Asked by Dale Pike, c/o
James. Awareness, which IM provides, is definitely a big lesson that can be learned from the CSCW world. An example of the possibilities can be gleaned from
TeamWave.
TW was a synchronous and asynchronous communication tool, meaning people could come together to chat and work at the same time, but materials that were created would also stick around permanently, so they could be visited later. Now, with most synchronous systems, its so awkward to get people together that the only time they get used is with rigidly scheduled events (lectures, meetings, etc. - hey, we only were able to sell TeamWave after we pitched it as a system for those kind of events!).
What was interesting with TeamWave is that most of the synchronous use came not from scheduled events. Instead, people entered the system to do work on their own, or look at stuff other people had done (i.e. to use it asynchronously), found that other people were online doing the same thing (or in other groups), and used that as an opportunity to join in. In other words, an awareness capability like you'd find in IM helped afford the "casual interaction" style of synchronous use that's so long been a goal of these kind of systems.
