Symbik - A New Medium for Collaborative Knowledge-Intensive Work

Knowledge-intensive work in business practice is usually supported by rather static media where expressiveness and ease of content consumption are paid for by a high effort for content creation. In the area of highly interactive collaboration, however, physical media like whiteboards dominate because of the speed and ease of content creation. Regrettably, physical media come with a number of shortcomings, e.g., in terms of accommodating increases in complexity and scope. Computer support can help to create a new medium that combines the directness and ease of use of physical media with the power of mass data processing. However, the current limitations of human computer interaction must be overcome in order to make such a medium viable. The paper outlines a new interaction metaphor and its embodiment in a prototype, called Symbik, which represents a significant step towards a powerful medium for knowledge representation and creation.