Skills and motivation in ad-hoc-collaboration

Mobile technologies offer the opportunity to collaborate spontaneously any time and any place. While researchers have begun to understand the skills and motivational consequences of distributed office meetings, we are only beginning to understand them for ad-hoc collaboration. This paper reports on an analysis of two exploratory experiments dating from 2004 and 2005. Ad-hoc collaboration requires specific skills for process facilitation, communication, planning, media usage, multi-tasking, as well as specific social skills. Those skills need to be different in their characteristic than those skills necessary for traditional face-to-face and distributed meetings. A fast action and reaction cycle leads to raised excitement and motivation despite the difficulties the group has in organizing their work.