Groupware and Social Dynamics analyzed past successes and failures of social technology. The authors generalized that software made for groups did not focus enough on what makes groupware effective, but instead focused on technical designs. They advocated for more attention on workplace, group needs, and user demands. The eight problem areas of groupware were disparity in work and gains of a user, prisoner’s dilemma, violation of social etiquette, failure to handle outliers, intrusiveness, lack of evaluability, unintuitiveness, and difficult learning curve. The authors suggest following successes of effective technology to improve groupware.
I felt that the authors’ diagram of the software universe is one of the more antiquated assumptions in this paper.Groupware nowadays are often standalone and not necessarily smaller than or constrained within one organization. Individual software are not micro or mini either. It is thus interesting to see how the conditions for groupware have updated since the publishing of this paper. For example, being computationally inexpensive is much less of a concern, giving improved technical powers of machines. The second condition of social infrastructure has clearly guided the development of most social networks. The third condition feels completely obvious and unneeded nowadays, given how widespread computers are. I do feel that the final condition is still and will continue to be true: people will always seek new ways to enhance technical products.
Regarding the main topic of the paper, the issues with groupware in terms of social discrepancies and inadequacies, I feel that they still persist, due to unavoidability. For example, delivering equal benefits to all group members is difficult, with or without technology. People should definitely think about how to utilize technology to minimize this problem. However, I feel that this is no longer a matter of “groupware is not as good as it could be, because of this problem,” but an issue that people could aim to solve through bettered groupware. Similarly, much of the remaining eight problems are less of hindrances to effective groupware and more of issues that are existent in social situations.
A point that I did not agree with was that groupware is a certain multitude harder to evaluate than individual software. I feel that a random sample of users from a targeted demographics are needed to evaluate any given software. To evaluate a groupware, not so much larger a sample size is needed. However, it is certainly true that more aspects need to be considered. For example, groupware may require analysis of interactions with fellow participants on top of interactions with software.