I.’ ers, Cruisers a. arriors Requirements for T s for Workgroup Support

Personal technologies; personal work.
groupware;
collaborative
and
Much of the groupware technology currently in use typically runs on office-based systems as software/hardware additions and peripherals. Standard PC configurations are either being supplemented by digital AV facilities, or dedicated and optimised personal computers are increasingly used to support, for example, desktop video-conferencing. Research in CSCW which contributed to commercial groupware systems has focused on the specifically ‘ collaborative’ aspects of work, typically involving investigation of how resources can be shared between participants, usually at remote locations. In simple terms this might mean that our personal databases, contact lists,
I.’
ers, Cruisers
a.
arriors: Requirements for for Workgroup Support
Peter Thomas Centre for Personal Information Management University of the West of England Coldharbour Lane Bristol BS16 1QY Tel: +44 117 976 3973 E-mail: Peter.Thomas@ Roamers, cruisers a
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Much of the emphasis in the development of systems to support workgroups has been on the requirements for collaborative work - whether that is in terms of support for focused collaborative tasks, support for group process or for communication, There is however a growing recognition that the ‘ personal aspects’ of collaborative work are important. This recognition is based on questions such as: how do new forms of ‘ personal technologies’ into group fit working; how can technology provide the j7exibility to support both collaborative and personal work; and how can requirements for personal support be reconciled with those for collaborative work?
notes and documents form a resource for collaboration others as well as our personal work; a more complex with view
The issue of personal and collaborative work has been brought into focus with not only the development of more sophisticated ‘ office automation’ technologies which enable communication - particularly pagers, mobile phones, and voicemail - which are converging with computers and communications in the context of Personal Communication Networks (PCNs) - but also with the development of ‘ very personal’ technologies, such as the much-hyped PDA. These devices are ‘ personal’ in a way that groupware is not: most obviously they can be carried away from the desk and out of the office, but also they are invested with personal effort, information so that they fit into our personal work. Unfortunately, the issues in personal technology have often been framed merely in terms of mobility. The familiar myth of the ‘ road-warrior’ identifies one such consumer of personal technologies, but there are a variety of consumers of personal technologies ranging from ‘ roamers’ who work closely with others but who need some form of local communications, ‘ cruisers’ who have a greater degree of , mobility as part of their work and who may use a variety of information resources, and of course ‘ warriors’ who require , support for wide-area mobility and the ability to create and retrieve more complex information (figure 1).
Wide-area
of the issues suggest that our current projects
and Figure 1: roamers, cruis
assignments (and the various interactions they entail) are the point of contact with the work of others engaged in related tasks.
Personal
and collaborative

work
There is a more sophisticated view of the connection between personal collaborative work. This suggests that the connection between personal and collaborative work also runs the other way: if collaborative work is tied into personal work, then personal work gains its value in the context of collaboration with co-workers; and so it is likely that the introduction of personal technologies will affect the ways in which collaboration gets done, in addition to affecting the ways in which personal work is done. Although work in groupware is well advanced, the links between personal and collaborative work are still little understood. One approach has segmented the possible market using the term ‘ mobile professionals’ In one study . [3] the requirements for ‘ interpersonal information management’ has been investigated. ‘ Interpersonal’ information management is important since it represents a different way of thinking about information management and communication (figures 2 and 3).