Challenges and Opportunities Jonathan Grudin Microsoft Research

Effective Collaboration Support Has Been Slow To Arrive

Early Days For Distributed Collaboration? ARPANET  Internet ARPANET  Internet Back then, a node required: – Major incentive – Significant hardware – Software development – Maintenance personnel Now, node creation & maintenance are trivial COLLABORATORY  Collaboration COLLABORATORY  Collaboration Now, a site requires: – Major incentive – Significant hardware – Software development – Maintenance personnel Tomorrow, distributed collaboration will be trivial…

Contexts of Development & Research ICLSIVLSI GOVERNMENT CONTRACTS BUSINESS SYSTEMS OFFICE SYSTEMS PCs NETWORKS 2000 WWW CSCW'86 CHI'83 COIS'82 ICIS'80 ICSE'74 WWW'94

HCI “Users”

Human Organizational Structures Group or Team: People collected to work together Organization: A number of persons or groups having specific responsibilities and united for a specific purpose Community: A group or class having common interests

Human Nature & Social Organization Human nature does not change Groups: Millions of years Groups: Millions of years Organizations: A few thousand years Organizations: A few thousand years Communities: A few thousand years or less Communities: A few thousand years or less

Collaboration Technology Features & Categories Communication Information sharing Coordination Real time Asynchronous AV conferencingAV conferencing TelephoneTelephone Chat, messagingChat, messaging Broadcast videoBroadcast video WhiteboardsWhiteboards Application sharingApplication sharing Meeting facilitationMeeting facilitation MUDs and CVEsMUDs and CVEs Floor controlFloor control Session managementSession management Voice mailVoice mail FAXFAX Document managementDocument management Threaded discussionsThreaded discussions HypertextHypertext Team workspacesTeam workspaces Workflow managementWorkflow management Case toolsCase tools Project managementProject management Calendar & schedulingCalendar & scheduling

Teams Communication Information sharing Coordination Real time Asynchronous AV conferencingAV conferencing TelephoneTelephone Chat, messagingChat, messaging Broadcast videoBroadcast video WhiteboardsWhiteboards Application sharingApplication sharing Meeting facilitationMeeting facilitation MUDs and CVEsMUDs and CVEs Floor controlFloor control Session managementSession management Voice mailVoice mail FAXFAX Document managementDocument management Threaded discussionsThreaded discussions HypertextHypertext Team workspacesTeam workspaces Workflow managementWorkflow management Case toolsCase tools Project managementProject management Calendar & schedulingCalendar & scheduling Teams

Organizations Communication Information sharing Coordination Real time Asynchronous AV conferencingAV conferencing TelephoneTelephone Chat, messagingChat, messaging Broadcast videoBroadcast video WhiteboardsWhiteboards Application sharingApplication sharing Meeting facilitationMeeting facilitation MUDs and CVEsMUDs and CVEs Floor controlFloor control Session managementSession management Voice mailVoice mail FAXFAX Document managementDocument management Threaded discussionsThreaded discussions HypertextHypertext Team workspacesTeam workspaces Workflow managementWorkflow management Case toolsCase tools Project managementProject management Calendar & schedulingCalendar & scheduling Teams Organizations

Communities Communication Information sharing Coordination Real timeAsynchronous AV conferencing Telephone Chat, messaging Broadcast video Whiteboards Application sharing Meeting facilitation MUDs and CVEs Floor control Session management Voice mail FAX Document management Threaded discussions Hypertext Team workspaces Workflow management Case tools Project management Calendar & scheduling Teams Organizations Communities

Human Organizational Structures Team: A group organized to work together Organization: A number of persons or groups having specific responsibilities and united for a specific purpose Community: A group or class having common interests

Group Functions (McGrath) ProductionWell-Being Member Support Inception Production demand and opportunity Interaction demand and opportunity Inclusion demand and opportunity Problem- Solving Technical problem- solving Role network definition Position and status attainments Conflict Resolution Policy resolution Power and payoff distribution Contribution and payoff distribution ExecutionPerformanceInteractionParticipation

Technical & Behavioral Issues: Videoconferencing  We are highly skilled at meetings  How will videoconferencing affect meeting dynamics?

Adding Camera, Monitor & Microphone

 Center of attention shifts  Person at head of table seems smaller, peripheral figures are more noticeable  Camera height makes everyone in the room less imposing  Normal lighting and networking can make people look ill, jerky  Voice rises “to be heard across room,” peripheral figures may be inaudible  People less animated when addressing a talking head on a monitor  Even one-second transmission delays can cause considerable confusion Adding Camera, Monitor & Microphone

MSR Distributed Meetings Research Ring camera (1st prototype) Early interface studies

Human Organizational Structures Team: A group organized to work together Organization: A number of persons or groups having specific responsibilities and united for a specific purpose Community: A group or class having common interests

Two Ways to Partition An Organization Vertical Vertical – Computer Science Department, History Department, Philosophy Department, Spanish Department… – Marketing Division, Engineering Division, Human Resources Division, International Sales Division… Horizontal Horizontal – Students, Faculty, Administrators… – Individual contributors, Managers, Executives… Which sets of people in an organization interact and have a shared sense of efficient work practices?

Organizations (from Mintzberg) Strategic Apex Middle Line Operating Core

Widely Used Applications Browsers Browsers Shared calendars Shared calendars Desktop video Desktop video Shared workspaces Shared workspaces Application sharing (NetMeeting) Application sharing (NetMeeting) Lotus Notes applications Lotus Notes applications

Human Organizational Structures Team: A group organized to work together Organization: A number of persons or groups having specific responsibilities and united for a specific purpose Community: A group or class having common interests

Communities of Practice Communities focused on a domain of knowledge and accumulation of knowledge and expertise over time Communities focused on a domain of knowledge and accumulation of knowledge and expertise over time Etienne Wenger’s market analysis: Etienne Wenger’s market analysis: Knowledge worker’s desktop Knowledge bases Access to expertise E-learning spaces Synchronous interactions Discussion groups Web site communities Project spaces Integrating work & knowledge Work Social Structures Conversation Fleeting interactions Instruction Knowledge exchange Documents

Behavioral Challenges To Successful Design and Use Effort/benefit disparities Effort/benefit disparities Critical Mass Critical Mass The Tragedy of the Commons The Tragedy of the Commons The Prisoner’s Dilemma The Prisoner’s Dilemma Other social and motivational factors Other social and motivational factors Limits to informed intuition Limits to informed intuition Low-frequency events Low-frequency events Exception handling Exception handling

Technology and Values – privacy – trust – reciprocity – autonomy – security – lack of adoption – abuse – democracy – accountability – responsibility – efficiency Human Values Issues Consequences of inattention NSF Value-sensitive design projects

Disconnect from ‘Here and Now’

Behavioral Challenges To Successful Design and Use Effort/benefit disparities Effort/benefit disparities Critical Mass Critical Mass The Tragedy of the Commons The Tragedy of the Commons The Prisoner’s Dilemma The Prisoner’s Dilemma Other social and motivational factors Other social and motivational factors Limits to informed intuition Limits to informed intuition Low-frequency events Low-frequency events Exception handling Exception handling

Social Factors In Collaboratories Incentives for building, sharing, adopting, interacting Incentives for building, sharing, adopting, interacting – Domain-savvy developers need respect and identity – Publication rules shift to reward collaboratory effort – Rules needed for ownership and use of shared data – Loss of control or prestige in using other’s facility? – Scaling and growth: expand or clone? Add features? Technology requirements based on behavioral factors Technology requirements based on behavioral factors – Vendors to take on middleware dev & maintenance – Cross-platform solutions needed to reach players – Integration of support for spontaneous & planned real-time, notification, and range of asynchronous – Help in identifying the contexts of data and activity » Terminology, reliability, pre-processing…

The Greatest Source Of Failure The greatest source of failure is the failure to collect data on failures Only a small percentage of efforts succeed Only a small percentage of efforts succeed It’s not fun to dwell on what didn’t work It’s not fun to dwell on what didn’t work You don’t get funding by reporting blind alleys traversed You don’t get funding by reporting blind alleys traversed Best practices are not methodically collected Could need independent funding, participation incentives, confidential handling of data

Challenges and Opportunities Jonathan Grudin Microsoft Research