Norman Su

Nomadic work, an extreme form of mobile work, is becoming increasingly prevalent in organizations. Yet so far there has not been enough research attention on the particular challenges that nomadic workers face in order to design support for their work practices. We employed ethnographic interviews and observations to understand nomadic work practices. Drawing from strategies for survival of pastoralist nomads to guide our design investigation, we focus on an integrated perspective of nomadic work involving challenges related to assembling actants, seeking resources, and integrating with others in the organization. We discovered that nomadic workers need to continually seek out and compete for resources to maintain their mobile offices. They also face challenges in integrating into the organization to maintain visibility and to synchronize with others for meeting. We discuss the design recommendations that …

There is a growing literature on managing multitasking and interruptions in the workplace. In an ethnographic study, we investigated the phenomenon of communication chains, the occurrence of interactions in quick succession. Focusing on chains enable us to better understand the role of communication in multitasking. Our results reveal that chains are prevalent in information workers, and that attributes such as the number of links, and the rate of media and organizational switching can be predicted from the first catalyzing link of the chain. When chains are triggered by external interruptions, they have more links, a trend for more media switches and more organizational switches. We also found that more switching of organizational contexts in communication is associated with higher levels of stress. We describe the role of communication chains as performing alignment in multitasking and discuss the implications …

In this study we revisit Weiser’s (1991) [5] vision of seamlessly integrated computing. We focus on nomadic workers who rely extensively on mobile technologies to conduct work. Using Star and Ruhleder’s (1996) [10] properties of infrastructure, we discuss how nonroutine users of infrastructure face particular challenges. We conducted an ethnographic investigation of nomadic workers in a large distributed organization. We examined strategies that they use to assemble their mobile office, to seek resources, and to synchronize with others across time zones. We discuss how their strategies are challenged by their lack of local knowledge of infrastructure. Our results suggest that until the field of pervasive computing can attain Weiser’s vision, the very users of ubiquitous computing need infrastructure to be visible. We discuss the implications for a design to support nomadic work.

This paper introduces a new representation for describing routine tasks, called temporal task footprints. Routines are characterized by their temporal regularity or rhythm. Temporal pattern analysis (T-patterns) can be used to isolate frequent recurrent patterns in routine tasks that appear repeatedly in the same temporal configuration. Using tf-idf statistics, each task can then be defined in terms of its temporal task footprint, a ranked list of temporal patterns along with their typical frequencies. Experimental evaluations using data of 29 days observing and logging 10 subjects showed that temporal task footprints of application windows, email and document usage outperform decision tree and SVMs in recognizing the subjects' tasks.

We explore how the notion of communities of practice (CoPs) was translated and popularized from its original inception by Lave and Wenger in 1991. We argue that the Institute for Research on Learning (IRL), a spin-off of Xerox PARC, proved instrumental in enrolling CoPs into the knowledge management (KM) discipline. IRL objectified, packaged, and made a business out of CoPs. CoPs in KM are now a formalized process coupled with technological artifacts to build groups of people who effectively share knowledge across boundaries. Drawing from participant observations, archival documents, and interviews with KM practitioners in the aerospace industry as well as key players of IRL, our research seeks to unveil the invisible history that the popularization of a theory can often obscure. We argue that CoPs provide a case study for understanding how abstract concepts in science are strategically and …

In recent years, the emergence of weblogs, commonly known as blogs, are changing the way that people interact over the Internet. Two particular kinds of blogs have become particularly popular—political and personal/hobby oriented blogs. Each of these types of blogs foster a community of readers and writers. In this paper, we investigate how the notion of community is expressed through these two blog genres. We examine the differences between community aspects in political and personal blogs. We focus on four dimensions that are associated with community: activism, reputation, social connectedness and identity. Our results, based on a multilingual worldwide blogging survey of 121 political and 593 personal/hobby bloggers from four continents show significant differences in blogging practices across these genres.

As of now, it is not uncommon for one to use multiple computers in separate places such as at home, office or school. A number of applications currently exist to allow a user to easily access and control these computers remotely via a notebook computer or web page. Unfortunately, even with such solutions, it is rather inconvenient, for example, to try accessing your computer while walking downtown or riding a train. On the other hand, considering that cellular phones have been accepted as multi-function devices capable of karaoke, digital photography and web browsing in countries like Japan, it may prove beneficial to support remote PC access on a cellular phone. With this in mind, we created Rajicon, a system to provide an easy to use interface to remotely operate a PC's GUI operating system via a cellular phone. Rajicon supports image based navigation of a remote PC's desktop and mouse/key operations. In …

Online social media and games are increasingly replacing offline social activities. Social media is now an indispensable mode of communication; online gaming is not only a genuine social activity but also a popular spectator sport. Although online interaction shrinks social and geographical barriers, it is argued that social disparities, such as gender inequality, persists. For instance, online gaming communities have been criticized for objectifying women, which is a pressing question as gaming evolves into a social platform. However, few large-scale, systematic studies of gender inequality and objectification in social gaming platforms exist. Here we analyze more than one billion chat messages from Twitch, a social game-streaming platform, to study how the gender of streamers is associated with the nature of conversation. We find that female streamers receive significantly more objectifying comments while male streamers receive more game-related comments. This difference is more pronounced for popular streamers. We also show that the viewers’ choice of channels is also strongly gendered. Our findings suggest that gendered conversation and objectification is prevalent, and most users produce strongly gendered messages.

With the advent of tiny networked devices, Mark Weiser's vision of a world embedded with invisible computers is coming to age. Due to their small size and relative ease of deployment, sensor networks have been utilized by zoologists, seismologists and military personnel. In this paper, we investigate the application of sensor networks to the film industry. In particular, we are interested in augmenting film and video footage with sensor data. Unobtrusive sensors are deployed on a film set or in a television studio and on performers. During a filming of a scene, sensor data such as light intensity, color temperature and location are collected and synchronized with each film or video frame. Later, editors, graphics artists and programmers can view this data in synchronization with film and video playback. For example, such data can help define a new level of seamless integration between computer graphics and real world …

The latest in the most popular head-to-head fighting video series, Super Street Fighter IV by Capcom, now features spectating functionality. Coupled with audio chat, players can both watch and participate in matches with anyone in the world. We describe a video analysis of over 36 hours of gameplay in SSF4. Our results show that players can deftly structure audio when spectating to transform gameplay in SSF4. This new hybrid spectator sport in which boundaries between actor and audience are blurred exhibits three significant characteristics: the audio recreates the arcade culture, appropriates" invisible" but real players, and symbolically creates power relations between mute and speaking gamers. We also present exploratory evidence that suggests a starkly different experience for female gamers who wish to audibly join in virtual spectating.

Information communication technologies on the Internet such as Usenet, Internet relay chats and multi-user dungeons have been used to enable virtual communities. However, a new form of technology, the weblog, or “blog”, has quickly risen as a means for self-expression and sharing knowledge for people across geographic distance. Though studies have focused on blogs in Western countries, our study targets the global blogging community. Inspired by previous studies that show significant differences in technology practices across cultures, we conducted a survey to investigate the influence of regional culture on a blogging community. We asked the research question of whether bloggers are more influenced by their local cultures with respect to their sense of community, or rather whether a “universal” Internet culture is a stronger influence of community feeling. Our results, based on a multilingual …

With over one billion vehicles in the world today, the motorized road vehicle is the pillar of modern society. Since the beginning of the 20th century, the automobile has revolutionized our spaces, practices, cultures, and identities through a complex matrix of technical, financial, economic, political, and social linkages. Visions of automobile use have always shaped its design, manufacture, and production. Now, motorized road transport is set to revolutionize our society once again on a huge scale. Recent technological developments in propulsion, telecommunications, sensing, and in-vehicle computing technology are expanding the range of vehicles? capabilities. A technological convergence is underway, moving towards self-driving vehicle (SDV) technology. These vehicles will utilize computational algorithms, sensors, and communication devices to automatically navigate a variety of environments with limited or …

Drawing perspectives from science and technology studies, philosophy of science, and literature from ethics and social justice, this paper examines the promises and challenges in the development of self-driving vehicle (SDV) technology. We start with the premise that the combination of different computing technologies embedded in SDVs is a powerful tool for efficiency in communications, information gathering, processing, and storage. However, by focusing on efficiency, SDVs provide a new mode of industrialized transportation whose users can only choose between transportation services, but have little or no say about the broader social implications of the technology. We argue that perspectives from social justice and ethics show that SDVs have implications beyond transportation, with profound consequences for users and societies. In particular, values such as privacy, security, and responsibility may be …

In its heyday, the video arcade was a social scene to prove one's video gaming prowess. The introduction of a revolutionary head-to-head fighting game called" Street Fighter II" in 1991 ushered in an era of competitive video gaming with unparalleled complexity. An influx of copy-cat games and the arrival of consoles with capabilities rivaling coin-ops led to the arcade's demise. However, the release of" Street Fighter IV"(SF4) has brought about a revival. I report on the cultural practices of hardcore gaming that have revolved around SF4. SF4's release on both the console (which enables fighting others online) and the arcade has engendered a new set of challenges in constructing what it means to be competitive and legitimate in the world of head-to-head fighting games. I observe that the" enrolment" of an ecology of technological artifacts allows players to translate braggadocio from the arcade, a central …

We describe the use of a statistical technique called T-pattern analysis to derive and characterize the routineness of tasks. T-patterns provide significant advantages over traditional sequence analyses by incorporating time. A T-pattern is characterized by a significant time window (critical interval) that describes the duration of this pattern. Our analysis is based on data collected from shadowing 10 knowledge workers over a total of 29 entire work days. We report on the statistics of detected T-patterns and derived correlations with participant perceptions of workload, autonomy, and productivity.