1. Introduction to Information Systems
Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc.
Introduction to Information Systems
Third Edition
Chapter 8
Collaborating with Technology
Collaborative technologies transform the way people in organizations work together, whether they are in the next office or across the globe. This chapter explores the major collaborative technologies, the facets of human interaction they support, and the factors that make them different from face-to-face interactions.

2. Learning objectives Collaborative technologies Web 2.0 technologies
Unified communications
Online environments
The material in this chapter will enable you to:
Describe the major collaborative technologies, and explain the features that each one offers for communications and productivity.
Identify and describe Web 2.0 technologies that facilitate collaboration.
Explain how unified communications contribute to collaboration.
4. Describe features of online environments that can affect human behavior and group dynamics, and identify strategies to make virtual teams more productive and successful.
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3. Introduction
ICTs transform collaboration and open opportunities for interaction
Virtual environments reproduce some face-to-face aspects and add new features
Information and communications technologies (ICT), such as smartphones and virtual meeting spaces, transform the way people collaborate and open up countless opportunities for interactions unhindered by time and location constraints. These virtual environments attempt to reproduce some aspects of face-to-face interactions, and they can add new features that were barely possible before.
The “people” component for collaborative technologies is critically important, perhaps more so than for any other information system category.
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4. Collaborative Technologies
This figure shows the major generations in the evolution of collaboration technology, from in the early 1990s through current Web 2.0 social networking, and into unified communications that will develop over the next decade.

5. Email Address book and contact management
Calendaring and time management
transmission is technically simple. For outgoing mail, the server uses Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP). The SMTP server examines the message, adds date and time information, and then reads the server name to the right of sign in the recipient’s address. The server checks a domain name server to retrieve the IP address and then makes the connection. For incoming mail, the server uses Post Office Protocol (POP). To retrieve , a user connects to the POP server and then downloads incoming messages to their local computer. A newer protocol for incoming mail is Internet Mail Access Protocol (IMAP), in which mail is actually maintained on the server and organized into folders there.
’s success led to enhancements and new features, making the system the indispensable tool on which many workers rely every day. The simple address book expanded to a rich contact-management system that supports distribution lists and groups and offers new fields for storing contact information. Keeping all this information about clients and coworkers together, synched to a smartphone, boosts productivity.
Adding calendars and appointment scheduling capabilities to clients is a major breakthrough for time management. Similar to contact information, calendar events can be transmitted and exchanged using standardized file formats.

6. Discussion Forums Share information and coordinate activities
Moderators, posters, and readers
The asynchronous discussion forum evolved from the earlier bulletin board as an online site in which people could post text messages, reply to others at any time, and discuss a topic of interest. Employee discussion forums are often used to share company information and coordinate activities, or to serve as an online suggestion box.
Forums may be moderated, with someone nurturing the discussion, deleting unacceptable posts, and blocking users who violate the rules. Some people contribute the majority of posts while others just read them.
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7. Instant Messaging Presence awareness Text messaging
Instant messaging (IM), also called chat, consists of real-time text-based interactions over a network. IM can be useful for quick answers in the workplace, by saving a walk down the hall to a colleague’s office or a costly phone call to someone in another country. IM grew dramatically with the net and the launch of free IM software clients, such as AOL Instant Messenger, Google Talk, Yahoo! Messenger, and Skype. Unlike , which was designed to be open so that anyone can send messages to anyone else regardless of which software they used, the IM world tends toward proprietary products.
IM software introduced a critically important collaborative feature called presence awareness, which allows users to display their current status to their contacts, colleagues, or buddy list. Presence awareness indicators add an important human element to online collaboration, and they are a key reason people adopt the tool within organizations.
Texting transforms a cell phone from a single-purpose mobile phone into a device that can send brief text messages to other mobile devices, transmit photos and videos, and broadcast messages to large groups, as with Twitter. It now outpaces voice phone calls, with heavy users sending and receiving hundreds of text messages daily. The features of texting also make it extremely valuable for real-time micro-coordination, letting people know where and when activities are to be held.
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8. Group Decision Support Systems
Face-to-face group meetings
Anonymous contributions
Group decision support systems (GDSS) are used for face-to-face group meetings in which each individual is equipped with a computer connected to a shared server, and the group facilitator structures the tasks during the session. The software allows each member to type his or her contributions anonymously as the group moves through the stages of identifying the problem to be solved, brainstorming possible solutions, rating the alternatives, and coming to some consensus about the best course of action. As the contributions, comments, and votes unfold, they appear on the screen with no names attached.
These systems were designed to promote novel ideas and high-quality, rational decisions, especially by eliminating some of the features that cause groups to function poorly. High-status members, for instance, have a disproportionate influence even when they are wrong. Group pressure can also squash independent, minority viewpoints.

9. Web Conferencing Live meetings via the Internet
Can include real-time video, chat, and presentations
Another synchronous collaboration technology is web conferencing, which supports live meetings via the Internet, sometimes called “webinars.” Participants join the meeting from their computers or smartphones and use headsets with microphones or phone conferencing to speak to one another. Browser-based conferencing software, such as WebEx or Go To Meeting, have enriched their offerings to include features such as real time video support, support for slide presentations, text-based chat, and desktop application sharing.
Web conferencing tools can make a dramatic dent in travel budgets, and these services see particularly fast growth during economic downturns. They are widely used for corporate training, global project teams, product announcements, virtual sales calls, and other events.

10. Interactive Video Chats for collaboration Telepresence
Interactive video chats for collaboration are freely available via web cams and software such as Skype. This capability fundamentally changes an online collaboration by allowing participants to see facial expressions and other nonverbal aspects of communication.
The most powerful systems create a sense of telepresence, in which the remote participants are almost life-sized and images are vividly clear. Eye contact is more natural, and voices are well synched to lip movements. An executive can turn on the desktop camera and interact with someone across the world almost as though the person were sitting on the other side of the desk.

11. Shared Workspaces Shared documents, lists, and information
Document library
The shared workspace is an area on a server in which team members can post shared documents, maintain lists of members and contact information, post news and announcements, and collaborate on edits and updates. The core of a shared workspace is the document library, where members can store important information assets, download them for revisions, update them, and return them.
This centralized document library goes a long way toward eliminating the confusion and duplication that arise when team members are constantly sending revised versions back and forth over .
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12. Blogs Ongoing commentary, images, and links
Some blogs are personal hobbies, and others are online magazines
Organizations use blogs to build knowledge, and for marketing and communications
Web 2.0 introduces powerful tools that encourage widespread participation and end-user contribution to the web. Many of these tools have found their way into corporations to facilitate collaboration and promote information sharing.
In a blog (short for web log), the blogger maintains a website composed mainly of ongoing commentary, images, and links to other online resources. The posts are displayed in reverse chronological order so the most recent appears on top. Readers can add their own comments to the blogger’s posts, joining in the asynchronous discussion. An intriguing post on one blog may be picked up by many others, creating a viral spread of the item and a rapid increase in page views.
Some blogs are labors of love for friends, family, or other hobbyists, while other blogs belong to conventional media organizations and have teams of contributors adding frequent updates. These blogs are more like online magazines, earning revenue from display ads.
For organizations, blogs are a popular means of building knowledge bases, and are also used for marketing and communications to create a more intimate connection with customers and suppliers.
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13. Wikis Users add and edit interlinked pages
Organizations use wikis to centralize documents and store knowledge
Wikipedia
Another significant Web 2.0 technology that facilitates end-user contributions and collaborative editing is the wiki, a website that allows users to add and edit interlinked web pages using their browsers. Wiki software usually offers simple text editing tools so users do not need to know HTML. It keeps track of versions and lets users view the history of changes to each page, along with discussions about the page’s content. Users navigate within a wiki by doing a keyword search, or by clicking on the many embedded links to related wiki pages.
Wikis have also emerged as extremely valuable tools within organizations, to centralize documents and create knowledge storehouses that employees can edit as needed. The wiki makes it easy for people in any unit or any level of the organization to make contributions from their own personal knowledge, or to update existing articles with current information.
The online encyclopedia called Wikipedia is the best-known publicly accessible wiki. With over 15 million articles contributed and edited by volunteers around the world, the nonprofit Wikipedia is the most popular general-purpose reference work on the Internet.
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14. Social Networking Facebook Nodes Knowledge sharing
More than three of four millennials, members of the generation born from about 1980 to 1995, have created profiles on one or more of the social networking sites, such as Facebook or LinkedIn. Social networks have become the de facto platform for collaboration and online asynchronous interaction. If Facebook were a country, it would be the third-most populous after China and India, with 500 million plus members. The core element of these sites is the individual or organizational profile.
The real value of these sites is that the profiles are nodes in a vast, interdependent network of links to other nodes created by other people or organizations. The users build this network themselves, as they link to friends or colleagues. Some connections may be suggested by the software itself, while others might be added from an address book, messages, instant messaging contacts, or by searching for potential friends or colleagues.
For users, the value of social networking sites can be quite high, offering a platform to nurture or renew connections that might otherwise fade away. For companies, these sites offer a means to support knowledge-sharing in the company, and to reach people who may be interested in their products or services. Ads can be tailored to reach precise target groups based on their members’ profiles. Beyond advertising, organizations create their own profiles as a means to connect with their customers, recruit new employees, announce new products, and generally promote their brands.

15. Microblogging Short posts Users can "follow" other users Twitter
Microblogging is a form of blogging in which the posts are quite short, containing a brief sentence fragment, and perhaps a link to another web resource or video. As in a blog, the entries appear in reverse chronological order. The topics range widely, from simple updates about what the poster is currently doing, to informative links, to resources about current events, hobbies, companies, services, and more. The social media aspect exists because users are able to “follow” other users, whose posts constantly appear on followers’ computer screens or mobile devices. Followers can reply to posts, or repeat them for the benefit of their own followers.
Twitter has the largest number of users and its vocabulary terms “tweet” and “re-tweet” are widely used to describe the basic elements of this collaborative technology. Companies find innovative ways to reach out to customers using Twitter, especially as social referrals dent the impact of sponsored search term advertisements, which are relevant to your search but not endorsed by someone you know.
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16. Virtual Worlds Graphical environment Second Life
The virtual world is a graphical, often 3-D environment, in which users can immerse themselves, interacting with virtual objects and with one another using avatars. Sitting at a computer screen with a keyboard, mouse, joy sticks, console controls, steering wheels, or foot pedals, users can explore digitally constructed worlds or pilot vehicles through realistic terrain. These engaging online spaces are widely used for multiuser games, and also serve as simulations for training.
Second Life is one of the biggest commercial virtual-world providers. While many organizations have set up a presence in Second Life, their initial efforts focused more on customer relationship management, which have not had tremendous success.
Despite rocky starts, virtual worlds hold much promise for collaboration. Business users who want to hold meetings are attracted to them as a way to simulate a live conference with speakers, breakout rooms, and small-group sessions. Beyond business meetings, virtual worlds can recreate any environment for humans to explore, from a tiny epithelial cell to the vast emptiness of space.
Graphical environment
Second Life
Business conferences and meetings

17. Unified Communications
Context indicators
Universal dashboards
Unified communications integrates multiple applications into a single interface, accessible from many different devices. Although the technologies are not new, a unified approach can bring together real-time communication services such as instant messaging and video conferencing with asynchronous , voice mail, and fax.
One important feature is the context indicator, which lets senders know whether the individual is available to communicate at the moment, and which mode he or she prefers. For example, on a long car trip a driver might signal his or her availability for hands-free cell phone conversations, but not IM or videoconferencing.
Universal dashboards are emerging to aggregate even more services. The dashboard might include , interactive video, phone, conference calling, voice mail, IM, web conferencing, and shared workspaces. The dashboard, available on desktops or smartphones, creates a constant link between the individual and his or her contacts and information resources. It mixes business- and consumer-oriented services, and draws on services within organizations and outside organizations in the cloud.
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18. Psychological Characteristics
Human beings have had thousands of years to refine their strategies for productive interactions in face-to-face settings, but only a couple of decades to figure out how to collaborate virtually. Some common themes that affect behavior appear in online environments:
Unfamiliar tools. Typing is not the same as speaking, though people often try to use the keyboard to simulate spoken conversations rather than more formal written correspondence.
Media richness. Many communications are text only, leaving out facial expression, eye contact, voice pitch and tempo, gestures, body posture, and hand gestures.
Physical distance. Another important variable is the combination of physical distance and lack of any physical presence.
Anonymity. When people have a sense that others will not be able to identify who they are, their behavior can change considerably.
Audience. Online interactions are always somewhat blurry in terms of who is in the audience. Electronic communications can also be deliberately forwarded to others or publicly released.
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19. Managing Online Impressions
People form impressions using social categories
Miscalculations are common online
Social media provide photos and ability to view network
People form impressions quickly using social categories, particularly age, gender, ethnicity, and physical attractiveness. When those cues are not obvious, they use whatever they can to form some kind of impression, and so miscalculations are common online.
Social media with photos and videos add physical appearance back into the mix. Social networking sites also provide the ability to view the network of an individual, which adds an unusual feature to online impression management that has no parallel in face-to-face settings.
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20. Group Dynamics Group norms Disinhibition Status equalization Trust
Within organizations, people usually learn norms from one another as they watch what others do and experience subtle praise or rebuke, often nonverbal. Online, though, group members can’t perceive the nonverbal cues, so group norms can be more difficult to establish. Norms about how workload should be shared are more difficult to transmit and enforce online. Successful virtual team leaders compensate for weak norms by making the expectations much more explicit.
The peculiar characteristics of online environments often lead to disinhibition, in which people express themselves more bluntly, abruptly, or aggressively than they would in face-to-face settings.
The online world tends to flatten out hierarchies and equalize status, partly because many of the cues used to establish status are less apparent. Virtual team leaders know they do not have the same power as they might in a face-to-face setting.
For virtual teams, especially newly created ones containing members who have never met, trust is especially fragile and challenging to create. Research shows that an initial face-to-face meeting can enhance trust in virtual teams.
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21. Making Virtual Teams Work
Knowing how group dynamics unfold online, and how collaborative technologies can best support teamwork, will help improve the chances for success. To facilitate productivity and make virtual work more satisfying:
Virtual team members can develop a written team charter, agree on a decision-making strategy, proactively volunteer for assignments, and communicate and share information frequently.
Virtual team leaders can get to know each team member, use a structured leadership style, encourage participation by all team members, send out frequent reminders, and praise publicly and convey constructive criticism privately.
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22. Summary Collaborative technologies Web 2.0 technologies
Unified communications
Online environments
Collaborative technologies have evolved rapidly, beginning with that supports contact management with address books and time management with calendaring. Discussion forums, instant messaging, and texting provide support for text-based collaboration. Collaborative technologies designed for groups include group decision support systems (GDSS), web conferencing, and shared workspaces.
Web 2.0 technologies provide extensive collaborative support, with blogs, wikis, social networking, microblogging, and virtual worlds. Organizations use these tools to support their own collaborative efforts, and to reach out to customers and suppliers.
Unified communications brings together multiple collaborative technologies and applications, simplifying the interfaces, and making them accessible through many different devices.
4. Key characteristics of online environments that affect human behavior include the unfamiliar tools used to communicate, reduced media richness, greater physical distance, heightened perceptions of anonymity, and unclear audience. Strategies for making virtual teams work more effectively stress the need to take into account the way online environments affect human behavior.
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23. Telepresence Robots Case
Collaboration for remote workers
Telepresence robot
Psychological aspects
Many organizations are experimenting with ways to improve collaboration for remote workers using a telepresence robot. An employee logs into the robot from another location, controlling its movements and cameras with his laptop. At meetings, he can swivel the camera around to see everyone present, and the other attendees can see and hear him. The robot, which looks a little like a vacuum cleaner topped by an LCD screen, has a second camera facing down so the remote operator can avoid bumping into objects. The 5-foot-tall machine is also equipped with speakers about chest high, and a microphone to pick up conversations.
In terms of the psychological aspects of collaboration, the telepresence robot is an improvement over the speaker phone or stationary videoconferencing facilities. When the robot is rolling through the halls, people can approach the robot to start a spontaneous conversation or ask a quick question. Remotely operated systems like this have been in use by the military for some time to disarm explosives, but their costs are coming down and their value in other settings is growing. Telepresence robots are already making contributions in medicine, where specialists can conduct live, virtual consultations with patients, and school children who can’t get to school are also using the devices to ‘sit’ in class, ask questions, and participate in discussions.

24. Yahoo! Telecommuting Case
Open Work program
Benefits
Barriers
Many companies around the world have embraced collaborative technologies and the virtual workplace. Researchers estimate that from 20 to 30 million people in the United States work at home at least one day a week, and the number continues to climb. Bucking this trend, Yahoo! decided that employees could no longer work from home, even if they had to wait for a repairman or care for sick children. CEO Marissa Mayer’s decision was accidentally leaked through a memo signed by Yahoo’s HR director. The policy change triggered howls of protest from employees, and a firestorm erupted on social media. As the youngest woman to head a major company, and someone who was pregnant when she was appointed, Mayer became a role model to many working mothers prior to this policy change.
Employees overwhelmingly support telework for its flexibility, and studies often find that workers are more productive when they are allowed to work from home. The virtual workplace benefits the employee, company, and community as well. Among Fortune magazine’s best companies to work for, several in the top 10 feature generous telework policies. Telework also helps recruit and retain top talent.
Mayer is not alone in believing that telecommuting brings along some serious disadvantages, particularly for high tech companies that rely on innovation and collaboration. Casual, unscheduled meetings take place more freely, involving people from different departments, and that can break down barriers and spur innovation. More face-to-face contact can also increase the speed of decision making. Employees who telecommute may also suffer setbacks in their careers compared to those who work on-site. Some studies have shown that telecommuters are less likely to be promoted, even if their productivity is high. Yahoo’s decision triggered heated debates about what it means to collaborate in a 21st century workplace.
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