Environmental & Architectural
Phenomenology Newsletter
Selected Articles (Featured Article)
SOME NOTES ON THE EXPERIENCE OF BEING A TELEWORKER
Thomas Erickson
Erickson is a telecommuter who lives in Minneapolis but works for IBM's research division in upstate New York. His major research in-terest is designing computer systems that "fit gracefully into peoples' lives." He believes that "computers ought to enable people to focus on their work rather than on technology and ought to simplify life rather than add complexity and stress."Erickson wrote the following sketches when he worked for Apple Computer. At the time of the meeting described in the first essay, he had been telecommuting to his job at Apple in California from his home in Minneapolis for a bit over three years. This meeting is also mentioned in the second essay, which discusses the significance of working from one's home.
1. ON THE EXPERIENCE OF REMOTE MEETINGS
I had a curious experience today. It changed the way I think about meetings and brought a number of things I appreciated at a tacit level into focus.
I was attending a meeting of people involved in user experience work at Apple Computer. I was "sitting in" by phone. The only thing that made this meeting unusual was the combination of people, of whom there were about twenty. Although most of these workers knew each other, this particular group had come together just for this meeting.
The important background knowledge about this event involves the mechanics of participating in meetings by phone. The principal difficulty is the impossibility of being subtle. I can't catch the speaker's eye, raise a finger to reserve a turn in the conversation, or reliably predict when another speaker is about to stop. I can only blurt out what I have to say and hope to insert my comment into what I hope will be a gap in the conversation. It is easiest to be a phone participant in meetings that are relatively small and with a group accustomed to meeting together. I mention all this to make a simple point: this meeting met neither of these "ease of participation" criteria. Consequently, rather than participating in the meeting, I observed and reflected upon it.
What caught my attention was the way the meeting ended. The majority of the meeting consisted of open discussion. One person would say something, another would respond, someone else would inject a new topic, and so forth. In general, the meeting was well focused with only one thread of dialogue. As the appointed end drew near, the leader wrote down a few last points, made a call for final comments, and concluded the meeting by thanking everyone for coming.
Normally, at this point I'd say goodbye, or someone in the meeting would say goodbye to me, and the phone conversation would end. However, that didn't happen. Instead, I got to experience the "after-meeting" from a rather unusual vantagepoint: the remote end of a speaker phone with very good, omnidirectional microphones.
As the organizer of the meeting was thanking everyone for coming, I was reflecting on some things that had been said and thus missed the "blurt gap" into which I could have said goodbye. Indeed, the blurt gap was short because no sooner had the organizer "ended" the meeting than there was a swell of conversation. And I don't mean just two or three conversations. It sounded to me like everyone in the room burst out talking at once. I was struck by the change in the--for lack of a better word--"energy" in the room.
As I listened, I made up a story about what had happened. As the official meeting progressed, one person talking after another, various issues were raised without being entirely resolved, and various smaller groups began building up a set of potential conversations. When the meeting "ended" and the one-person-at-a-time constraint was released, the pent-up conversational potential was released in a babble of conversations. Indeed, as I listened, I heard people arranging meetings and clarifying points.
In fact, I heard something quite relevant to me. I caught a colleague starting to describe an earlier meeting in which I was very much interested. But I couldn't quite follow the thread of the conversation-there were too many competing voices. And I didn't feel sure that it was proper for me to listen without being visible, even though the conversation was in a crowded room. I wondered how I could make my "presence" known?
If finding a blurt gap among the turns of a serial conversation in an orderly meeting is difficult, joining one of the many parallel conversations is impossible when you're on the other end of the phone line. About the only option is the virtual equivalent of jumping up on a table in the midst of a cocktail party and shouting at the person with whom you wish to speak.
What I noticed about my situation was fascinating on at least two levels. First, it struck me that this after-meeting was enormously productive--promoting the interchange of ideas and the coordination of activities. Probably more interactions happened (or were arranged) in the five minutes after the meeting than in the previous week.
This is not to say that the meeting itself was not worthwhile; to the contrary, it brought together people and raised the conversational potential to make the after-meeting exchange possible. This is really just the micro-analog of the truism about professional con-ferences: all the good stuff really happens between the presentations.
A second interesting aspect of the after-meeting was how engaging and relevant the fragments of the conversation seemed. I wished I had been able to record the babble and play it back later. It seemed to me that a transcription of the after-meeting would provide a good summary of both the meeting itself and the state of the work community for those who knew the participants and understood the context. (Of course, privacy stands in the way of any general implementations of such ideas; even though all these conversations happened in a public space, transforming ephemeral conversation into persistent recording is a fundamental shift).
The moral of this story has to do with the inter-action of language and technology. First, note that, normally, thanks to technology, I would have missed all that I happened to see. I usually "arrive" when the meeting "begins" and "depart" when the meeting "ends. I miss the after-meeting and pre-meeting.
In reality, groups coalesce gradually and disperse gradually and many interesting things happen in these "ends" and "beginnings." Technology, on the other hand, is all or nothing. It doesn't support the gradual ebb and flow that characterizes groups--nor does it do well when suddenly everyone begins talking at once!
It's not just technology, however, that's to blame. The notion of a meeting as a discrete entity with clear beginnings and endings is embedded in our language, depicted in our calendars, and assumed in our work practices. Normally this isn't a problem because the mundane artifacts to which we are accustomed can be shifted and redeployed to accommodate new circum-stances. The problem here is that technology has a peculiar rigidity that makes it much poorer in accom-modating the unremarked ambiguities that permeate our daily lives, and until we understand how to make technology that is more pliant, we must take great care about how our words are reflected in our designs.
2. WHEN ONE WORKS AT HOME
This essay describes Erickson's experience as a teleworker at Apple Computer from fall of 1993 through summer 1997. He wrote the piece for a panel on telework in which participants were asked to address three questions: (a) what are the conse-quences of working from one's home; (b) what are the conse-quences of extended separation from one's colleagues; and (c) what is the future of telework?
a. Consequences of working from my home
One of the most prominent features of my life as a teleworker is the rhythmic nature of my work. I travel to Cupertino [California] and have a week of intense social interaction-both planned and spontaneous. This interaction results in a bunch of informal agreements: to read someone's paper, critique a prototype, develop an idea that came up in discussion, or just talk more over the phone.
When I return to Minneapolis I shift into focused work mode, in which I have time to read, reflect, write, and carry out other work tasks. The informal agreements made during my social week now partially structure my remote time. I don't mean to imply that remote work is calm and uninterrupted-far from it. Even at a distance I am still interrupted by phone or email, I still experience radically rearranged priorities, and I still participate in the occasional, bureaucratically induced, "fire drill." The degree of interruption, however, is considerably less than when I am on site. Though it's not all-or-none, there is a real rhythm to my activity that I find extremely energizing and productive. This was not something I had anticipated before starting telework.
Tied in with this work rhythm-both as a cause and consequence-is the fact that wherever I am inhibits some activities and facilitates others. For example, spontaneous conversations with colleagues are easier on site; time to write and think is easier to find at home or on the plane. And, naturally, the nature of many of my activities shifts to accommodate my work rhythm.
Probably the chief consequence of working from my home is the softening of the boundaries between work and home life. For years pundits have predicted the merging of work and leisure, home and office. But before I became a teleworker, when I worked full time at Apple in Cupertino, it felt to me like work was infiltrating leisure but not the opposite. Now, my situation feels more balanced. A big part of this differ-ence is that, for the first time in my adult life, I live and work in the same place. I can shovel snow while a large file downloads or go upstairs and work at midnight if I can't sleep. For me, this is pleasant. I can imagine, however, situations-when work or home life isn't going well-where this merger could be a considerable drawback.
Overall, I find that the rhythmic nature of my work life, the softer boundaries between work and home, and the ability to live and work in the same place-all conspire to increase my quality of life.
b. Consequences of extended physical separation from colleagues
One problem with digital technology is its in-ability to deal gracefully with the periphery. Somehow the all-or-nothing character of bits-1 or 0 and nothing in between-permeates many of the processes that the technology supports. Thus, as I described in the first essay above, meetings are treated as though they have sharp beginnings and endings. Similarly, as a remote participant, I can either be the center of attention (when speaking) or completely invisible (when silent).
This invisibility has important consequences: it becomes difficult for me to signal for a conversational turn or to provide the speaker with feedback about my degree of interest or understanding. While I have occasionally tried to remedy this invisibility by occa-sional coughs, throat clearings, or other similar sounds, I fear that my efforts only contribute a tubercular cast to the mental images my colleagues form of me.
While adding video technology into the mix might partially remedy this awkwardness, note that there is still the same problem: video images also have sharp boundaries as becomes all to apparent when either the person or the camera moves. Video images are also flat, and I-in the guise of a disembodied head projected onto the wall-am either the center of attention (if people are looking at me) or virtually invisible (if people are looking elsewhere). In addition, the flatness of the image makes physical tactics-e.g., raising a hand or standing up-far less effective.
While this local invisibility renders interactions in meetings cumbersome, it also contributes to a more severe problem: the loss of longer-term organizational visibility. I am often not physically present when my group's work is presented to management, other groups, or outside visitors. Even if I am connected by phone, I am still less able to participate in the spon-taneous banter, and I still miss the pre- and post-meeting interactions. While technology supports direct intentional interactions, it is much weaker at sustaining spontaneous interactions-in part, because it can't capture the periphery where spontaneous interactions often occur.
At the moment, the solutions to these sorts of problems are, for me, primarily in the social realm: I get support from my colleagues, who, for example, may call me back if the after-meeting conversation becomes important. Also, although spontaneous interactions are fewer for me, they're more intense and energizing exactly because of their rarity.
So, for example, on my week at Apple I have lots of hallway conversations because my colleagues and I know it's a rare opportunity. In fact, I engage in "planned spontaneity"-I wander the hallways on purpose to bump into people. I also have a set of cus-toms-people I regularly breakfast with, for instance.
In this way, I maintain my social network. And at home in Minneapolis, I have a local network of colleagues with whom to gossip, toss ideas around, and banter. They serve as a substitute for that aspect of work place life.
c. The future of telework
I think we're likely to see an increase in telework in the future. An organization that needs less physical office space has an economic advantage. The cost of telephone and network infrastructure for my remote office and of the monthly weeklong trips to California is considerably less than the cost of providing a physical office in Cupertino. At the same time, the number of professionals who experience some form of the "two-body problem" shows no sign of decreasing. An organization that can readily accommodate telework has a wider pool of talent from which to draw--another advantage in a time and industry where highly specialized and skilled employees play a vital role. And, for me at least, the little benefits like living with my wife, actually inhabiting a neighborhood, and having more focused work time, vastly outweigh the inconveniences.
I began teleworking with low expectations, in part based on previous experience as a "teleporter" (writer Victoria Bellotti's term for a person who works at home one day or more a week). But my experience as what Bellotti calls a "telepath" (a person who is remote for extensive periods of time) has been very different, in part because the permanence of the telework arrangement required my colleagues and me to shift our work practices. These shifts had their costs but also their benefits.
The principal moral I take away from my telework experience is that the social is more important than the technical. Telework practice has to be learned by the participants (both local and remote) and supported by the organization. This is nothing new: people and organizations have had to learn how to incorporate everything from telephones to copiers in their work practices, and I see nothing unusually daunting about telework.
Finally, it's interesting to speculate on new tele-organizational forms. I imagine that organizational activity might take on a more rhythmic character. Suppose there were lots of remote workers who would periodically converge for a period of intense socialization, exchange, and synthesis. This is not un-like the way professional organizations work It's evi-dent how the annual rhythms of such associations catalyze various professional activities, and it seems likely to me that the quicker rhythms of tele-organizations might produce benefits similar to those that I've described in my case. I expect that there are a lot of apropos cultural models and practices-from nomadic or migratory cultures, for instance-that might be adopted to telework organizations.
If this shift toward telework comes about, it's also interesting to speculate about the coevolution of civic life driven by people living and working in the same neighborhood. It's easy to construct visions-taking our cue from urban critic Jane Jacobs--of a neighborhood renaissance driven by full-time occupancy of what were once bedroom communities. I don't mean to claim that telework is a panacea of any sort. Such a scenario would doubtless come with its own associated set of problems, but in my experience the benefits have largely outweighed the costs.