as assumptions within the field. In summary, they argue that human activity is highly flexible, nuanced, and contextualized and that computational entities such as information transfer, roles, and policies need to be similarly flexible, nuanced, and contextualized. However, current systems cannot fully support the social world uncovered by these findings. This paper argues that there is an inherent gap between the social requirements of CSCW and its technical mechanisms. The social-technical gap is the divide between what we know we must support socially and what we can support technically. Exploring, understanding, and hopefully ameliorating this social-technical gap is the central challenge for CSCW as a field and one of the central problems for HCI. Indeed, merely attesting the continued centrality of this gap could be one of the important intellectual contributions of CSCW. This paper also argues that the challenge of the social-technical gap creates an opportunity to refocus CSCW as a Simonian science of the artificial. To be published in Human-Computer Interaction Preprint- Ackerman- Challenge of CSCW 1 1.

become a new fashioned managerial practice. Though KM theories seem to benefit from a "contamination" with cognitive and social sciences, which emphasize a subjective, contextual, and distributed approach to knowledge representation and integration, current technologies support what we may call a "god's eye" paradigm, in which knowledge is viewed as an objective resource. In this paper we discuss artificial intelligence theories and technologies that can support a shift to a new paradigm, called the "distributed intelligence" paradigm, in designing KM systems. Using the evolution of KM systems within Arthur Andersen Consulting as a motivating case study, we propose the framework of MultiContext Systems as a specification language for distributed intelligence KM systems, and sketch an agent-based architecture as an example of a KM system which embodies the assumptions of the distributed intelligence paradigm.

Most extant knowledge management systems are constrained by their overly rational, static and acontextual view of knowledge. Effectiveness of such systems is constrained by the rapid and discontinuous change that characterizes new organizational environments. The prevailing knowledge management paradigm limits itself by its emphasis on convergence and consensus-oriented processing of information. Strategy experts have underscored that the focus of organizational knowledge management should shift from `prediction of future' [that cannot be computed] to `anticipation of surprise.' Such systems may be enabled by leveraging the divergent interpretations of information based upon the meaning-making capability of human beings. By underscoring the need for synergy between innovation and creativity of humans and the advanced capabilities of new information technologies, this article advances current thinking about knowledge management.

this report, to appear next year, will consider the complementary issues associated with different place collaboration facilitated by geoinformation technologies. Research dealing with the extension of cartographic and GISystem methods to facilitate same place collaboration can be further partitioned into four partially overlapping components. Two of these deal with the decision making context in which collaboration might occur. One topic involves research directed to group decision making by experts -- Group-Spatial Decision Support Systems (Group-SDSS). The second is directed to group decision making that involves public participation -- Public Participation GIS (PPGIS). Neither of these research foci must be same place -- and related different place developments will be considered in Part II of this report next year. These efforts are complemented by a third research component directed to the design and implementation of methods and tools supporting group work and a fourth directed to understanding how groups work and the impact of these new technologies on that work

Distributed Knowledge Management is an approach to knowledge management based on the principle that the multiplicity (and heterogeneity) of perspectives within complex organizations is not be viewed as an obstacle to knowledge exploitation, but rather as an opportunity that can foster innovation and creativity. Despite a wide agreement on this principle, most current KM systems are based on the idea that all perspectival aspects of knowledge should be eliminated in favor of an objective and general representation of knowledge. In this paper we propose a peer-to-peer architecture (called KEx), which embodies the principle above in a quite straightforward way: (i) each peer (called a K-peer) provides all the services needed to create and organize "local" knowledge from an individual's or a group's perspective, and (ii) social structures and protocols of meaning negotiation are introduced to achieve semantic coordination among autonomous peers (e.g., when searching documents from other K-peers). A first version of the system, called KEx, is implemented as a knowledge exchange level on top of JXTA.

The aim of this paper is to examine the nature of information systems (IS) design as situated in its organizational context. Much of the IS literature takes a fragmented perspective of the nature of IS design, examining methodological issues, social issues, or political issues in isolation from the context of the design initiative. Recent work in situated action and social cognition provides a basis for a more integrated understanding of situated IS design. Findings from a participant observation study of situated IS design are discussed. These findings form the basis for an integrative, social action model of IS design. Findings from the study demonstrate how innovative IS design activity is situated in its organizational context. It is argued that the form and nature of an organizational design "problem" are inseparable from its context and that design knowledge is distributed among a design team rather than shared intersubjectively. The situated nature of design requir...

Currently, there is no commonly accepted methodology for developing organizational memory systems (OM) that is comprehensive in the sense that it guides the development process from beginning to end and is in sufficient detail to be implemented successfully. Using the ideas of memory metaphor and the user's perspective, we review recent work on OM through two dimensions: the stages of developing OM and the architecture of OM. We then examine the implications of this review on for the OM systems development life cycle and the components of its architecture. This work should therefore prove useful to anyone considering the development of OM.

Research in computer-mediated communication has usually emphasized the cognitive over the social aspects of communication, the medium over the message, and the product of communication over the process. In contrast, this paper emphasizes three constructs of the communication process: goal-based communication strategies, message form, and medium. We seek to balance cognitive and social communication strategies and to combine new and old measures of the message form (organization, formality, and size). A field study in an academic institution examines the content of text-based communication delivered by letter, memo, fax, and email. As expected, people prefer certain message and medium attributes for certain strategies. These findings are further investigated using open-ended interviews. We conclude with examples of practical implications on designing and implementing computer-mediated communication. Index Terms---Communication strategies, computer-mediated communication, media richness ...

Abstract — This paper explains conflict over technological process innovation in cultural terms, drawing primarily on a case study of electric power distribution and strategies to automate its operation. The paper shows how different occupational cultures, “operators” and “engineers, ” use different mental models or cognitive representations of technology that are adaptive to their particular work contexts, but give rise to conflicting evaluations of technological innovation. While these cultural groups may be motivated by a common interest in the successful performance of the technical system, they value different sets of criteria for system design and promising modifications. Despite the apparent contradiction, each perspective is internally consistent and rational. The paper argues that it is beneficial for management to consider these diverse perspectives carefully when planning technological innovation. I.