Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!usc!apple!voder!pyramid!athertn!hemlock!mcgregor From: mcgregor@hemlock.Atherton.COM (Scott McGregor) Newsgroups: comp.groupware Subject: Re: Groupware Effects on Hierarchies Message-ID: <27457@athertn.Atherton.COM> Date: 19 Jul 90 23:26:07 GMT References: <1990Jun24.130413.16511@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> <2092@east.East.Sun.COM> <1990Jul1.210621.13137@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> <1984@aurora.cs.athabascau.ca> , janssen@parc.xerox.com (Bill Janssen) writes: > In article wex@dali.pws.bull.com (Buckaroo Banzai) writes: > > So what I get from Kevin's posting (enjoy your vacation) is that you're > really fairly unwilling to have the system automated, mostly for reasons > like feeling out of control. > > A bit more. The willingness to consider a "pencilled-in" appointment might > be stronger than we think. What if we could see "scheduled events", which we > have not committed to, on our calendar? > -- > Bill Janssen janssen@parc.xerox.com (415) 494-4763 > Xerox Palo Alto Research Center > 3333 Coyote Hill Road, Palo Alto, California 94304 This illustrates a good point. In a computer system, "pencilled in" and "scheduled" have undefined representations. But the semantics of how you explain them may have a great effect on the reaction to the system. For example, if I want to "pencil-in" an event, I open your schedule and mark an area out on it, and label it with the event name. The computer notes that I created this event. When you look at your schedule you see this event that I put in. It is easy to see that someone else put it in, because it is highlighted in a way that indicates that its status is "new, created by someone else, tentative until accepted". I don't like you writing in my calendar, so I deleter your entry. But I might think "I hate this calendar system because other people write in my calendar and I don't want them to, and I have to keep cleaning it up." It is also possible to describe the system as a notified of scheduled events. I might look into your calendar, and based upon times that seem open, I might schedule an event. I leave a "post it" in your calendar showing you the time that you are invited and when and where the event is. Of course you can always ignore or remove the post-it note. In the computer system, this might be implemented the same way as the situation above, where a calendar entry is highlighted in a special way, and the owner confirms or denies it. While the implementations may be precisely the same, the semantics of what you are doing are described differently, and these differences can be sufficient to affect acceptance of the new technology. This is what I meant in an earlier posting about how the sociology of human interactions and conventions will affect acceptance of any particular groupware system. Another good example of this was the trials of the Action Technologies' "the Coordinator" product discussed at CSCW '88. People in different companies with different conventions had different reactions to the choice of words such as "request", "accept","refuse","counter-offer", etc. For some companies these words were too formal: at some companies, "requests" are really demands, but said more politely. It is really unacceptable to "refuse" those requests, etc. Because cultural conventions vary widely between companies, and even within companies, products may not be accepted in one company simply because of the semantic descriptions attached to the implementations. The Coordinator was a success at EDS (where a strongly hierarchical and formal communication structure was the norm), a failure at Pacific Bell with its informal structure, and a mixed case at HP where success or failure varied with sub-cultures. Scott McGregor mcgregor@atherton.com