The four cells are organized along the two dimensions of time and place.

7.1. The four cells are organized along the two dimensions of time and place.

F I G U R E 7 . 1 T I M E / P L A C E COMMUNICATION FRAMEWORK A N D SOME COLLABORATIVE COMPUTING SUPPORT TECHNOLOGIES

Same time

Different time

jwwwwwwwwas

» GSS in a decision room

• GSS in a decision room

Same

> Web-based GSS

• Web-based GSS

place

» Multimedia presentation

• Workflow management

• Document sharing

» Document sharing

• E-mail, V-mail • Video conferencing playback

• Web-based GSS

> Web-based GSS

1 Whiteboard

> Whiteboard > Document sharing

Different

• Document sharing

place 1 Video conferencing

> E-mail, V-mail

jwwwewww

' Audio conferencing

«Workflow management

1 Computer conferencing

system

' E-mail, V-mail

» Computer conferencing with memory • Video conferencing playback

393 P A R T 111 ' COLLABORATION, COMMUNICATION, ENTERPRISE DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS, AND KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

• Time. When information is sent and received almost simultaneously, the commu- nication is synchronous. Telephones, televisions, and face-to-face meetings are

examples. Asynchronous communication occurs when the receiver receives the information at a different time than it was sent.

• Place. The senders and the receivers can be in the same room or not. The four cells of the framework are as follows: • Same time/same place. Participants meet face-to-face in one place at the same

time, as in a traditional meeting or decision room. This is still an important way to meet, even when Web-based, because it is sometimes critical for participants to

leave the office to eliminate distractions (if so, turn off your cell telephone ringer). • Same time/same place. Participants are in different places, but they communicate at the same time, for example, with videoconferencing. • Same time/same place. People work in shifts. One shift leaves information for the next shift. • Same time/same place. Participants are in different places. They send and receive information at different times. This occurs when team members are traveling, have conflicting schedules, or work in different time zones. Meetings such as these require some special handling. For example, when brainstorming, it is important not to barrage group members who enter the meeting later with all the ideas that have been generated. That makes them feel excluded. The previously generated ideas should be fed slowly to them.

GROUPWARE The term groupware refers to software products that provide collaborative support to

groups. Groupware provides a mechanism for teams to share opinions, data, informa- tion, knowledge, and other resources. Different collaborative computing technologies

support groupwork in different ways, depending on the time/place category in which the work occurs, the purpose of the group, and the task. New tools are evolving to sup-

port anytime/any place meetings. There are thousands of packages that contain some elements of groupware. Some have only rudimentary collaboration capabilities (e.g., voting; see DSS in Action 7.3),

whereas others provide support for every aspect of collaboration (full electronic meet- ings with videoconferencing). Almost all utilize Internet technology for the consistent Web browser-style user interface and communication protocols.

Groupware typically contains capabilities for at least one of the following: electronic brainstorming, electronic conferencing or meeting, group scheduling, calen- daring, planning, conflict resolution, model building, videoconferencing, electronic document sharing (e.g., screen sharing, whiteboards, or liveboards), voting, organiza- tional memory. There are electronic meeting services like WebEx Meeting Center (webex.com), Place Ware Conference Center (placeware.com), and MCI Conferencing (e-meetings.mci.com), where anyone can hold a meeting for a fee. Some groupware, such as Lotus Notes/Domino (lotus.com), Microsoft NetMeeting (microsoft.com), Groove (groove.net), and GroupSystems OnLine (groupsystems. com), support a fairly comprehensive range of activities. Each vendor provides success stories about its GSS product or service, as well as demos, trial versions, or video presentations on its Web site. We next briefly describe some popular groupware systems.