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From: drd@siia.mv.com (David Dick)
Newsgroups: comp.groupware
Subject: Re: Audio & Video Needed for Group Support?
Message-ID: <1991Feb1.181726.17979@siia.mv.com>
Date: 1 Feb 91 18:17:26 GMT
References: <20965@crg5.UUCP> <616@aupair.cs.athabascau.ca> <20995@crg5.UUCP> <1991Jan23.061359.27341@agate.berkeley.edu> <633@aupair.cs.athabascau.ca>
Organization: Software Innovations, Inc.
Lines: 31

In <633@aupair.cs.athabascau.ca> kevinc@cs.athabascau.ca (Kevin Crocker) writes:

..description of groupware "in person" elided..

> One thing
>that I would like computer groupware to capture is this richness of
>interaction and information.  At the present time I feel that the
>computer environment needs to start at providing a method of
>transmitting the various signal sources such as audio and video.  

I think the management of the interaction is more important, IMHO.

As humans in the real world we are +--------------------------------------
continuously bombarded by sensory  | As to the complexity of the world:
input--the world is a complicated  | I recently attended a conference
place.                             | on virtual reality and cyberspace,
                                   | and one of the speakers noted that,
Our great skill in navigating it   | in his experience, he appreciated
is that our perceptual systems do  | reality much more after spending
considerable filtering below the   | time in a virtual world.  It's 
level of consciousness.            | consistent, doesn't have video 
                                   | glitches, and there's always something
Analogously, I think groupware     | behind every door!
needs to give us a way to manage   +---------------------------------------
the complexity.  Why go to all
the expense and trouble just to
recreate the chaos and inefficiency
of most meetings?

David Dick
Software Innovations, Inc. [the Software Moving Company (sm)]