Information scraps: how and why information eludes our personal information management tools

In this paper we describe information scraps -- a class of personal information whose content is scribbled on Post-it notes, scrawled on corners of random sheets of paper, buried inside the bodies of e-mail messages sent to ourselves, or typed haphazardly into text files. Information scraps hold our great ideas, sketches, notes, reminders, driving directions, and even our poetry. We define information scraps to be the body of personal information that is held outside of its natural or We have much still to learn about these loose forms of information capture. Why are they so often held outside of our traditional PIM locations and instead on Post-its or in text files? Why must we sometimes go around our traditional PIM applications to hold on to our scraps, such as by e-mailing ourselves? What are information scraps' role in the larger space of personal information management, and what do they uniquely offer that we find so appealing? If these unorganized bits truly indicate the failure of our PIM tools, how might we begin to build better tools? We have pursued these questions by undertaking a study of 27 knowledge workers. In our findings we describe information scraps from several angles: their content, their location, and the factors that lead to their use, which we identify as ease of capture, flexibility of content and organization, and avilability at the time of need. We also consider the personal emotive responses around scrap management. We present a set of design considerations that we have derived from the analysis of our study results. We present our work on an application platform, jourknow, to test some of these design and usability findings

Event-based personal retrieval

People who work in a research, academic or business environment often have personal information collections which are large enough to need retrieval aids. A major difference between personal information retrieval and normal document retrieval is that the items to be retrieved are often associated with events in the searcher's life and can be retrieved by their relationship to other events as well as by content. This paper describes some of the background to event-based retrieval and then describes a prototype graphical event-based retrieval system

Mixed reality participants in smart meeting rooms and smart home enviroments

Human–computer interaction requires modeling of the user. A user profile typically contains preferences, interests, characteristics, and interaction behavior. However, in its multimodal interaction with a smart environment the user displays characteristics that show how the user, not necessarily consciously, verbally and nonverbally provides the smart environment with useful input and feedback. Especially in ambient intelligence environments we encounter situations where the environment supports interaction between the environment, smart objects (e.g., mobile robots, smart furniture) and human participants in the environment. Therefore it is useful for the profile to contain a physical representation of the user obtained by multi-modal capturing techniques. We discuss the modeling and simulation of interacting participants in a virtual meeting room, we discuss how remote meeting participants can take part in meeting activities and they have some observations on translating research results to smart home environments

Another Side of ACL Conference

ACL Conference 1999 at Lee University was a great deal of fun. The text comes from my notes rather than letters to my friend and business partne1; Mark Vette,; although I kept in touch with him this year via e-mail. I hope you enjoy follow ing me around again as you read Another Side of Conference

The future of enterprise groupware applications

This paper provides a review of groupware technology and products. The purpose of this review is to investigate the appropriateness of current groupware technology as the basis for future enterprise systems and evaluate its role in realising, the currently emerging, Virtual Enterprise model for business organisation. It also identifies in which way current technological phenomena will transform groupware technology and will drive the development of the enterprise systems of the future

Audit report on the Council Bluffs Airport Authority for the year ended June 30, 2012

Audit report on the Council Bluffs Airport Authority for the year ended June 30, 201

Dealing with mobility: Understanding access anytime, anywhere

The rapid and accelerating move towards the adoption and use of mobile technologies has increasingly provided people and organisations with the ability to work away from the office and on the move. The new ways of working afforded by these technologies are often characterised in terms of access to information and people ‘anytime, anywhere’. This paper presents a study of mobile workers that highlights different facets of access to remote people and information, and different facets of anytime, anywhere. Four key factors in mobile work are identified from the study: the role of planning, working in ‘dead time’, accessing remote technological and informational resources, and monitoring the activities of remote colleagues. By reflecting on these issues, we can better understand the role of technology and artefact use in mobile work and identify the opportunities for the development of appropriate technological solutions to support mobile workers