The panel session started with a series of conference announcements:
- Participatory design conference 2009 (submissions March 2008)
- Persuasive 2008
- Collaborations Technology 2008 in Japan
- CSCW 2008 in San Diego
- GROUP 2007
- Communities and Technologies 2009
Then the panel “The Changing Technological Landscape of CSCW – from BSCW to Sharepoint”:
Carl Gutwin
- the role of technology in CSCW: “underachiever” – everything was done 40 years ago (the Engelbart demo …); the rest that is successful was done without our help (IM, Social Networking, ….)
- So, is there any reason to keep building CSCW systems? Yes! I wanna build cool toys (gadgets)!
- Problem: 80/20 rule – that is the reason why groupware still sucks … “better than nothing does not mean good enough”
- Working with technology can show us new kinds of interactions
- Great example from lab: realtime chess with eight people playing at the same time (on one board)
Mike Fraser
- “What happened to Hiroshi Ishii?” … he is alive and well and publishing in CHI, UIST and DIS … (not in (E)CSCW) – they value experimental design
- Is CSCW committed to new technologies? Or is it ‘mundane’?
- In 1995 it was valued to get a system work!!!
- “just because a mundane technology is easier to study in situ shouldn’t mean we dump new systems from studies”
- “This community should be (a) embracing and (b) generating technically competent researchers.”
- “Why should computer scientists learn about situated action if social scientists can’t code?”
Carla Simone
- traditional approaches coexist with new challenges: the predominant web based “culture”, the pervasive computing paradigm
- need to find an “innovative” way to deal with this contrasting situation
- current situation: several successful application that focus on well defined and generic functionality (IM, BSCW, blogs, …); research prototypical tools that focus on highly specialized goals
- changing the landscape: make these applications really integrated!!!, give collaboration a primary role in shaping the “operating system”, overcome the web approach by creating “local” spaces of cooperation, let users flexibly select their preferred metaphor (task, community, communication, …)
Volker Wulf
- lots of developments in technology – a history of diversification
- diversification also in the way we are using the technologies
- we have less valid assumptions about the current environment of a collaborating colleague
- we have less valid assumptions about technological environment to design for
- use routines are less pre-defined by technology
- “We always said we use IT infrastructure … Now we really do!”
- “Work routines do not ‘benefit’ from IT use, they require IT!” – Danger of breakdown
- Towards Infrastructure-Oriented CSCW: stronger focus on interoperability, prepare for breakdowns, accountable technologies, less anticipable use situations – put the user in control, raising infrastructure awareness (in design), applying research from STS/Cyberinfrastructures to ‘work infrastructures in the small’
- Issue of innovation: we have lost a little bit on innovation in technology (with applications for cooperation), and we have lost a little bit in innovation in management/organization science
Discussion
- Problem: We will not get all the (relevant) “gadget builders” into our community
- One use of gadgets: Gadgets help us to ask questions about ourselves
- Importance of keeping up with the present technologies – e.g. mobile phones are not mentioned/used in the papers at this conference; things that have a huge collaborative impact is what CSCW should have a look at
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After the panel there was an additional announcement: In the future the ACM CSCW conference will be an annual conference – will be moved from November to February to synchronize with ECSCW and GROUP.