[AG-TECH] AG users feedback & AG-Community mailing list

[Jennifer Teig von Hoffman]

Wenjun,

Thank you for providing a good opening for this conversation. As you know 
through our previous correspondance, I'm interested in the human studies
work you're pursuing, and believe that it is useful to better explore
human factors and the AG.

I think one possible starting point for the type of work that you
mention below would be a brainstorming-type meeting among those who have
participated in and/or supported a number of AG events, to provide the
type of feedback you describe below; this meeting would preferably be held
over the AG (in large part to avoid the participants incurring travel
costs). I know there are a few of us at BU who would provide useful input
to such a meeting, and I'm sure there are others at any number of AG
sites. (In fact, if you were to announce such a meeting, I suspect you'll
get an overwhelming response -- you may also want to consider the strategy
of having a brainstorming meeting for a small group of users and 
technologists, in conjunction with a web-based survey or something 
similar.)

Such a meeting (or series of meetings?) might also help those who operate
the AG nodes, and those who do not operate nodes but do participate in
meetings over the AG, to better understand each others' experiences.

I am interested in continuing to discuss this topic and participating in
whatever ways are possible, as your work in this area evolves.

Yours,
Jennifer Teig von Hoffman
Senior Analyst/Consultant
Office of Information Technology
Boston University
111 Cummington Street
Boston, MA 02215
(617) 358-0033 phone
(617) 353-6260 fax
jtvh at bu.edu

On Wed, 5 Sep 2001, Wenjun Liu wrote:

> Jennifer, Richard, and Bob,
> 
> In a discussion of the presence of operators here at MCS, we found it's helpful to obtain some users opinion. Rick Stevens recommended that I talk with your guys to get a list of things that you hear most from your users. As we, at the same time, are also considering the possibility of a new AG mailing list for all AG related non-technical issues (user feedback, operator experience and training, human factor, social debugging of AG, etc.), I think this might be a good chance for us to market this idea on AG-TECH first and find out whether people think it is necessary for a new non-technical AG mailing list (call it, say, AG-Community).
> 
> For a long time, most of our AG efforts are technology oriented. The popularity of AG-TECH is an indication of that. As AG technology becomes better, it is time for us to think more of the human factor side of this technology, which is crucial for AG to become a more user-friendly product and the most successful collaborative tool among its (possibly future) competitors. For that purpose, we would like to get a list of things that AG users and operators think necessary to improve or to be included in AG future development. You all have lots of AG experiences. I am sure you will have many things to say. As we already have a community of AG developers, operators, and users, we also would like to hear what folks are talking. And this is our purpose of creating another AG mailing list: for people to share their experiences, exchange ideas, tell stories, find collaborators, and make comments on all AG related non-technical issues.
> 
> So, please help us find out what the AG users are thinking and, for that purpose, let's see whether it will help if we create another AG non-technical mailing list.
> 
> Thank you.
> 
> Wenjun
>