Beyond being there | Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
blu3mo https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/142750.142769… “Beyond Being There” (CHI 1992) He argues that we should aim not to reproduce the face-to-face environment, but to go beyond it. Ideas, perspectives, and hypotheses are presented based on what was being done at the time.
I’m impressed with the ideas that are the basis of what I’ve been thinking and implementing.
blu3mo Moreover, Scott Stornetta also proposed a mechanism to be the basis for blockchain at the same time Too strong!
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Stornetta and Stuart Haber are the most cited authors in Satoshi Nakamoto’s original Bitcoin white paper; of the eight citations, three reference their work. --- W. Scott Stornetta - Wikipedia
The paper “Beyond Being There” by Jim Horan and Scott Stornetta proposes an alternative approach to enable rich interaction between physically distant people. The main points are as follows.
- Current efforts focus on creating a sense of “being there” by mimicking face-to-face interactions through voice/video links. However, this puts remote participants at a disadvantage.
- To really solve the problem, we need telecommunication tools that people will want to use even when face-to-face is an option. This requires going beyond “being there”.
- The authors suggest viewing communication in terms of needs, media, and mechanisms. The goal is to identify needs that are not adequately met by physical proximity and to leverage the strengths of new media to meet those needs more than face-to-face.
- Examples include projects exploring ideas such as ephemeral interest groups, semi-synchronous discussions, anonymity, and interactions that reinforce natural conversational constraints.
- The authors argue that the pursuit of in-person imitation will always be limited. Focusing on needs and taking advantage of the unique characteristics of new media is likely to produce tools that are preferred over face-to-face, they state.
In essence, the paper advocates a shift from mimicking face-to-face communication to identifying needs and creating new media mechanisms to meet those needs better than physical proximity. This restructuring allows us to imagine tools that go beyond “being there.”
You point out in 1992 what many people experienced in remote work in COVID19.
Summary and Conclusion
Our discussion is summarized below:
- The problem with telecommunications in general seems to be to create a system that provides the same rich and varied interactions when physically apart as when in close proximity.
- Many current efforts attempt to create a sense of “being there” by establishing voice and video channels between remote locations.
- A system that attempts to incorporate people in remote areas into a physically proximate community by mimicking physical proximity will always put the latter at a disadvantage. This is not a question of the quality of the system, but of what it is trying to accomplish.
- To solve the telecommunications problem, we need to develop tools that people will want to use even when face-to-face interaction is available. To do this, we need tools that go beyond “being there.
- To create such a tool, we suggest viewing the problem in terms of needs, media, and mechanisms. The goal is to identify needs that are not ideally met by the medium of physical proximity and to evolve mechanisms to meet those needs by leveraging the strengths of the new medium. In conclusion, I return to the words quoted at the beginning of this paper. Since at least 1898, there has been a vision of a future in which new technologies can interact with those who are far away as well as those who are near. We share that vision, but differ from Strand’s quote in the best way to achieve it. In our vision of the future, it is not distance itself that is abolished, but the notion of “being there” in the present.
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