Overview People are engaged in on-going work of constructing shared understanding of the task Understanding of one another Group identity, behavior, norms The setting Ourselves We use – & create -- varied resources Consciously and unconsciously IT introduces new possibilities and (sometimes) invalidates old ones

Constructing shared understanding of task What are we doing? How are we going to do it? Where are we? Where are we going? Who is doing what? How are we doing?

Construction of self In others’ eyes Self-presentation Backstage/front stage In our own eyes Mead’s I-me: Me as the social self: seen thru eyes of generalized other On-line identity experiments: freedom from the social self?

Re CSCW and CMC Online life not separate from offline Mechanisms important in offline life may or may not translate to online And vice versa The more we understand social activity, the more effectively we can Perform it Support it

Impression formation Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life Performance On stage; Backstage Individual; group

Impression formation Our willingness to cooperate with, believe, trust one another depends on judgments about one another We are cognitive misers We use a variety of criteria Age Sex Race, nationality Behavior Dress Language

Assessing others Our own experience (history) Reputation (others’ experience) Informal interaction

Managing f2f self-presentation Dress Behavior Posture Mirroring… Gestures Language Things we say (e.g., name dropping)

In an online environment Some characteristics are invisible Some are manipulable (e.g., gender-switching)

Managing online self- presentation Enduring Home page Signature file address Our appearance on the web (as revealed by web searches) Transitory Choice of language, discourse What we say cc’s ……

Olson & Olson’s key findings Common ground: characteristic of players Coupling: characteristic of the work Collaboration readiness Technological readiness

Common ground: characteristic of players People identify what they have in common People create common ground Recommendation: Allow people to develop common ground (e.g., thru f2f meetings) People w/o common ground benefit from video

Common ground Includes: Shared understanding of task, situation Perception of commonality Common ground a precursor to trust Common ground & context: Time zones Cultural differences in behavior, interpretation of cues

Coupling: characteristic of the work Tightly coupled work is difficult to do remotely Groups with lots of common ground are more successful with tightly-coupled work Recommendation: Co-locate tightly-couple work Make long-distance dependencies straightforward and unambiguous

Collaboration readiness A dictate from on-high to collaborate fails unless aligned with incentive structure Recommendation: Don’t intro groupware to groups that don’t have culture of collaboration. To increase collaboration, align incentives with desired behavior

Technological readiness Needed: Habits (e.g., regular access; making work usable by others) Infrastructure Recommendation: Introduce advanced techs in small steps. New tech better deliver on promises.

The Spatiality of Interaction Fluidity of interaction Awareness: overhearing, seeing Common referents Where things are physically Where things are virtually (drawing in the air) Where things are in process (charts)

Artifacts and Distributed Cognition Cognitive processes may be distributed across members of a social group Cognitive processes may include artifacts Cognitive processes may be distributed over time in such a way that products of earlier events can transform nature of later events Hollan, Hutchins, and Kirsh, Distributed Cognition, ACM Trans on CHI, 2000

Characteristics of relationships, groups Specialized/not Weak/strong ties Reciprocity Diversity Global, local

Issues of identity Trust, common ground, experience requires persistent identity in 2 ways Knowing who this is (not nec’ly linked to offline) Confidence that their behavior will be consistent