Interrelativity

Category: Research

  • Some highlights from CSCW 2010

    CSCW 2010 – the ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work – is the first CSCW I've missed since 1998. I tried following along remotely via the Twitter #cscw2010 hashtag, which may have been the next best thing to being there … but it was a distant second. I was glad to read a few…

  • The Commoditization of Twitter Followers

    I have a love/hate relationship with Twitter. I see – and have increasingly experienced – many benefits to its use, especially with respect to its propensity to foster meaningful new connections with consequential strangers and acquaintances. However, I am becoming increasingly cynical about some of the practices that are evolving, particularly with respect to the…

  • Conversations and Conversationalists in Social Media

    Josh Bernoff recently wrote that Forrester Research has added "Conversationalists" to its Social Technographics typology of social media users, which had previously included the occasionally overlapping categories of creators, critics, collectors, joiners, spectators and inactives. He and his colleagues define conversationalists as people who post status updates on Twitter or other social networking sites at…

  • Motivations, Conversations and Book-Centered Sociality

    I attended talks by three authors last week – Daniel Pink, David Allen and Bryant Simon – all presenting their work in different formats, styles and contexts. Daniel Pink had a conversation with Warren Etheredge at a Biznik event on Tuesday night at Hotel 1000 Seattle about a range of topics, including Dan’s latest book,…

  • Place-centered Sociality

    Jyri Engestrom first introduced me to the concept of object-centered sociality almost 5 years ago, through a blog post in which he argued that social networks consist of people who are connected by a shared object. Jyri suggests that the problem with some social networking services (such as LinkedIn [at that time]) is that they…

  • Coffee, Community and Health

    An article reviewing the health benefits and risks of coffee by Melinda Beck in yesterday's Wall Street Journal includes a number of studies that have yielded conflicting results on the effects of coffee. Coffee consumption of varying levels has been correlated with significant differences in the likelihood of being diagnosed with diseases such as diabetes,…

  • The Dark Side of Digital Backchannels in Shared Physical Spaces

    Recently, I've been disturbed to read about some significant frontchannel disturbances arising through the use of Twitter backchannels to heckle speakers at conferences. Having finished off my last blog with an example of the beneficial ways that Twitter helps us connect with consequential strangers, I want to revisit some issues that initially arose [for me]…

  • Coffee, conversation, community and culture at Starbucks

    Given my long-standing interest in the social and community aspects of coffeehouse culture, I was intrigued by a number of articles about Byant Simon‘s book, “Everything but the Coffee: Learning About America from Starbucks“, that turned up during web searches and in some of the links in the tweetstream of @CoffeeShopChat. Over the last several…

  • Notes from UbiComp 2009

    Having earlier posted some notes from the pre-conference Doctoral Colloquium and Hybrid Design Practices workshop, I've finally gotten around to compiling – and augmenting – some notes from the main technical program of UbiComp 2009, the 11th International Conference on Ubiquitous Computing, held at the Disney Yacht Club in Orlando, Florida, last week. Before delving…

  • Pins, Positivity and Practices: Hybrid Design at Disney World

    The day after the Doctoral Colloquium at UbiComp 2009, I attended a workshop on Hybrid Design Practices. Given my interests in hybridity, design and practices, I was eager to see how these all might fit together, and to meet others with shared interests. The Call for Participants included a number intriguing dimensions, including a field…