ABSTRACT
We report on our experiences of introducing an instant messaging and group chat application into geographically distributed workgroups. We describe a number of issues we encountered, including privacy concerns, individual versus group training, and focusing on teams or individuals. The perception of the tool's utility was a complex issue, depending both on users' views of the importance of informal communication, and their perceptions of the nature of cross-site communication issues. Finally, we conclude with a discussion of critical mass, which is related to the features each user actually uses. More generally, we encountered a dilemma that imposes serious challenges for user-centered design of groupware systems
- Bradner, E., Kellogg, W., & Erickson, T. (1999). The adoption and use of BABBLE: A field study of chat in the workplace. In ECSCW (pp. 139--157). Lyngby, Denmark: Center for Tele-Information. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Churchill, E. F. and S. Bly. It's all in the words: Supporting work activities with lightweight tools. In GROUP '99. 1999. Phoenix, AZ 40--49. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Grudin, J. "Groupware and Cooperative Work: Problems and Prospects." In R.M. Baecker (ed.), Readings in Groupware and CSCW, San Francisco: Morgan Kaufman, pp. 97--105, 1993.Google Scholar
- Grinter, R. E. and M. Eldridge (2001) "y do tngrs luv 2 txt msg?" In ECSCW Bonn, Germany: September 18-20. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Herbsleb, J. D. and R. E. Grinter. Splitting the Organization and Integrating the Code: Conway's Law Revisited. In International Conference on Software Engineering. Los Angeles, CA. 85--95, 1999. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Herbsleb, J.D., Mockus, A., Finholt, T.A., & Grinter, R.E. An Empirical Study of Global Software Development: Distance and Speed. In International Conference on Software Engineering. Toronto, Canada, May 15-18,2001, pp. 81--90. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Herbsleb, J.D., Mockus, A., Finholt, T.A., & Grinter, R.E. Distance, Dependencies, and Delay in a Global Collaboration. CSCW 2000 pp. 319--328, Philadelphia, PA, Dec. 2-7, 2000. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Jones, E.E. (1979). The rocky road from acts to dispositions. American Psychologist, 34, 107--117.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Jones, E. E., & Nisbett, R. E. (1972). "The actor and the observer: Divergent perceptions of the causes of behavior." In E. E. Jones et al (Eds.), Attribution: Perceiving the causes of behavior. Morristown: General Learning Press.Google Scholar
- Kraut, R.E., Fish, R.S., Root, R.W., & Chalfonte, B.L. (1990). Informal communication in organizations: Form, function and technology. In S. Oskamp & S. Spacapan, (Eds.), Human reactions to technology: Claremont Symposium on Applied Social Psychology (pp. 145--199). Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
- Mark, Gloria, Poltrock, Steven. Diffusion of a Collaborative Technology Across Distance. To appear, Group 2000. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Markus, M. (1990). Toward a "critical mass" theory of interactive media. In J. Fulk & C. Steinfield (Eds.), Organizations and communication technology (pp. 194--218). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
- Nardi, B., Whittaker, S., Bradner, E. Interaction and Outeraction: Instant Messaging in Action. In CSCW 2000, 79--88, 2000. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Rogers, Everett M., Diffusion of Innovations. New York: Free Press, 1995.Google Scholar
- Tang, J., N. Yankelovich, J. Begole, et. al. ConNexus to Awarenex: Extending Awareness to mobile Users. In CHI 2001. New York: ACM Press. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Whittaker, S., Frohlich, D., & Daly-Jones, O. (1994). Informal workplace communication: What is it like and how might we support it? CHI '94 (pp. 131--137). New York: ACM Press. Google ScholarDigital Library
Index Terms
- Introducing instant messaging and chat in the workplace
Recommendations
What is chat doing in the workplace?
CSCW '02: Proceedings of the 2002 ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative workWe report an empirical study of a synchronous messaging application with group-oriented functionality designed to support teams in the workplace. In particular, the tool supports group chat windows that allow members of a group to communicate with text ...
Digital backchannels in shared physical spaces: attention, intention and contention
CSCW '04: Proceedings of the 2004 ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative workThere are a variety of digital tools for enabling people who are separated by time and space to communicate and collaborate on shared interests and tasks. The widespread use of some of these tools, such as instant messaging and group chat, coupled with ...
What counts as success? punctuated patterns of use in a persistent chat environment
GROUP '03: Proceedings of the 2003 ACM International Conference on Supporting Group WorkThis paper presents a case study of a globally distributed work group's use of an online environment called "Loops." Loops is a web-based persistent chat system whose aim is to support collaboration amongst corporate work groups. We describe the ways in ...
Comments