posts tagged ‘collaboration’

Workshop on Technology-Mediated Social Participation: Reports

12 January 2010 | Sanjay Kairam

PARC recently hosted the first of two co-organized and NSF-funded workshops on Technology-Mediated Social Participation. Workshop reports addressing themes such as integrating theory across levels from the individual to the community; developing new methods of measuring social connections and social capital across networks; and building an infrastructure for reliable and responsible data collection are now available.

The Future of Technology-Mediated Social Participation

7 December 2009 | Pete Pirolli

Who would have thought that simple architectures for participation could rival the scale of results previously achieved only by massive private or public works projects? While we can get excited about the possibilities, we also have to be realistic. Most social technology efforts fail: for every Wikipedia, there are thousands of dead or dying wikis. The Workshop on Technology-Mediated Social Participation at PARC will bring together approximately 30 researchers from industry, academia, and government to draw up a scientific agenda and educational recommendations for a new era of social participation technologies. As individuals, we’re limited by how much we know or think about any of these things, which is why I’m hoping that participants on the panel and in the audience at this week’s PARC Forum can help. We see further when we stand on the shoulders of others.

Harnessing intrapreneurial horsepower to drive corporate strategy

26 August 2009 | Tamara St. Claire

Instead of generating undirected, academic solutions that can dilute the focus of the research organization, intrapreneurs can address target market needs. Their creative juices can be aligned with a well-articulated (and hopefully well-understood) vision about the future of the organization. The key is to channel individual efforts so their combined energy is directed to solving problems that the company can take advantage of – especially if the findings are breakthrough and game changing. Wouldn’t it be a shame to solve world peace if you weren’t in the peace industry??

Building innovation teams

2 July 2009 | Jennifer Ernst

I recently enjoyed moderating an almost rowdy dialogue on Building World-Class Innovation Teams, as part of a Frost & Sullivan Executive MindXChange event. For someone immersed in innovation at PARC, it's always intriguing to hear the viewpoints from those who aren't as lucky.

Making projectors more social?

29 June 2009 | Yutaka Yamauchi

So many of us get frustrated with projectors. When you connect your display cable, the image doesn't show, or it's stretched, or it's cut off. You try to troubleshoot but as the audience is waiting quietly, you have to give up and blame the projector. Projectors are interesting to us because they imply a social activity, but are not in fact social. You need to use a projector in front of an audience that is looking at you -- but is the current design appropriate? How can we go about designing such a technology?