A9ToddMytkowicz

A9ToddMytkowicz

To-Do

please discuss / address the following issues:

1. enumerate, analyze, and discusses different "distances"
2. describe technologies for all the distances (existing ones, envisioned ones) which you identified in (1) which help to overcome and reduce these distances
3. does distance matter?
   1. yes? (under which circumstances)
   2. no? (under which circumstances)
4. describe one example based on your personal experience where distance and diversity was
   1. a positive experience
   2. a negative experience

Group Members

enumerate, analyze, and discusses different "distances"

Collaborative design can be distributed

• (1) spatially (across physical distance)
• (2) temporally (across time)
• (3) technologically (between persons and artifacts)
• (4) conceptually (across different communities)

describe technologies for all the distances (existing ones, envisioned ones) which you identified in (1) which help to overcome and reduce these distances

To overcome spatial distance society has developed tools and social processes such as academic journals and mail, for instance. We have been using this technology to overcome spatial distance for years. The general idea is that when a paper is deemed worthy, it is peer reviewed and published if found to be of merit. This publication need not be online as a print version has been one way in which the scientific community has dealt with spatial distance for a long time.

To push on the academic journal idea above, it also has a means to deal with temporal distances. Consider that most papers are built upon the ideas of those prior. Moreover, some journals have explicit letters / rebuttals that give academics a forum to discuss their grievances with a recent published paper. This "technology" allows the academic community to grow over time and deal with any inaccuracies in their published work.

The academic community has developed many tools that aid in their endeavor. For instance, the published / printed journal is one artifact that aids researchers in getting their ideas out to a broader / larger community. This is in contrast to hand written letters / personal diaries of the past (i.e. DaVinci). This example is both a way in which academics can cover any technologically distance (i.e. a published journal is an artifact that aid researchers) but also conceptually as it allows researchers to reach a broader community of readers that necessarily will have different viewpoints and ideas to bring to the journal.

does distance matter?

The types of distance discussed in the article have been around and with us since man started to try to understand the world around him. Distance does matter but the extent to which it plays a role in any particular project / undertaking depends upon the details of that project. For instance, consider this example:

If I show a picture of a cow to 1000 people off the street and to each person I ask: What does this cow weight? I will get 1000 different answers, most likely normally distributed around the true answer.

Repeat the above experiment but now require that each person discuss their answer with at least 10 other people.

In the first scenario distance does not really matter as the 1000 people will be able to give me an answer (and most likely a good one) while in the second question it definitely matters. The various forms of distance will impede how people talk to each other and arrive at their conclusions (e.g. do they speak the same language? are they spatially close to one another? are they of the same generation?). (As an aside, they will probably give a biased answer as the amount of collaboration goes up… e.g. the amount of required discussion goes up).

Now if we do the same experiment, but change the question to "How many atoms are in this cow?" the amount that distance matters in helping the 1000 people get a correct answer all of a sudden goes up.

describe one example (per group member) based on your personal experience where distance and diversity was

For my PhD research I work in a group that is spatially distributed across the globe (2 of us here, 1 in NY and 1 in Switzerland). I have been lucky enough to visit all of the members of this group for an extended period of time while I do my research. This has been a positive experience for me! Distance has helped me to travel, although I do not think that is the particular point this question is getting too :)

That said, distance in my research has also been a pain. It can require that I run ideas by people that are in different time zones when all I want to do is submit an abstract of a joint paper to a conference.