I relish the opportunity to research “work” in diverse domains. In the past, I have done studies of information workers, nomadic workers, and knowledge management practitioners. Currently, I have been moving towards the study of work in the attainment and performance of skill in the domain of art and video games.

A trad session.

The Intersection of Traditional Art Forms with Modern Technology

How do traditional arts—which have a long history devoid of digital artifacts—intersect with modern technologies? This project investigates one case example: the use of new media by traditional musicians in Ireland. I am interested in two particular aspects: the relationship between musicians and technology in terms of their

  • Music. What role does technology play in the skill and craft of trad music?

  • Everyday Profession. What role does technology play in what it means to be in the profession of traditional music? How do musicians gather and play? What is it that they do to prepare for a session? How do they maintain ties to others in the trad community?

By understanding the current practices of trad musicians, I hope to see how technology can be sensitively designed and placed to benefit performers—professional and amateur musicians—and spectators.

eSports hype.

Street Fighter IV: Culture Online and Offline

(Image credit: karaface)

I have an ongoing interest in the culture of professional video gaming (eSports). I have examined how games traditionally played in the arcade or have had to “grow up” in an online era. In particular, I have focused on the face-to-face fighting game, Street Fighter IV (SF4). How do the mores of hardcore or professional players translate to the console and online social spheres? Using techniques drawn from discourse analysis, I have critically examined online texts to explain how professional gamers seek to legitimize SF4 as a mainstream eSport.

My second study with Patrick Shih did video analysis of SF4’s successor, Super Street Fighter IV (SSF4). Here, we focused on how audio supports virtual spectating and performing in the video game arena. How does audio go towards recreating the arcade experience? And, in what sense does audio go beyond the arcade in creating new notions of spectating and enjoyment in gameplay? We also published results that detail how female gamers face barriers to participating in virtual spectating. Our results reveal that audio not only enriches the gaming experience for vocal players, but also creates new opportunities of performing for “mute” players.

Media interaction patterns.

Temporal Patterns of Media Interaction

What can we learn about information workers from their media interaction patterns? For example, what are the implications if someone uses a particular media (e.g., telephone) a lot in their work? In my dissertation, I examined the temporal patterns of media interaction from two angles:

  • Routineness: In work with PARC colleagues, Oliver Brdiczka and Bo Begole, instead of labeling a task as either routine, or non-routine, I created a new method of characterizing the routineness of a task. Using a statistical technique called T-pattern analysis, I was able to describe tasks in terms of the temporal routineness of their media usage. This is the first time that temporal patterns of media have been correlated with an information worker’s mental state. I showed that those who are able to increase the reuse of particular media patterns (e.g., using a spreadsheet in conjunction with paper regularly) when accomplishing a task reported a significantly decreased amount of stress. However, those who tended to use a wide variety of media patterns reported decreased productivity.

  • Communication chains: Interactions that happen one after another form a communication chain. With Gloria Mark, I found a significant relationship in lengthy chains leading to stress, but found that chains characterized by rapid media switching (e.g., Phone→IM→Face-to-Face instead of Face-to-Face→ Face-to-Face→Face-to-Face) contributed to less stress, suggesting that employees who deftly apply a wide range of media tools are better equipped to manage their multitasking in communication, and thus better able to maintain their social ties with distributed coworkers. However, I also observed that chains with rapid organizational switching (e.g., speaking to your coworker then speaking with an outside department), were significantly related to high stress. This suggests that work involving multitasking among groups of people can be taxing.

Communities

Knowledge Management and Communities of Practice

With David Redmiles and Hiroko N. Wilensky, I have been a participant observer of a community of professional knowledge management practitioners (KMP) from aerospace corporations. I critically examined the disciplinary rhetoric of knowledge management’s legitimacy. KMPs emphasized factors such as the uniqueness of KMPs’ skill set, the crisis of “saving” lost knowledge, and the inadequacy of return on in- vestment as a metric for KM success. Academics were actively recruited actors, forming a symbiotic relationship: an academic presence reaffirmed KM as a valid, respectable discipline while academics were able to gain a new population of students for their burgeoning master’s program in KM.

My JCSCW article centered about how “communities of practice” (CoPs) became part of the KMP’s vernacular. I examined 1) the current perception of CoP by KMPs and 2) what allowed CoP to morph from an abstract, academic construct into a more tangible, commercial entity. I interviewed key players in CoP’s inception such as Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger in addition to others who were employed by the Institute for Research on Learning (the birthplace of CoPs). I also gathered archival material from IRL. Our research shows how IRL objectified, packaged, and made a business out of CoPs. I argue that CoPs provide a case study for understanding how abstract concepts in science are strategically and subconsciously reified, or made into “technological” objects, and appropriated by actors.

Other Projects

Under construction.

  • Design

  • Evaluation of Virtual Metrics

Past Projects

  • Nomadic Workers

  • Bloggers

  • Novel Interfaces