project summary

Informal communication is an important part of many workplace tasks. Instant messaging (IM) is valuable for facilitating informal communication between workgroup members for such purposes as scheduling, negotiating availability, and maintaining awareness. However, much of the work people do takes place away from their personal workspace, limiting the value of IM for these tasks. We sought to extend IM access beyond people.s PCs, making IM available in other places where work occurs. In this project we aimed to discover new value by breaking the current paradigm of personally-owned IM and introducing IM as a shared public resource.

publications