The Future of Distributed Groups and Their Use of Social Media

Distributed team field research has shown that shared group awareness, coordination and informal communication are the most common ways for teams to inform each other of progress. In addition, we have observed that poorly documented, informal communication causes a fragmented workday due to frequent interruptions and knowledge loss due to the passage of time and team attrition. Because informal communication has both advantages and disadvantages for information sharing, it merits deeper study to allow any proposed solution to preserve the good while reducing the bad. Over the past several years, we have conducted a series of studies at Microsoft Corporation and beyond to document the nature of group conversations and communications. Based on surveys, lab studies, field studies and interviews, we have begun to develop a suite of tools that allow groups, both co-located and distributed, to stay more aware of their colleagues' actions, get on board to a new team more efficiently, and engage with each other at the most optimal times. Examples of many of these tools will be discussed, as will our progress in transitioning these ideas into real products.