Regulating Nimbus and Focus: Organizing Copresence for Creative Collaboration

Abstract

Creative collaboration often takes place in collaborative spaces that increasingly use virtual modes of interaction. To better understand the organizational conditions and organizing practices that facilitate collaboration in such spaces, we compare ethnographies of an online platform for collaborative songwriting and a physical songwriting camp, with each of these spatial settings coming with distinct advantages and disadvantages for creative collaboration. We identify the emergence of copresence—an active mutual orientation toward one another—as a common organizational condition for collaboration. Copresence was fostered by practices of regulating nimbus (i.e., making people more or less visible) and focus (i.e., directing attention to others) that not only stimulated moments of converging copresence marked by collaborative problem-solving, but also enabled diverging copresence marked by undirected attention and more serendipitous interactions. Our comparison reveals the challenges of negotiating between converging and diverging copresence to counteract tendencies towards excessive, or conversely, insufficient visibility and focus of the participants, both of which are barriers to copresence. These insights contribute to ongoing debates about the organization of online and offline collaborative spaces by shifting the focus away from co-location towards copresence, highlighting the oscillation between converging and diverging copresence as important for a collaborative atmosphere and identifying practices by which copresence can be organized in different spatial settings.

Beyond personal safe spaces: Creating and maintaining collective environments for meaning and identity on digital platforms

“…Grabher and Ibert (2014) argue in their analysis of online communities that the perceived distance of participants leads to significant benefits for collaborative work through, for example, asynchronous communication facilitating reflection in interactive processes. Schiemer et al (2023) similarly argue that collaborative work in online settings relies upon how members of online communities perceive and convey accessibility.…”

Re‐humanising management through co‐presence: Lessons from enforced telework during the second wave of Covid‐19

“…Several studies have shown its importance for creating expressive ties (Khazanchi et al, 2018), managing conflict (Zornoza et al, 2002), and sharing social support (Baldassar, 2016). For instance, Schiemer et al (2022) have demonstrated that co-presence provides a basis for creative collaboration by enabling team members to share ideas, engage in concentrated work and even relax. In addition, Subramaniam et al (2013) have shown that virtual co-presence is a necessary means to align and coordinate tasks and activities among dispersed users in enterprise systems.…”

“…While earlier conceptualisations of co‐presence assumed a requirement of shared physical space, more recent research has challenged this assumption by also considering technology‐mediated presence (Baldassar, 2016; Campos‐Castillo & Hitlin, 2013; Gibson et al, 2011; Subramaniam et al, 2013). Authors have also stressed that physical proximity with other individuals (co‐location) does not necessarily imply availability to one another (Campos‐Castillo & Hitlin, 2013; Millward et al, 2007; Schiemer et al, 2022; Zhao & Elesh, 2008). Zhao & Elesh argue that co‐location pertains to a spatial relationship, while co‐presence is a social relationship that doesn't necessarily require physical proximity.…”

“…While teamwork usually requires team members to work jointly in a shared environment (Panteli, 2004), in the context of telework these shared environments are no longer physical. Specifically, team members work in virtual environments where interactions are mediated by technology (Schiemer et al, 2022; Subramaniam et al, 2013). These virtual environments include communication software such as Zoom that allows for technology‐mediated encounters as well as collaborative software such as Sharepoint that offer a collaborative workspace in which employees can work both simultaneously and asynchronously on collective projects.…”

Die Region - eine Begriffserkundung

“…Makerspaces, Coworking Spaces, Fablabs, offene Werkstätten) als auch digitale Räume (z.B. soziale Plattformen wie Myspace, Instagram oder Songwriting-Plattformen) (Schiemer et al 2022). Gleichzeitig bringt kollaboratives kreatives Handeln neue Räumlichkeiten hervor, die sich durch On-/Offline-Räume (zum Beispiel Gleichzeitigkeit von Aktivitäten auf Instagram und der Fashion Week) (Ibert et al 2022;Repenning 2022) oder relationale Räume der Aufmerksamkeit (Aktivitäten in einem Labor bei gleichzeitiger Interaktion über räumliche Distanzen hinweg mit Hilfe von Skype, Telefon oder E-Mail) auszeichnen (Grabher et al 2018).…”