Informal workplace communication

Abstract

We present new findings about the nature of informat communications, derived from a naturalistic study of people's everyday working activities. We identify why such interactions are so common, and valuable and how they are achieved in the workplace.We also address weaknesses in current systems that support such interactions remotely and identify further requirements for better support. We also discuss the implications of this work for conversational theories.

Interpersonal awareness in the domestic realm

“…It is primarily gathered through unconscious acts as one goes about his or her workday, for example, by looking around a shared office (Fish et al, 1990, Schmidt, 2002. Thus, workplace awareness is easily gained by those in close physical proximity (Kraut et al, 1988, Whittaker et al, 1994. There exists a range of needs when it comes to workplace awareness: those who frequently collaborate require more awareness than those who do not.…”

“…These range from IM, to media spaces, and a host of applications in between. Given that people are most often situated in front of a computer at work, these systems are generally designed to run on a desktop PC, but can also be found on large communal displays (Whittaker et al, 1994).…”

Intercultural Awareness: Cultural and Relational Effects on Awareness Information Gathering Behavior

“…In nonverbal communication, Whittaker et al (Whittaker et al, 1994) also found that people who rated each other as more familiar had less formal communication and produced more interruptions; in their study, "interruption" meant to start an interaction without achieving shared attention. One way to interpret it would be that people who are more familiar with each other do not consider such interruption as it is for complete strangers.…”

“…Familiarity within social relationships refers to the degree to which people are close to and comfortable with each other (Little, 1965). People develop different levels of familiarity with others due to frequency of interaction (Whittaker, Frohlich, & Daly-Jones, 1994): close friends, friends, acquaintances, or complete strangers. Those categories are influential factors in verbal as well as nonverbal communication.…”

Untitled

“…Workplace interaction is a phenomenon that has been a focal object of study within the areas of HCI (human-computer interaction) and CSCW (computer-supported cooperative work) for around 20 years now. During this time, the character of workplace interaction has been explored from a wide range of perspectives ranging from empirical studies of one-shot interaction (Aaronson & Carroll, 1987), serendipitous interaction (Landgren & Nuldén, 2007), casual interaction (Borning & Travers, 1991;Whittaker, Frohlich, & Daly-Jones, 1994;Whittaker, Swanson, Kucan, & Sidner, 1997), long-term social interaction (Whittaker, Jones, & Terveen, 2002), and spontaneous interaction (Lim, Zhang, Zhu, & Zheng, 2007), to studies of formal interaction (Oehlmann, Thoben, & Weber, 1997), planned interaction (Isaacs, Tang, & Morris, 1996), and structured interaction (Rogers, 1995). While this body of research has mainly focused upon the formal and informal aspects of workplace interaction, we have so far seen few studies with an explicit focus on how individuals active in these social work arrangements go about searching for each other to establish interaction, and how social factors govern this behavior.…”