We recently posted an external web page for the Context, Content and Community project I’m working on (and playing with) in collaboration with some of my new colleagues here at Nokia Research Center, Palo Alto. This is, by definition (or at least by name), a rather broad and ambitious undertaking. As we summarize it on the site:
Our project is dedicated to the design, development and deployment of systems to connect individuals with relevant resources in ways that create value for all stakeholders.
As we continue to explore this space, the distinctions between context, content and community seem increasingly blurred (to me). For example, as more aspects of our physical world context(s) can be captured and represented digitally, this becomes yet another dimension of content. As the people formerly-known-as consumers are empowered to [co-]create, organize and share digital content more effectively, communities of shared interests (and shared differences) emerge and grow more naturally. And as these communities form and flourish, they offer a new perspective that can, in turn, affect the contexts within which future content may be collected, shared … and, one hopes, better understood.
[Slightly] more detail about the project can be found on our web page (the project only officially started this month). While I am interested — and will likely, at varying levels, be involved — in all aspects of the project, I am particularly interested in the part that represents a continuation of a decade-long exploration:
Demonstrate new applications with compelling value propositions for bridging the gaps between people by bridging the gaps between the physical and digital worlds
Although our plans along this dimension are still incubating, the basic idea is to extend the work we [well, different we’s at different times and places] have done with using technology to help people relate to and connect with one another by showing elements of people’s online representations of self in the physical spaces they share with others (e.g., the Intel proactive display deployment at UbiComp 2003 and in subsequent Interrelativity deployments). The profiles we will be creating and utilizing as part of the Context, Content and Community project will be far richer, and more useful (and hopefully usable) than the special-purpose profiles that were incorporated into the earlier systems, and using mobile phones as digital proxies — rather than special-purpose RFID tags — offers a more natural and convenient way of enabling people to reveal more about themselves in an ambient manner.
I’ll be writing more about this project as our thoughts, plans and [other] actions evolve. For now, I simply wanted to note that we have "gone public" … and that we are hiring — interns and post-docs, as well as full-time research scientists / engineers — in case anyone reading this has skills, experience and passion for the design, development and deployment of sociotechnical systems that will redefine our perspectives on, and approaches to, connecting people.
Comments
5 responses to “Working at Nokia on Context, Content and Community”
I am struck, on the surface at any rate, by the gap between the espoused theory of research into the emerging world of digital communities, inhabited by people I refer to as “digital amphibians,” and the practice of what appears to be a corporate research group trying to figure it all out. Why not produce, however clumsy and chaotic (advisedly chosen) it may feel, a chaordic community to produce the outcomes with the Nokia people playing roles they are best suited to playing in the process and adding appropriate value.
Ian: thanks for your comment, and the opportunity it affords me to attempt to clarify — or at least elaborate on — our plans. The project is at a very early stage, and so I can’t say much beyond our plans and intentions. Our team is dedicated to the empowerment of the people formerly-known-as consumers, and the platform we are designing is intended, insofar as possible, to represent an open invitation for participants to co-create value (appropriate or otherwise). The establishment of NRC Palo Alto is part of a larger goal of embracing a more open model of innovation and collaboration within — and through — NRC. We are planning to be as inclusive as possible in the design, development and deployment of our prototypes. During the early stages, this inclusiveness will likely be limited to an internal population (NRC and other interested and passionate Nokians), but we intend to expand this externally as early as possible.
And, for what it’s worth, chaordic leadership is one of our team’s core values.
Thank you for sharing this. I have personally been trying to map some similar near-future developments of applications situated in the contexts described in the research group page. I am looking at these things from a “user experience perspective” (I´m a recently graduated design guy, not a software guy, so forgive my ignorance, if any 🙂
I have been trying to understand how some trends in near-future applications, operating systems and environments and their user interfaces should be comprehended. As there has already been a clear expansion from mere realm of file/document/media-like data management to something which could be thought about as sensor-like or log-like data. In that space the data are traces of activities, interactions between humans and devices, humans and humans, devices and devices, etc. There must be some kind of ultimately different conceptualization of how data is handled and what user-interfaces are provided to the user to deal with it and comprehend it. This, I would think, is a challenge of scale and search or tools which facilitate the pattern regognition abilities of the human brain, seem to be the answers usually.
Another challenge I have thought about is the challenge of diversity, not in the data, but in the user activities and practices which the applications must support. Good example is just to think about the increasingly different contexts in which non-telephony mobile applications are used in the contemporary setting. I remembered Don Norman´s idea of activity-based computing, to design applications to support specific activities (ie. “doing your mail”) seems to conceptualize this really well. The idea that activities (“do ones mail”) are some type of “complexes” of tasks (“read mail”, “browse through titles to find relevant ones”, “delete spam messages”, etc.), seems to support the designs of contemporary e-mail applications. However, default applications usually dont support the practices or activities of the individuals and thus they are configured, hacked, and extended somehow. At some point the application encounters its limits though, it meets an another application and it is not feasible to extend it anymore, an e-mail application meets an IM application, to be conservative.
OK, then putting these two together will make a complete mess, but somehow a valid one and a possible one. It seems that the UI developments at the moment are taking place in the logs of messaging applications, call registries, IM software, discussion forums, blogs, etc. are interesting. In places where the noise-level is huge in the case of single entry, which then again might not be meaningful as such but connected to the noise, the conversation or whatever, makes sense. So I am thinking, is it possible that the idea of having applications and services which deal with a particular type of data and maybe integrate to other applications through wiring or scripting, is insufficient? Traditional applications seem to be good solutions for black-boxing complexity and functionality which makes them desirable in that sense, but as mentioned, they always have their boundaries, which makes them exist in the first place.
So, to sum up: application boundaries and dealing with a growing diversity of datatypes in size, content and use context puzzles me. If you have any comments/literature/pointers to share on this, would be extremely glad as I dont know if this make sense at all.. Or maybe its just me. 🙂
Another different discussion and a contemporary take on the possible influences on these developments to division of labour regarding the infosurf, is the idea of the wrangler who wrangles the herd of spimes, by Bruce Sterling. I see this happening in institutional contexts but in the public or in the private sphere, where private activities take place, I find hard to see the possibilities in the level of the existing, traditional communities of family, friends, work buddies, hobby friends, etc.
Do you see the concepts of spimes and wranglers as useful (if you have read Sterlings Shaping Things -book)? (To me they seem very much like librarians, btw)
Best,
Ville/Finland
Ville: you’ve covered an awful lot of ground (and sky) in your comment! I agree that there is enormous complexity in our technosocial space(s), and one of the goals in our project is to help people connect with the relevant resources in this multifaceted “mess”.
Some other, related work that may be of interest / use to you came to mind as I was reading your comment:
With respect to your question about Bruce Sterling and Spimes, yes, I enjoyed reading and blogging about Shaping Things. I wish you all the best in your own sensemaking and wrangling activities!
[BTW, I tried to post this reply many days ago, but was unable to do so. After a few iterations with TypePad customer support, it turns out that comments with more than 5 embedded links (HREFs) are automatically blocked. This helps explain why the amount of comment spam I’ve been getting is way down, but it seems like a rather low upper bound … though I suspect most people who leave comments aren’t as linky as I tend to be.]
“The profiles we will be creating and utilizing as part of the Context, Content and Community project will be far richer, and more useful (and hopefully usable) than the special-purpose profiles that were incorporated into the earlier systems, and using mobile phones as digital proxies — rather than special-purpose RFID tags — offers a more natural and convenient way of enabling people to reveal more about themselves in an ambient manner.”
This, I believe is the big area phones need to go to extend their arm into more than just communication. The problem with extremely functional and revolutionary developments (cell-phones in this case), is that it’s SOO revolutionary and useful, people don’t think of it an anything more that what it is. As a result, useful bells and whistles that could evolve into something even more revolutionary are too often ignored.
I’m interested in seeing how this progresses.