Incoraggiato dai numerosi commenti pervenuti sul post precedente, pubblico un nuovo resoconto sul talk del padre del CSCW.

Jonathan Grudin, Microsoft Research
Living Without Parental Controls

This is by far the most interesting, dynamic period in the quarter century I’ve worked on collaboration technologies, and there is every reason to believe the pace will pick up. We can ignore history without being doomed to repeat it, because there is no going back. But there have been trends that suggest what we might watch out for. Ignoring the admonition that “he who lives by the crystal ball soon learns to eat ground glass,” I’ll describe observations, research, and product innovation that suggest opportunities and challenges swirling toward and around us. Central to the changes is the generation growing up with wikis, weblogs, tagging, map mashups, messaging, multiplayer games, and other social software.
Bio
Jonathan Grudin is a Principal Researcher in the Microsoft Adaptive Systems and Interaction group. His involvement in HCI began shortly before the first CHI conference and his involvement with collaboration technologies shortly before the first CSCW conference. His research at Microsoft has included studies of streaming media, privacy and sharing, early use of emerging technologies in organizations, and the impact of technologies on the gulf between policies and practice.

Un commento interessante è stato che gli MMORPG sono un esempio di ambiente in cui i team virtuali non si incontrano nemmeno all’inizio ma comunque funzionano bene. Sarebbero da studiare.
Ha citato il lavoro di McGrath (1991) per spiegare perchè il groupware che funziona negli esperimenti di lab poi sul mercato non ha grande successo: gli esperimenti misurano solo le performance della funzione di produzione ma non gli altri aspetti della collaborazione di gruppo.

Gran talk. Ha concluso dicendo che il supporto ai piccolo gruppi, quando arriverà e funzionerà bene, darà origine a delle killer apps.