Keeping Mobile Workers In Sync and In Touch: Challenges, and Solutions

Final Project Summary

2009-09-24T06:11:00.001-07:00

Hooray! I can finally say this project has reached its conclusion. The project findings are summarized below. The complete project report can be found here, and corresponding presentation here.

The two main goals of the current project were to: (1) Identify the consequences and challenges of mobile work – particularly with respect one's ability to stay up-to-date (i.e., in sync) and connected (i.e., in touch) with his or her distant colleagues; and, (2) come up with potential design solutions to address these challenges.

Project Goal 1: Determine the role of in sync and in touch in mobile professionals' lives

Interviews were initially undertaken with a group of mobile workers in order to determine how much they valued staying in sync and in touch with their distant colleagues. Because all of those interviewed worked primarily in distributed project teams, they all spoke of expending a great deal of effort in order to nurture a sense of connectedness and stay up-to-date with their immediate, project-level colleagues. To that end, they generally traveled in order to hold regular face-to-face meetings with their team members, or were in daily contact with them by either phone or email (or both). So much effort was poured into activities that supported staying in sync and in touch with their project level colleagues that all those interviewed expressed satisfaction with the outcome of these efforts. In fact, staying in sync and in touch with one's project team was so important that it came to be considered a primary need of the mobile workers interviewed.

However, breakdowns occurred when they tried to use the same tools and practices for staying in sync and in touch with their project teams, as with the colleagues in their departments or wider organizations. The main problem arose when they used what one might consider traditional office tools – i.e., principally face-to-face meetings, phone and email – to infiltrate this second, much more dispersed and loosely connected group of individuals. Thus, these individuals came to be referred to as Traditionalists, namely because their choice of communication tools most closely resembled that of traditional, co-located office workers. They were also much more conservative in their approach to communication than a second group of highly connected networkers that was interviewed. To an extent, staying in sync and in touch with one's departmental or organizational level colleagues was considered to be of value to the Traditionalists (although not to the same degree as interactions with one's project level peers);communications at this level were thus designated secondary needs.

The problems for the Traditionalists were found to have two distinct levels. First, breakdowns in their ability nurture connections with their departmental/organizational level peers had dire consequences for the relationships that they had with those individuals. Some Traditionalists expressed a sense of confusion over what others in their department were currently working on; in extreme cases, the identities of some departmental peers were not even known. So, not only were there potential direct implications of not being able to stay in sync and in touch with one's departmental peers, but there were found to be indirect implications that had potentially detrimental repercussions for their project work, as well.

Project Goal 2: Come up with solutions to the problems faced by mobile professionals

As mentioned above, a second set of interviews was conducted with highly connected professionals. Findings from these interviews were used as inspiration for coming up with solutions to address the problems of the Traditionalists in keeping in sync and in touch with their departmental- and/or organizational-level colleagues. These were: (1) integrating the use of information filters (e.g., RSS feeds) into any solution; and (2) supporting one-to-many or many-to-many communication.

Next, a set of design six requirements (see the table below) was used to provide a foundation for some possible concept solutions.

After a series of analyses, and a couple of iterative design cycles, three concepts were developed into short illustrative movies; these were: (1) Ping, (2) Status Sharing tools, and (3) Bulletin Board. All three movies can be viewed here.

The next section covers the extent to which each of

the three concepts met the design requirements, according to findings from the

evaluations.

Assessment of the validity of the concepts…

With respect to the requirements

Comparison of the concepts to the requirements, including how those requirements were met (at least in part); * = This item is starred because it was the tool that was perceived to require the most effort by all those who took part in the final evaluation; however, results indicated that the degree of effort required was still perceived to be low, on average.

As shown in the table above (which is best viewed in its own browser window), it can be argued that – where applicable – all of the tools met all of the requirements. It is important to note that – because the solutions presented were early-stage concepts – it would be hard to concretely assess the effort involved in setting up each tool. Moreover, the evaluations were mainly meant to tap the extent to which the users valued the concepts themselves (e.g., did they mind sharing information regarding their activities and whereabouts, and similarly, did they also like to have access to this information from their contacts?) Therefore, a second requirement dealing with the need for a low-effort set-up of the system was left out of the table.

With respect to staying in sync

Both those interviewed and those who filled out the online evaluation indicated that the Bulletin Board and Status Sharing tools had the potential to help them stay up-to-date with their colleagues, to an equal degree. Ping was also thought to be a useful in sync tool, albeit to a slightly lesser degree than the other two concepts.

With respect to staying in touch

Although all of the concepts were considered to be adequate in touch tools, the Bulletin Board was considered to be the tool that was best suited to this goal. Both those interviewed and those who took the online evaluation noted its potential for sharing more personally-relevant information.

General reception of the concepts

According to the final evaluation, those interviewed appeared to prefer the Ping concept overall. With respect to the online evaluation, both Ping and the Status Sharing tool came out on top. Although these tools were not perceived to be the best tools – hands down – for staying either in sync or in touch, they were considered to be the easiest to use; were thought to have the lowest cost-to-benefit ratios; and, would require the least amount of time. Thus, it can be argued that requirement #3 (above) was given the most weight when assessing these concepts. Interestingly, the concept that was considered to have the most combined in sync and in touch potential – that is, the Bulletin Board – was the least appreciated overall, across all evaluations.

Future directions

Based on findings from the evaluations, it was suggested that either the Ping or Status Sharing tool be considered for further development. In the end, the problems faced by the Traditionalists can be thought of as large – but given their preference for simple, low-effort tools it is concluded that only very modest solutions will be adopted readily. The potential benefit in providing modest solutions, however, is that they might lower the threshold sufficiently enough so that the Traditionalists can meet both primary and secondary needs effectively.

Some thoughts on blogging...and an update

2009-09-01T23:49:00.000-07:00

First, some reflections on this blog

I am currently in the writing phase, wrapping things up and writing a first draft of my final report. It's not possible to overstate the utility in maintaining a blog during a large project such as this one. Although the frequency with which I updated this blog was often spotty -- and certainly there are some posts that are more indicative of my own mental meanderings than anything else -- there remains much to draw on as I write up the project in final form. I'd recommend to anyone working on a lengthy project to do the same. As far as I can see, there's no reason not to. The cost of writing a blog entry while in the midst of the project pays off when it comes time to present one's findings to others -- at that point, it's a huge time saver. And, if issues related to privacy are a concern, it's possible to adapt the security controls accordingly.

An added benefit has been receiving feedback from my posts -- both online and in person. Although the volume of these comments -- especially those posted online -- has been fairly low, I still think blogging has been a worthwhile endeavor. Besides getting insightful feedback, I now have a repository of project milestones that I can easily refer to. This blog has ended up serving as a kind of memory for the project itself.

So, I'm definitely a convert to blogging. Whether I can be as open about my work in the future is questionable (and unlikely) -- I am in a unique position here at Future Workspaces because Novay is such an open organization, and because the nature of the project itself.

And now a brief update

During these past four weeks, I've made three short movies meant to illustrate the three concept ideas that were highlighted in the last series of posts (i.e., Ping, the Easy Desktop Updater + the Hover Status Tool, and Bulletin Board).

Here are those movies:

1. Ping

2. Status Sharing Tools (aka, Easy Desktop Updater + Hover Status Tool)

3. Bulletin Board

They're all quite simple in their presentation of the concept ideas, but I've been asked a few times how I made them. The first two (Ping and Desktop Updater/Hover Status) were made in Flash using hand-drawn sketches that I scanned and touched-up in Photoshop. The Bulletin Board movie is simply a PowerPoint presentation that I put together with a few more of my sketches and recorded using Camtasia.

I showed these movies during a series of one-on-one interviews with mobile workers. I spent a decent part of a couple of weeks traveling around to conduct the interviews with 5 mobile workers. I had them fill out the same questionnaires that I used during the focus group sesssion and used it as a basis for a in-depth discussion of the concepts. I also had them complete an exercise like the one from the focus group, in which they had to rate their overall impressions of the concepts using stickers.

At the moment, I'm in the process of writing up the results of the last round of interviews for the final report. In tandem, I've also posted an online evaluation of the three concepts. I'm trying to recruit -- through various means, such as twitter, Facebook, word-of-mouth, and of course through my colleagues at work -- mobile workers to take the evaluation. Thus far, many have watched the videos, and few have actually completed the questionnaires. I'm giving the evaluation a few more days, though -- and keeping my fingers crossed.

Evaluating Sketchy Ideas, Part 4: Focus Group Questionnaire Results

2009-08-03T05:25:00.000-07:00

This post is the third to do with a recent focus group which was held on the topic of some very basic and rough concept ideas that I had come up with. It's also the last installment in a series of posts concerning the earliest concept development phase of my project.

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Questionnaire Items

The questionnaire items were meant to gauge each participant's reactions to various aspects of each of the four concepts.

All participants were presented with the same 10 questions -- and asked to rate their answers on a 5-point Likert scale -- for all four concepts (i.e., Ping, the Bulletin Board, an Easy Desktop Status Updater, and Hover Status). Using the same questions for each concept allowed for direct comparisons across concepts.

Questions were adapted from a questionnaire used during a prior Future Workspaces assessment.

A list of the questions used:

I would use this tool frequently and actively.
I think this tool looks easy to use.
This tool would help me to exchange information with my colleagues.
This tool would help others keep up-to-date with what's going on with me.*
This tool would help me keep up-to-date with what's going on with others.*
This tool would help me to get to know my colleagues more personally.**
This tool would take up too much of my valuable time.
Using this tool, I would be in control of what others can learn about me.
This tool could provide benefits to my work.
The benefits appear to outweigh the costs of using this tool.

* - These questions have to do with staying in sync.
** - This question has to do with staying in touch.

Responses were coded as follows:

Strongly agree = +2 points
Agree = +1
Neither agree nor disagree = 0
Disagree = -1
Strongly disagree = -2

Results

Here is a graphic capturing the reactions of the four focus group participants to the four concepts (no doubt it's best viewed in its own web browser tab):

Discussion

Given the small number of data points statistical analyses would have been inappropriate in this case. However, as the graphic clearly shows, the questionnaire was a useful tool for assessing participant attitudes.

It is noteworthy to mention that the tools rated the highest overall (see the previous post for the complete results, or the graphic below) were associated with perceptions of having a higher benefit-to-cost ratio (i.e., Easy Status Updater and Hover Status). Not surprisingly, these were also the tools that people said they would use more frequently (in addition to Ping).

On the flip side, the Bulletin Board was considered to be the only tool that could potentially take up too much of the users' time.

Two factors seem to have driven people's overall rating of the concepts -- that is, time and the perceived presence of additional benefits. I'm going to take some time to justify and further explain this claim, so bear with me.

Here again is the graphic showing the participants' overall distribution of bonus and penalty points for the four concepts:

Overwhelmingly, the most poorly rated tool was the Bulletin Board.

But, if one examines the questionnaire results more closely, this rating has nothing to do with its potential for keeping colleagues up-to-date with one another. Pooling the results of the two up-to-date questions, the Bulletin Board actually out-rated the Hover Status tool or Easy StatusUpdater. Likewise, it also rated higher than any other tool when it came to potential for keeping colleagues connected.

On every other measure, the Bulletin Board drew mostly neutral responses.

In the end, the consensus of the business developers was that they did not find status updates useful to their work.

Perhaps, as I mentioned in the last couple of posts, this is because -- for the most part -- they work independently rather than in teams.

Although both the Easy Status Updater and the Hover Status tools focus on status updates, the effort expended in updating one's own or viewing an other person's status is very low -- one could argue, sufficiently low enough to make the use of such tools more acceptable.

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Given the findings from the expert session and focus group, I've begun a second design iteration. The next few posts will cover aspects of the redesign.

Evaluating Sketchy Ideas, Part 3: Focus Group Discussion and Rating Results

2009-08-03T01:27:00.000-07:00

I recently held a focus group session with four in-house business developers. The goal was to get some feedback on the merits and weaknesses of a few rough concept ideas.

For more information on the concepts themselves and set-up of this focus group, please see the last post.

In this post I'll cover the outcome of the discussions which were held during the focus group, as well as the participants' overall impressions of the concepts. I'll wait until the next post to cover the questionnaire results, as those conclusions are sufficiently long enough to warrant their own post.

Discussion results (by concept)

I presented each of the four concept ideas (Ping, Bulletin Board, an Easy Desktop Status Updater, and Hover Status) in turn.

While presenting the concepts, I prodded the participants to engage in discussion by asking the following questions:

- Do you think this [concept] would benefit your ability to stay up-to-date with your distant colleagues? Why or why not?
- Do you think this [concept] would benefit your ability to stay connected with your distant colleagues? Why or why not?
- More generally, would it be useful to you? Why or why not?

This discussion was meant to supplement a questionnaire that each participant was asked to fill out following the presentation of each concept.

Some select comments made by the participants with regards to each of the four concepts are listed below, as well as some general trends.

Ping

- I would try it around noon, to see who is [around].
- It would be more useful for times when [one] is out-of-the-office.
- It seems to be more beneficial for people who work outside of the organization. Like for instance, when I am in the Hague. It would be useful to stay connected with main stakeholders when I am in that area of the country.
- As to staying connected or up-to-date, the application itself doesn't tell you much. These are things you would learn in person, after having used the application to meet up.
- By show of hands, all said they would use it.
- As to how frequently it would be used, this result was more mixed because they said it's use would be contingent upon the situations that happened to arise. [This point illustrates the opportunistic nature of the application.]
- Would like the ability to Ping groups of people, not just individuals.
- Would prefer a mobile web-based application (rather than have the operation of the application be contingent upon SMS*).

*It is important to note that one of my design constraints was explicitly not to build an application usable only by individuals who own smartphones.

Bulletin Board

- Only one of the group said that he uses an application in which he regularly updates his status (in this case, twitter).
- Everyone else found the act of status updating dubious (i.e., it is all about people talking about the sandwiches they are eating; there is no useful information being shared, &etc). Important note: These individuals did not actually have first-hand experience using such applications (e.g., twitter).

More specific quotes:

- I would update my status, but only if it was done automatically, from my calendar.
- As a sender, I am not sure that I would want to update my status all of the time.
- I am not interested in what other people are doing.
- It should be a mobile application, too -- but one that does not rely solely on SMS.
- There is too much information coming to me already -- I would need a filter.
- I do not want to know about the status of 100 different people, but for some specific people, yes. For instance, for a colleague that has been having personal difficulty lately, it is good to know if he is okay when I don't see him. But this would mean the application would need have some kind of a filter to get just his specific information only.
- For the more information-rich version of the Bulletin Board: If the idea could be adapted so I (and the people in my group) just send short messages for updates rather than spend three hours/week writing reports, I would use it because it would save me time. I don't like giving status updates, but if it helps reduce the work time by replacing all of this report writing, then I would do it.
- One of the participants said he would use the more information rich version (i.e., the one quoted directly above); for the basic version, it would need to include automatic updates as an input method to be more acceptable.

Easy Desktop Status Updater
- Questions regarding to where the status would be channeled (e.g., twitter, Bulletin Board, LinkedIn, &etc?)
- One person was very keen on using it only to have his status automatically updated.
- Three out of the four people said they would use it.
- Wants to be able to filter who gets what status information (by, for example, sending some status updates only to his closest work group and not the entire organization).
- Again would prefer a mobile web application (does not like the use of SMS to update one's status), because he said that it would be more convenient for when people are on-the-go.

Hover Status
- All said that such information, in the form presented, would be useful to them.
- Given feedback from a prior session, they were also asked whether the presentation of the information might prove "irritating"; they all said that they did not perceive that to be a problem.
- Also would like to get location-based information on their contacts which would be included in the hover stats.
- One said he likes the idea of "pulling information" to himself.

Overall impressions of the concepts

At the end of the focus group session, each participant was asked to give their overall impression of the concepts by distributing five bonus points (green stickers) and five penalty points (red stickers) among the four concepts. They could distribute the points however they wished.

Here are the results of that exercise:

As is evident, the Hover Status tool was the most enthusiastically endorsed. Ping and the Easy Desktop Status Updater received neutral-to-moderately positive ratings. Overwhelmingly, the Bulletin Board was given a poor rating by everyone.

It's important to keep in mind that these ratings aren't nuanced -- in other words they're gross-level endorsements or dismissals of the concepts as a whole.

Here are some of my thoughts on the best and worst ratings:

Bulletin Board

With respect to the Bulletin Board, two things should be kept in mind:

1. The business developers tend to coordinate in their work -- rather than collaborate with their colleagues. Moreover, much of their work (e.g., hunting down leads) is done independently. This might explain why there was a general lack of interest in knowing what their colleagues were up to.

However, all of the other mobile workers that I interviewed worked in project teams and engaged heavily in collaborative work. For this reason, there might be more of an interest in a tool that provides them with information about their distant colleagues. Also, aspects of the tool that were found to be disagreeable to the business developers were explicitly asked for by some Traditionalists that I had interviewed (e.g., a "News Flashes" feature).

2. I asked them to react to the information-rich version only; it is possible they might have been more positive about the basic version (which included only status updates). However, because of their group-level dismissal of the practice and use of status updates, it seems doubtful.

I can't help but wonder how others, who work in distributed project teams and in decentralized organizations might view the basic version.

Hover Status:
This tool was rated the highest, and for good reason. It is lightweight and useful -- especially in those moments when one must decide what strategy is best for contacting another person.

However, I think more needs to be done to rework this tool so that it helps colleagues in large, distributed organizations interact. It seems to me that this tool is best used primarily with respect to one's known colleagues. How this will help a person discover what is going on within the department or larger organization remains unclear.

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As mentioned previously, the results for each of the four 10-item questionnaires will be covered in the next post.

Evaluting Sketch Ideas, Part 2: Recipe for a Focus Group

2009-07-31T03:57:00.001-07:00

Early in the week I held a focus group with some potential users. In total, four business developers showed up for the session (out of the six that replied, two were no-shows -- I won't dwell on what this means regarding my popularity). ;)

This post will cover the materials and set-up of that focus group. In the next post, I'll cover findings.

About the Participants

The business developers share some key characteristics with the Traditionalists that I had initially interviewed. Both groups find themsleves oftentimes out-of-office, spending a large portion of their working days criss-crossing the country to engage in meetings.

But there are also some important differences too. The Traditionalists devote a sizeable percentage of their jobs to project work. In focusing primarily on project work, it becomes critical for them to manage their communication channels in such a way as to support their ability to collaborate within their project teams effectively.

Business Developers, on the other hand, work more independently. Their main task is hunting down "leads". Certainly open communication with their intra-organizational peers is a benefit to this kind of work (e.g., it's important to know who is hunting down what lead and the outcome of that effort) -- but, it does not require a need to collaborate at the same level of intensity that project work does. Instead, it could be argued that it requires business developers to coordinate more often with their colleagues.

I mention this difference because it has some important implications for the results of the focus group session.

The Ingredients (aka, Materials & Set-up)

Presentation - You can view it here (however, it does look better if you follow the link to view it in full screen mode):Focus Group 27-7-09 - Concept Ideas x 4 Four very rough concept ideas were presented. An important note: If you view the slides, the following critical point might not be evident -- that is, the Bulletin Board concept is given two distinct visualizations. One is a basic version, that only shows status updates, short messages and mulitmedia, and is filterable by group (e.g., project team, department, organization, and all). Another, more information rich version of the Bulletin Board is also shown. This second version includes quick news updates, document sharing, and a bare-bones forum (in addition to everything available in the basic Bulletin Board -- it is basically the Daily Outlook concept from a previous post, however, the application need not be restricted to Outlook in this case). In addition, it supports threaded discussions. The criteria by which I wanted them to differentiate between these two concepts was whether or not they benefited from the added information -- or whether the additional information might pose too much of a cost (e.g., in the form of information overload) to them. Whether they received the information in the form of a desktop application, online, or in Outlook mattered less than whether or not they preferred the full version of the concept, or a scaled down version of it.
Cue cards - The explicit goal of this project is to: Support mobile workers in their ability to stay in sync and in touch. However, these terms -- in sync, in touch -- are easily confusable. So we went with "up-to-date" and "connected" for the focus group session because everyone has an intuitive sense of what these synonomous terms mean to them. The purpose of the cards was to remind the participants of the criteria that I wanted them to use in assessing the concepts. So, the basis of the discussion for each concept revolved around these basic questions: Would it help you stay up-to-date with your colleagues? And, would it help you stay connected to them?
Questionnaires - Following the presenation of each of the four concepts -- that is, Ping, the Bulletin Board, an Easy Desktop Status Updater, and Hover Status -- participants were asked to fill in a brief 10-item questionnaire. (A complete list of the questions will appear in a future "Results" post).
Bonus & Penalty Points - Each participant was given five green dots (or bonus points) and five red dots (penalty points). They were asked to distribute the points among the four concepts as they saw fit (e.g., if they wanted to assign all five bonus points to one concept, that was perfectly acceptable).
Food - What is a focus group session without food?

Results...

...Forthcoming in the next post.

Evaluating "Sketchy" Ideas, Part 1: Expert Feedback

2009-07-27T06:05:00.001-07:00

Last week I met with a few in-house experts (i.e., members of the Future Workspaces team) here at Novay and asked them to give feedback on some "sketchy" concept ideas.

I went to them with six rough ideas for solutions to keeping mobile workers -- specifically the "Traditionalists", as I've come to refer to them -- in sync and in touch. I showed them a series of sketches illustrating each concept.

A very brief description of each of these follows:

1. Ping

Location-based awareness of colleagues that does not require the use of a GPS-enabled smartphone* to work. It helps mobile professionals check to see when their geographically-distributed colleagues are nearby so that they can then contact one another for an ad hoc, face-to-face meeting.

2. Bulletin Board

A means of sharing status updates, short messages, and multimedia that is filterable by group (e.g., "Project Team", "Department", or "Organization"). The application would act as a sort of dynamically updating desktop wallpaper.

3. Daily Outlook

An add-on for Outlook that configures the Outlook Today page and is meant to support the sharing of: 1. Status updates; (2) News Flashes; (3) Document sharing (via the use of links); and (4) a Q&A section (basically, a bare bones forum).

4. Outlook-based Blogging Tool

An add-on for Outlook that makes it easy to post to blogs as well as track, read and share blog posts from within Outlook (all without having to open a web browser).

5. Free Five

Personnel within a company are matched based on mutual professional interests. Individuals can make available "five minutes" (or more) of free time to meet with previously unknown colleagues, thus earning points. Earned points can be traded in a type of bartering system that allows participants to "buy" time slots from one another. The basic idea is to foster the making of new connections within large, decentralized organizations; help find experts; and, open new opportunities for collaboration.

6. Hover Status

By hovering over the name of a colleague -- for example, when composing a new email message -- a small window appears that displays that contact's latest status update (e.g., as fed from their calendar). This information can be used to help one decide which method is best for contacting an individual at that moment -- be it email, phone, or face-to-face communication.

_____________________________

While they were evaluating the concepts, I asked the participants to keep in mind the six design requirements (as outlined in a previous post). As a reminder of those requirements, I printed off some A4-sized cards listing the requirements and gave one to each participant. That way they could easily refer to the requirements -- and assess the extent to which each concept idea addressed them -- as they gave their feedback.

For each concept, participants were asked to give three pros, three cons, and three improvements for furthering the design. I used this feedback as the basis for a second design iteration (I plan to share some of this feedback in future posts). Then, I had them rank order each concept. Each first place ranking was given a score of six points, a second place ranking was given a score of five, and so on.

The outcome of the rank ordering is as follows:
1. Ping - 20 points
2. Hover Status - 18 points
3. Daily Outlook - 16 points
4. Bulletin Board - 14 points
5. Outlook Blogging Tool - 11 points
6. Free Five - 6 points

I used the feedback and rank orderings to modify the top four concepts. The following week I held a focus group with users. There I presented the Ping and Hover Status concepts, along with a new concept (which also came out of the expert assessment) -- an easy status updater that sits on the desktop. The Bulletin Board and Daily Outlook concepts were rolled into a single idea.

In the next post, I'll share more about this focus group.

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*I realize in the example here I've actually drawn a smartphone. That's simply a function of the fact that they are easier to draw (e.g., fewer buttons, paired with a nice big display!) As an aside: Although smartphone sales are on the rise -- according to a recent report, despite the fact that there has been a sharp increase in the number of smartphones sold -- they still only make up approximately 13.5% of the mobile phone market. And these numbers are reflective of the mobile professionals I talked to -- that is, the majority of them didn't own smartphones.

Design Philosophy

2009-07-08T05:19:00.000-07:00

My coach suggested a great idea -- that is to come up with a detailed design philosophy. I'm sharing it here because -- although some of the content has already been published on my blog -- I think it nicely illustrates the logic underlying the user requirements I have chosen.

Curtis 2009 Design Philosophy

Study Conclusions

2009-07-03T00:45:00.000-07:00

The above table highlights the major findings from two sets of interviews that I conducted with two distinct groups of individuals.

The "Traditionalists"

Findings from the first set of interviews have been covered in detail in a series of earlier posts. In short, the interview participants from this group possessed the following characteristics:

- Most (8 out of 10) worked for large companies (10,000+ employees).
- All worked on projects in geographically distributed teams.

The first three columns of the table specifically address issues related to the above individuals. I call them "traditionalists" because -- although they are mobile workers -- they are constrained in their use of tools and practices in such a way that many of their interactions with distant colleagues arguably mimic those of traditional, co-located office workers. That is to say that most co-located colleagues prefer face-to-face and email methods of interaction with their colleagues-- and, so do these individuals, as well.

The first column shows that these traditionalists have four basic needs. Their primary needs function at the project level, and have to do with staying in sync and in touch with their fellow team members. Secondary needs deal with the individual's interactions at the departmental (or group) level -- and beyond -- with regards to both staying in sync and in touch.

The second and third columns capture their ability to effectively deal with all of these needs. Not surprisingly, the tools and practices they use for handling their needs are satisfactory at the project level. However, breakdowns occur at the departmental level when they attempt to use the same tools to address their primary needs as their secondary. This makes sense, because using one-to-one communication platforms to target a large, diffuse and loosely connected group of individuals is an inefficient strategy. And, arguably, the tools the traditionalists most heavily rely on are best suited to one-to-one communication, including email. (As a tool for eliciting two-way communication, emails directed to individuals are much more successful than broadcast emails).

The Highly Connected Professionals

Given these findings, I next interviewed a group of highly connected (or networked) individuals. I also reviewed a set of interviews that had already been conducted for a previous study at Novay. My goal was to see if these individuals might incorporate some strategies or tools in their professional lives that might be of use to the traditionalists.

Identifying the gaps, and bridging them

One of the notable differences between the traditionalists and the highly connected professionals was that for the latter group, their needs were less distinctly segmented*. Instead, it would be more appropriate to talk about these individuals' interactions with their networks, as whole entities. Thus, a highly connected professional's principal need is to stay in sync and in touch with this diversely populated network. And, whereas it might be more appropriate to say that the majority of those in the traditionalist group largely associate their networks with people that they have interacted with (at some point) in person, with the highly connected professionals, this generalization does not necessarily hold. Highly connected professionals actively maintain networks that include any number of individuals they have never met face-to-face but who are still considered valuable.

Another striking difference is that in their interactions with their networks, the highly connected individuals employ diverse and experimental methods and tools. Oftentimes this means participation in online communities (e.g., blogging networks, Ning, or forums) and other forms of social media (e.g., twitter). To stay abreast of recent information -- from either individuals or other news sources -- RSS feeds are used to filter information.

Perhaps it seems a bit of a stretch to characterize an individual who actively uses twitter and RSS feeds as "experimental". But consider the following: According to a highly publicized report, there are approximatley 4.5 million twitter users worldwide. In addition, roughly half of the users on twitter have never even updated their status, not even once. However, given the ubiquity of twitter coverage in the media -- and RSS on websites -- it's easy to think of the use of such tools as much more commonplace than is probably justified.

So, it is probably not surprising that the use of such tools is not more widespread among the traditionalists I interviewed.

That said, there are some characteristics underlying the tool use of the the highly connected professionals that might be of use if applied to a solution for the communication breakdowns that occur for the traditionalists.

First, the highly connected professionals make generous use of filters. I categorize these filters in two ways. First are the emergent filters. Imporant information "emerges" from the buzz going on in an individual's network. An example is realizing that Google Wave is a highly anticipated application and perhaps worth investigating because many of one's connections (spanning across various channels) are commenting about it on the day that its preview is released.

The other type of filter comes from the use of information feeds. Using an RSS feed reader, for example, it is possible to process the latest pieces of information from only those sources that an individual feels are pertinent. So, rather than learning about Google Wave from a colleague, I might read about it in an article posted to the ReadWriteWeb feed.

By using both types of filters, there is some redundancy in the system. However, this could be construed as a good thing because it lessens the chance that important information will be overlooked.

Unfortunately for the traditionalists, when trying to stay up-to-date with departmental and organizational level information, comparatively they are at a loss. Not only do they lack the support for developing an adequate departmental-level network (which, in turn can be an excellent source of internal information), they also complained of difficulties directly accessing useful information within the organizations that they worked for.

A solution that provides an easy mechanism for information filtering would benefit the traditionalists because many complained that organizational information depositories were often fragmented amongst a number of databases and applications. Furthermore, they distrusted the relevancy of information from such sources because it was oftentimes outdated. If fresher, relevant information was funneled to them, they could avoid the laborious and frustrating task of having to seek it out.

Inadequate access to internal information is problematic for a number of reasons, not the least of which because the real value of reports and documents isn't in their completion but in the discussions, actions, and future collaborations that result from their dissemination. Here, too, the traditionalists can be seen as being at a loss.

Finally, the highly connected individuals embraced open communication -- by this I mean communication that is not necessarily one-to-one, but is instead oftentimes one-to-many. The interactions that occur when people participate in online forums and communities are typically one-to-many. A shift away from one-to-one communication could help the traditionalists nurture in sync and in touch relationships at the departmental level.

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* It's important to note that this difference might simply be an artifact of the way that they talked about their professional connections -- but of course, this is a risk inherent when relying on self-reports, in general.

Persuading people to change

2009-07-01T00:53:00.000-07:00

Inspired in part by Mathemagenic and as recommended by my coach here at Novay, I've been publishing a few entries that have to do with preliminary results that will ultimately go into my final report.

However, truth be told, my current progress isn't well reflected in this blog. I've yet more results from a round of later interviews to publish, and plan to do so (and soon). The conclusions I've drawn from both sets of interviews are interesting, and will be shared here. And, I'm currently working on some usage scenarios for a couple of concepts...

But, first I'd going to take a moment to depart from progress reporting to do a bit of mental meandering on the topic of persuasion. Yesterday, during a Future Workspaces group meeting in which I presented some basic ideas for a couple of concepts, the question of how to effectively change people's attitudes came up.

This topic falls under the purview of persuasive technology. Perhaps the name most heavily associated with this field is that of BJ Fogg. According to Fogg, persuasive technology, generally defined, is the intentional use of technology to change human behavior and/or attitudes (Fogg, 1998). It is important to note that this does not imply the use of coersion -- as stated in the Golden Rule of Persuasion, it is unethical to use technology to induce people to do "something they themselves would not consent to be persuaded to do" (Berdichevsky & Neuenschwander, 1999). Socially-conscious examples of persuasive technology include an electronic doll for teens, meant to mimic the behaviors of a newborn infant (thus increasing awareness about the implications of teenage parenthood), or a website that is meant to promote and encourage healthy eating choices among children (King & Tester, 1999).

This topic came up in reference to some of the conclusions that I came to following both rounds of interviews. Namely, that staying in sync and in touch with colleagues at the departmental and organizational level can be a big challenge for mobile workers. There are some good reasons why this might occur (which I'll get into in more detail a future post), but suffice it to say for now that there are a few main ones.

First, in doing primarily off-site project work, the number of opportunities to interact face-to-face with their departmental colleagues are few.
Secondly, their primary needs deal principally with the activities that support their current project work and team -- thus making anything that falls outside of this narrow focus secondary.
The favored tools for staying in sync and in touch at the project level include the phone, face-to-face meetings, and email.
Finally, breakdowns occur when the preferred tools for staying in sync and in touch at the project level are also used for interactions at the more highly-distributed departmental level (and beyond).

In other words, the difficulty that a sizeable number of the mobile workers I spoke to face occurs when they try to use their favorite tools (the phone, face-to-face meetings, and email) to establish connections and stay up-to-date with a larger, more diffuse group of individuals -- that is, their departmental colleagues.

Certainly there are better tools for establishing and maintaining in sync and in touch relationships with a large group of individuals than the telephone. Twitter, for example, immediately comes to mind.

However, I also found new technology adoption among this group to be somewhat lagging. One commonly cited reason has to do with a lack of widespread following among their already established connections -- an argument that makes a lot of sense. After all, why use twitter if no one else you know is using it too?

But another big contributing factor had to do with the heavy emphasis placed on face-to-face communication.

All of this lead to a discussion about how to change people's attitudes. I also interviewed a group of highly connected (and networked) individuals, and their attitudes about the role of face-to-face communication tended to diverge from the first group of mobile workers. Generally speaking, in their view face-to-face communication was clearly beneficial -- but not always absolutely necessary, not even for collaborative work.

So, the question is, how to foster an attitude change in the more traditional group of mobile workers towards alternate tools or methods of communication?

The answer, I think, might lie in the use of persuasive technology.

To that end, I began by hunting down relevant examples. I looked into an effective system for building up an expertise localization database within organizations, ExpertFinder. Basically, the way it works is that a group of employees is sent an email asking them to assess their own expertise level in a given domain, as well as refer others who might also be experts in that specific area, too. In addition, users are able to add addtional domains, thus expanding the database with relevant topics.

This system is a nice example of the use of persuasive technology. In a pilot study, 500 individuals who worked in a R&D department of a large company submitted 2,500 emails covering close to 200 topics over the course of a single week. In other words, the system was incredibly effective at encouraging people to build up a database of expertise in a very short amount of time.

The evident question from all of this is how to draw on examples of persuasive technology in order to create a system that helps induce distant departmental-level colleagues to connect more effectively? Is it better to create a solution that works well with the tools mobile workers prefer (i.e., the phone, face-to-face meetings) or find a way to encourage them to expand their tool set?

I'm working on a couple of concepts that address both possibilites and will return to them in detail in a later post. Nevertheless, I'm interested in what others think.

Exploratory Interviews - Part III (the Mind Map )

2009-06-08T07:59:00.000-07:00

An overview of a mind map of the interview results. Go to MindMeister.com to view an interactive (and readable!) version.

Due to the large volume of data points (i.e., sticky notes) prepared during the affinity diagramming sessions, a mind map was created in order to further organize the results. As shown in the mind map, four main branches--or categories--emerged: (1) needs; (2) staying in sync; (3) staying in touch; and, (4) other.

As shown in the mind map, needs were divided further into two subcategories, immediate and secondary. From the interviews it was clear that most individuals were primarily concerned with staying up-to-date and in touch with their project team, and as a consequence were satisfied with their ability to do so. Also, access to information from multiple locations or while on-the-go was a necessary component of mobile work, for many reasons. For example, many talked of checking email while traveling, or accessing relevant documents while at a project site--both activities which illustrate their need to stay in sync while engaging in distance work.

Knowing what was going on within the context of the larger organization was a secondary concern for all of those interviewed--but, it was still critical enough to be classified as a need. For the most part, critical breakdowns occurred at this level. Lack of an effective system for information exchange was a commonly cited problem. Generally, this breakdown was most noticeable at the departmental (or group) level, but individuals also conveyed a sense of frustration over not knowing what was going on within the company as a whole. Available information was either too spare and infrequently updated (e.g., when in the form of monthly newsletters) or distributed over too many channels (e.g., internal websites and databases). Likewise, many admitted to being personally unfamiliar with fellow colleagues who they did not work with on projects--despite the fact that they were affiliated with the same department, and oftentimes fulfilled similar roles for the organization. For the most part, such findings are not surprising. Many of the individuals worked in departments or groups that consisted almost wholly of mobile professionals, thus sharply reducing the amount of time that colleagues were able to interact face-to-face at the corporate or home office base.

Two major branches were devoted to issues related to the concepts of in sync and in touch. However, because it can be argued that the two concepts are highly related, it should not be assumed that these categories are mutually exclusive. Also, because the focus of the interviews primarily dealt with participants’ experiences while staying in sync with distant colleagues, this segment of the mind map is more explicitly defined.

Close examination of the in sync branch reveals a reliance on traditional communication tools by interview participants. For the most part, the mobile workers interviewed reported relying heavily on periodic face-to-face meetings and email or phone when staying up-do-date with their fellow project team members. The third most common form of mediated communication used by mobile workers was teleconferencing. Communication via instant message (IM) was rarely used (2 out of the 10 mentioned using it regularly), however, half of the participants talked about using one’s IM status to know whether the person would likely be available to receive a phone call. Similarly, the regular adoption of other tools, such as the use of a web cam while having an online discussion was low (again, only 2 individuals mentioned reporting the use of this technology with any regularity).

Finally, the other category was used to address the few remaining data points that were thought to affect one’s ability to stay in sync and in touch, but did not specifically fit within the other three major categories (e.g., “travel takes a physical toll”).

Exploratory Interviews - Part II: (Preliminary) Affinity Diagramming Results

2009-05-11T10:39:00.000-07:00

What follows is the second post in a series dealing with the results of recent interviews that I conducted with mobile workers.
___________

As mentioned in the previous post, affinity diagramming was used to analyze the interview results. Affinity diagramming is a qualitative analytical method comparable to exploratory factor analysis. In this case, a team of two analyzed the majority of the results together by first coming up with a set of sticky notes for each interview individually (usually around 25 “stickies” per interview, per researcher). The content of individual sticky notes generally encapsulated a single idea or issue.

Some examples are listed below:

- "[The] second biggest issue when collaborating across distance is infrastructure"
- "Multitasks in order to achieve work-life balance"
- "Distance work is slow work"
- "Checks colleagues' availability on MS Communicator before calling"
- "To resolve conflict sometimes it is necessary to close computers and talk face-to-face"
- "Sometimes it is hard to know when to get others involved"
- "Lots of information is spread across too many systems within the organization"

In this way, each sticky note served as a data point. Sticky notes with related content were placed together on a large, plain white board. Approximately 500 sticky notes were used to analyze all 10 interviews (about 250 per researcher). From this process a number of major thematic clusters emerged (the above photo documents part of this process), principally divided between the two main concepts of in sync and in touch. These themes represented the primary category divisions of:

1. Standard practices - "Practices" dealt mainly with those used for staying in sync, and typically fell into one of two subcategories, formal and informal. Formal practices included scheduled meetings (either face-to-face or teleconferencing), for example. Informal practices included unplanned emails or phone calls.

2. Strategies – This cluster encompassed strategies used to get to know fellow colleagues both within their own project team and within the larger organization (e.g., “Uses quarterly meetings to make new departmental contacts (e.g., informal lunch invites, etc.)”

3. Tools - Mostly described the benefits and drawbacks of tools used for mediated communication (e.g., phone, email, Sharepoint, and twitter, among others)

4. Breakdowns/Gaps - Included unresolved issues in which neither tools nor strategies could provide an adequate solution (e.g., "Energy levels differ in across-the-world communication" or "The volume of email cannot be processed in a single day")

5. Coping strategies - Solutions to problems (e.g.,"Checks with team at end of day while commuting in car", or "Uses agreed upon code in email subject line to determine information priority")

6. Benefits - Mostly had to do with staying in touch; e.g., "Informal face-to-face exchanges build trust and establish working relationships" could be considered benefits of staying in touch with colleagues.

7. Needs - What is needed to accomplish project and daily work; e.g., "Must be able to remotely access and maintain records"

8. Other - Included data points that didn't fit into the above category.

Next, mind mapping was used to further classify, narrow, and define the major categories that emerged during the affinity diagramming sessions. This mind map will appear in the next post.

Exploratory Interviews - Part I (the Method)

2009-04-22T03:39:00.000-07:00

Admittedly, it has been quite a while since my last post. During the majority of March, as well as part of April, I traveled around the Netherlands while conducting exploratory interviews with mobile workers. I spent a lot of time on the train (sometimes six hours a day), but also enjoyed some excellent perks like a tasty home cooked meal--as well as, of course, interesting discussions. In retrospect, I'm glad that I conducted these interviews in person, despite the time commitment required.

I have written up the results of these interviews already, and will be sharing them over a series of posts. This first post covers the interview methodology that was used, including information regarding the interview participants.
_________

One major goal of the interviews was to identify “critical incidents” as they relate to the dual concepts of in sync and in touch. The critical incident technique is an interview (or observational) method used to pinpoint the situations and circumstances that lead to breakdowns or successful outcomes (thus making them "critical"; Flanagan, 1954; Urquhart et al, 2003). The resultant data can then be used to identify the behaviors that lead to those outcomes. In the case of the current exploratory interviews, a series of questions was adapted from two sources: (1) a user study that addressed the application of interface agents in email notifications (Serenko, 2006); and, (2) an earlier study conducted within Future Workspaces on the causes and effects of information overload. The motivation behind using a variant on this technique in the current interviews was to discover common gaps or problems that mobile workers experience when trying to keep in sync with their distant colleagues. To a lesser extent, open-ended questions addressed how interviewees keep in touch with their colleagues, as well. (A complete list of probes can be provided upon request).

Because the interviews were exploratory, it is important to note that not all of the probe questions were asked of each individual. In other words, interviews were also used to get a sense of mobile workers' variable experiences when staying in sync and in touch, and so the interview structure remained flexible. This practice allowed each interviewee to describe his or her personal experiences and concerns in a manner that more or less followed the format of a loosely directed discussion rather than a formal interview. However, all participants were asked to share the following information:

1. What was needed in order to stay in sync¹ with distant colleagues?
2. To describe in detail at least two experiences that were highly significant because they lead to either a breakdown in staying in sync with their colleagues, or because the experience was particularly positive.
3. How trust² was established and maintained within the context of the distributed teams in which they were currently working.

Method
Interviews were semi-structured (as described above) and each lasted approximately one hour. All interviews were conducted by the same researcher. Sessions took place at each participant's workplace. Interviews were not recorded; however, participants were given typed electronic copies of the interview session notes for verification purposes.

Participants
Interviews were conducted with 10 knowledge workers (4 female) who were employed by 8 different companies. All but two of the participants worked for companies that employed between 1,000 and up to nearly 100,000 employees. Seven of the participants were engaged in some form of consultancy work and the other 3 were project managers. All had at least a bachelor’s degree (or equivalent).

Participants were recruited by electronically distributed flyers. Criteria for selection were broadly defined as a practical matter meant to ease recruitment. The two major criteria for participation were:

1. Having a job role that required working extensively on at least one distributed project.

2. Working away from a main office at least 50% of the time.

All participants satisfied the first criterion. However, the second criterion was relaxed somewhat to include one participant who traveled less extensively but was heavily involved in long-distance distributed project work.

Two qualitative analytical procedures were used to process the interview results. First, affinity diagramming was used to uncover emergent themes common across interviews. Due to the high number of sticky notes used to create these diagrams (approximately 500), a mind map was created to hierarchically organize categories and further refine the interview results.

The next post will cover the results of the affinity diagramming sessions.
__________

Footnotes:
1. Participants were specifically asked about staying "up-to-date" rather than staying "in sync" to avoid confusion.
2. During the interviews the terms "trust" and "feeling a connection" were used to tap into participants’ views and experiences with staying in touch with their colleagues. Again, this practice was used to avoid potentially confusing terminology.

Location awareness and serendipity

2009-02-18T00:48:00.000-08:00

Informal interactions between individuals nurture relationships by building trust. Trust, in turn, is a necessary component for creating social ties. In the professional world these ties can lead to a number of ancillary (but critical) benefits, including collaboration opportunities or the chance to be mentored by a knowledgeable coworker. Kraut and his colleagues (1990) investigated the ways in which coworkers interact in communal office spaces. They found that fully one third of all communication between colleagues is spontaneous--in other words, it is unplanned and (oftentimes) occurs on neutral territory in shared spaces such as at the water cooler, in the hallways, or near the coffee maker. Another 20% of interactions were found to be opportunistic--that is, situations in which one of the actors behaves as a sort of interloper, who sees an opportunity to chat with another colleague about a pertinent matter and then seizes on it. Thus, fully half of the face-to-face interactions that occur within the walls of an organization can be categorized as "informal". Specifically, they transpire outside of the more formal avenues for engagement (principally, the scheduled meeting). And, a crucial factor underlying these interactions is proximity. Having an unplanned, face-to-face meeting with a colleague is usually only possible when both parties happen to cross paths accidentally.

Because these chance encounters make up a huge portion of the interactions that take place within the confines of an office space, colleagues who regularly conduct business away from this setting miss out. Instead, many of the interactions they have with colleagues are scheduled in advance--or take place on the phone, over email, or via the use of IM. Not only does the use of such methods make communication more formal, in the case of the phone, email, and IM these mediums also lacks the richness of face-to-face interaction (Daft & Lengel, 1986). So, in the end, highly mobile and nomadic workers are confronted with few opportunities to enage in informal interactions with colleagues like the kind more traditional workers have access to.

The apparent cost for the nomadic worker is that with fewer opportunities to engage in informal exchange, the fewer opportunities they will encounter for possible future collaborations, exchange knowledge, or even foster social bonds (which, in turn, builds the trust necessary to collaborate or share knowledge effectively). In short, it leaves the nomad out of the loop.

Mobile location awareness technology can be used to draw the nomad back into the loop. A recent NYT's article discusses a few of the pros and cons of this technology--a notable recent example of which is Google Latitude. The application allows users to notify contacts of their physical location with varying degrees of specificity (i.e., country, city, or street), along with status updates.

It can be argued that the benefit of such technology is that it would allow the nomadic worker to meet-up, on the fly, with collaborators who are in close proximity. In the NYT article, that's precisely what the creator of another social location mobile application, Loopt, describes having done when he used the information from his contacts to spontaneously meet up with friends for drinks at a mutually convenient location. However, it must be underscored this particular individual helped bring location awareness to the mobile market--so, it's not really surprising that he regularly makes use of it! I can't help but wonder how others might use such information, in practice? For the average user, can location awareness facilitate serendipitous meetings, thus drawing them back into the loop? Or is it more likely that he or she would use it to see where an colleague is currently located (in the office, for example) and use it to help make a judgment about whether or not to contact that person on the phone?

On the Importance of Examining Relationships

2009-02-16T05:10:00.000-08:00

A few of the benefits to staying in sync and in touch have been outlined elsewhere and in a previous blog post here. One benefit to being in sync, for example, is that it helps one get an overview of what's transpiring within the context of a particular project or, more broadly, an organization.

Although the benefits are described in terms of individuals, the underlying mechanisms that enable one to stay both in sync and in touch are better understood in terms of relationships. Both a sense of connectedness and the sharing of knowledge rely upon the extent to which communication channels remain open; and, the functioning of these channels necessarily is contingent upon (at least) two contributing parties: a sender and a receiver of information. In the case of informal exchanges--that is, those that can lead to a feeling of social cohesion between coworkers--it is never possible to describe the nature of this communication in terms of the isolated contribution of (and consequent benefits or costs to) individuals. In fact, doing so could lead to missing out on one critical half of the dynamic involved.

Why is it important to think of these concepts--in sync, in touch--in terms of relationships, anyhow? Because in order to examine the obstacles to staying in sync and in touch, it is of use to realize that breakdowns can occur on either side of the communication channel, and any plausible solution to these problems must take into account this possibility.

Recently I used Mind42.com to create an overview of the concepts. I found it helpful to conceptualize relationship outcomes in terms of symmetries. For example, a factor that fosters the development of symmetrical relationships is either: (1) a desire to stay in touch by both parties; or, (2) a lack of a desire to stay in touch by both parties involved. On the other hand, an asymmetrical relationship occurs when only one half of the communication channel is open. In terms of fostering a sense of connectedness, when an individual's attempts at staying in touch are not reciprocated, it can lead to a state of professional isolation. For a complete overview of these relationships, please see the mind map.

I am still looking into conducting a cultural probe study, but realize that in order to maximize the benefits of using such a technique I will need to recruit individuals who belong to the same co-located project team or organization so that I can examine what's going on at both ends of the communication channel simultaneously.

Moblogging as a cultural probe technique?

2009-02-05T00:28:00.000-08:00

Cultural probes generally consist of a package containing such articles as disposable (or more commonly these days, digital) cameras, diaries, maps, stickers, pens, drawing paper, &etc--essentially any item the recipient might need to carry out the study's requirements. The methodology was designed to compel creative reactions from a population of interest. For example, one of the earliest reports of the use of cultural probes involved a comparison between levels of community support for aging citizens who were living in different cities (ie, near Oslo, Pisa, and Amsterdam). In this case, the probes were used to offer a (highly subjective) glimpse of the daily lives of the study participants; the purpose was to gain some early inspiration for later design concepts. Thus, the method has traditionally been used exploratively and therefore early on in the (iterative) design process.

Cultural probes, however, are not only inspirational for the designer--it can be argued that they are inspirational for the participant, as well. Assignments included in the aforementioned study included tagging locations on a map that identified areas where the participant felt both at ease and unsafe. A colleague here at TI told me about a cultural probe study that he had participated in; in that study, he was asked to draw an "onion" of human connections in which closer connections appeared towards the center and those who were more distant at the outer layers. Arguably such exercises are more enjoyable--and certainly more personal--for the participant than filling out a survey regarding his or her daily activities.

It could be argued that the strength of surveys lies in their ability pin point highly specific target information. Cultural probes are indeed messier, but also richer in the depth of information that they provide. And, some have argued that it is fallacy not to consider the methodology an informative data collecting procedure, as well (Hemmings et al, 2003; Boehner et al, 2007).

It is because this method can provide both inspiration and relevant information that I'm in the process of designing cultural probes for the current project. This strategy is well suited to the population of interest--that is, folks who are constantly working on the move and/or in different locations--as well, because it might be difficult to pin them down for an one-on-one interview. The problem, however, is that I don't want to hamper their mobility by bogging them down with a box of objects and assignments. That is why I'm considering the use of moblogging (i.e., mobile blogging) tools as a possible means of gathering information from participants. The benefit of moblogging is that pictures, text, videos, and other content can be quickly shared, oftentimes with little effort and few resources (all one needs is a laptop or smartphone--objects mobile workers already oftentimes carry--and a wifi connection).

The downside of moblogging is that it is not sufficient as a cultural probe technique (a point that was wisely brought to my attention by my coach here at TI). Part of the fun of cultural probes is that they are tangible, and invite a more intense level of physical interaction. So, in creating the probes (an activity which I hope to have done by next week), I need to strike a balance between finding quick and mobile solutions and contrast them with assignments that require more dedicated effort (such as drawing or the type of reflecting that is done in longer diary entries).

I used my last blog post as an opportunity to try moblogging in hopes of getting a sense of how easy it is to share information while on the go. I'll continue looking into other means of sharing content, so expect some of those efforts to appear here in the coming days.

Test 'utter'

2009-02-04T10:52:00.001-08:00

Currently testing out various avenues for moblogging as a means of assessing which info sharing techniques might be integrated into a future cultural probe study. The choice of going with moblogging apps is in part because they would free the participant to report events in the moment, as they happen. A downside, however, is that the medium doesn't lend itself well to lengthy exposition, as I can certainly attest. The current entry was authored using utterli...More tests to follow...Whether I end up using moblogging as a data collecting tool is another story, however! :)

Mobile post sent by jennifercurtis using Utterli. Replies.

Project Description

2009-01-27T04:26:00.000-08:00

This project blog has been christened [Insert Title Here] for good reason (as opposed to simply because it's a cheeky title)--although the description of my final USI project at the Telematica Instiuut is quite clear, it's also awfully general.

The current project has two goals. A brief description of these goals and their underlying motivation follows.

In short, the first goal of the project is to validate the dual concepts of in sync and in touch as they pertain to a highly mobile--or, in the extreme case, nomadic (i.e., those without any "home" office base)--workforce.

These two concepts (in sync and in touch) were developed by researchers at the nonprofit Telematica Instituut as part of a large initiative, the Future Workspaces project. Very broadly, this project concerns the changes that both organizations and the individuals employed by them must undergo in order to adapt to not only current—but also anticipate future—technological and environmental demands.

Being in sync, when applied to the individual, means having an overview of what’s going on within the context of either the team one is working with; the current project; or, task at hand. By keeping tabs on new developments that transpire within the context of these settings, one is able to nurture an understanding of the so-called “bigger picture”. In other words, that individual is able to develop a schema of what the project or team has accomplished already; where it is right now with respect to attaining its ultimate goals; and, where it’s going in the future—and, perhaps even more importantly, where he or she as an individual fits into this framework, at any given moment.

Being in touch, on the other hand, has to do with a feeling of connectedness that exists between colleagues. It is fostered by both formal (e.g., meetings and working together on shared projects) and informal (e.g., chit chat at the water cooler, if you’re an American—or, at the koffie corner, if you’re working for a Dutch company) exchanges. Both establishing a connection and maintaining it can positively affect the collaborative process. On the other hand, it has been shown that when individuals lack a connection (both with regard to physical proximity and social interaction) with their colleagues, it can lead to professional isolation (e.g., Cooper & Kurland, 2002; Golden, 2006).

Although they are psychological constructs, it can be argued that being in sync and in touch are necessary components to any discussion on how people will work effectively in the future. If being in sync and in touch are, in fact, two requirements for job satisfaction, then being able to identify and develop tools to hone these abilities in individual workers is a fruitful enterprise. Moreover, if the adage, “a happy worker is a productive worker” holds, then a clear understanding of these concepts, and the development of tools to enhance them, benefits organizations, as well.

For the highly mobile or nomadic worker who either spends much time away from colleagues (or spends the majority of his or her time working in distributed ad hoc or temporary teams), the ability to stay both in sync and in touch is jeopardized—particularly because research has shown that face-to-face contact is a critical factor in nurturing connectedness and opening the channels required for successful knowledge exchange (e.g., Golden, Veiga, & Dino, 2008). So, the second goal of my project is to clearly focus on one (or two) obstacle(s) that challenge the nomadic worker’s ability to stay in sync and/or in touch, and develop an effective solution to address that problem.

In the next installment, I will cover some of the strategies and methods that I intend to use in order to uncover these obstacles.