2010 Sep 29 at 15:00
DC 1302
Kelly Lyons, University of Toronto
With the increase in globalization, an increasing number of companies conduct business across distance. Companies are distributed across geographic boundaries, time zones, and individual knowledge workers are working from home or, otherwise, telecommuting. Companies are choosing to save money by reducing the number of meetings involving travel and are further motivated by a desire to reduce their carbon footprints. This means that many aspects of business engagement between people (including research collaborations, decision making, and even software development) are taking place over distance supported by some combination of technologies including teleconferences, video conferences, electronic meeting software, and various collaborative platforms. In this talk, we present current research projects looking into how social media technology can support human interactions over distance. Bio: Kelly Lyons is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Information at the University of Toronto. Prior to joining the Faculty of Information, she was the Program Director of the IBM Toronto Lab Centre for Advanced Studies (CAS). Her current research interests include service science, social computing, and collaboration. Currently, she is focusing on technologies, work practices, and business models that support and mediate human-to-human interactions in service systems. Kelly holds a cross-appointment with the Department of Computer Science at the University of Toronto, is a member of the University of Toronto's Knowledge Media Design Institute, is an IBM Faculty Fellow, Member-at-Large of the ACM Council, and a member of the ACM-W Executive Committee. More details can be found on her webpage at: http://individual.utoronto.ca/klyons