Report on the future conversations workshop at CHIIR 2021

The Future Conversations workshop at CHIIR’21 looked to the future of search, recommen- dation, and information interaction to ask: where are the opportunities for conversational interactions? What do we need to do to get there? Furthermore, who stands to benefit?The workshop was hands-on and interactive. Rather than a series of technical talks, we solicited position statements on opportunities, problems, and solutions in conversational search in all modalities (written, spoken, or multimodal). This paper –co-authored by the organisers and participants of the workshop– summarises the submitted statements and the discussions we had during the two sessions of the workshop. Statements discussed during the workshop are available at https://bit.ly/FutureConversations2021Statements

Challenges to learning and leading the digital workplace

Digitalisation does not only transform material constructions of workplaces and work but also social constructions for employees’ interaction and learning at work. In this paper, we explore emerging challenges related to the digitalisation of workplaces aiming for an understanding of the changing prerequisites for working and competence. Our findings from a small qualitative exploratory study illustrate the complexity of the development of workplaces, characterised by strong but diffuse relationships between people, technology, and work practices. We argue that in the development of digital workplaces, a sole focus on information systems as new technology, along with training and education of their functionality is insufficient. First, the demand for new competencies in the workplace calls for understanding learning practices in everyday digital work. Second, leading the transition towards a digital workplace requires learning new leadership practices. Thus, an understanding of work rather than systems ought to be central in the future digitalisation of work, in which the systems are one part of development, not the development