Interview with Jonathan Grudin
Jonathan Grudin’s interaction with Rob Kling goes back to 1988 when both attended the CSCW (computer supported cooperative work) conference in Oregon. He joined Kling as part of the CORPS (Computers, Organizations, Policy and Society) faculty at University of California, Irvine in 1990 and left UCI in 1998. His current work in Microsoft Research’s Adaptive Systems and Interaction Group involves the study of emerging technologies and the history of human-computer interaction. For more information, visit Dr. Grudin’s web site at http://research.microsoft.com/~jgrudin.
On June 9, 2006, Jonathan Grudin completed the following interview via email…
When did you meet Dr. Kling and in what capacity did you know him?In 1988, Rob and I attended the CSCW 1988 conference in Portland, Oregon. I gave a paper there that he liked, and he was on a panel that I saw. In late 1990 he was looking to fill a faculty position and suggested that I apply. Also in or around 1990 I submitted a paper to him as a CACM editor, and invited him to write a piece for a special issue of CACM I was asked to put together, which came out in 1991. So we interacted by extensively by email in 1990. In early October of that year I visited Irvine and moved there on January 1, 1992. I was in the CORPS group with Rob and John King, and we were joined the following year by Mark Ackerman. The four of us remained the CORPS faculty until Rob left for Indiana. After Rob left we were intermittently in touch. Rob sent me drafts of papers and used my condo as a base of operations on one visit to Irvine. In April of 2003 we were exchanging email to plan a private dinner when he expected to be in Seattle for the Academy of Management conference in August. He and I planned to be on a panel together. The panel topic shifted to be a memorial discussion of Rob’s work and John King joined.
What was it like being a colleague of Dr. Kling’s at the University of California at Irvine?I’ll respond in the traditional categories of service, teaching, and research. Rob was a fantastic colleague in terms of service. He took it seriously, expended a lot of energy on it, and was resolute in response to those who questioned the value of devoting resources to our research area. Definitely someone to have on your side in academic disputes, which he approached with sharp observation and good-natured wit that rested on an unwillingness to give an inch on matters of principle.
I always asked Rob to guest lecture on one or another of his papers in the undergraduate Social Analysis of Computerization class I frequently taught, and he was inspirational. He always reread his own papers and found contemporary issues to link them to, and was amazing at getting student discussions going, drawing the undergraduates out even when they were developing positions I knew Rob disagreed with. With graduate students he was more demanding and intimidating.
This seemed to carry over to younger faculty and research. I loved discussing and arguing with Rob, and he appreciated it on the one hand but may have expected a bit less independence of thought from younger colleagues. In any case, of the seven places I’ve worked in 30 years starting with graduate school, only at Irvine did I not end up writing papers with colleagues, despite wanting to. It was at Indiana that Rob launched social informatics, building of course on his previous work and collaborations.
What were the most valuable things you learned from Dr. Kling?They can be inferred in my last reply — how to strive to approach service and teaching, and the trickier issue of the conflicts inherent in building a movement, which requires maintaining and extending rigor and focus while drawing in and not driving away participants.
When did you make the switch to working for Microsoft and what, in particular, prompted that move?Because my wife had a job in Seattle that could not be moved to Orange County, I began spending more time up north, starting in 1996, around when Rob was moving to Indiana. I spent half a year on sabbatical at the University of Washington, two summers doing research at Boeing, and consulted part-time at Microsoft Research for a few months before taking a full-time job there starting in October, 1998.
As indicated on your web page at http://research.microsoft.com/users/jgrudin/ and from your extensive publications, you have made considerable contributions to work on group collaboration. What are you focusing on now?Having been part of a generation that thirty years ago began using email and editors as students and then brought them into workplaces, I see a generation using instant messages, weblogs, and other social technologies, and realize that they too will transform workplaces. I am looking at how these technologies are starting to be used in organizations. I am also devoting a lot of time to researching the history of human computer interaction broadly construed.
What private sector opportunities and challenges do you feel exist for individuals trained in Social Informatics? Are there some specific research questions or hot topics in industry where Social Informatics perspectives would be most useful?I see this as a time of tremendous opportunity. Rob chose “Social Informatics” as a designation after some deliberation. In industry “social computing” is a popular term today; we have sponsored three “social computing symposia” and it has been amazing to see university faculty, graduate students, industry researchers, industry practitioners, start-up entrepreneurs, and online pundits all discussing the same issues in the same way. I’ve never seen anything like it. I really regret not having Rob to discuss these developments with, I think it is what he dreamed of and perhaps realized would come to pass.
What words of wisdom would you like to pass on to others involved in Social Informatics teaching or research?Wisdom, hmmm. As someone who over thirty years has been forced to change direction several times due to changes in the technologies I worked on and studied, I would say to anyone earlier in their careers, assume that you too will radically change your work or focus a few times and always be alert to what opportunities exist and when the time to change has arrived.
Where would you like to see the field of Social Informatics go? Are there specific opportunities that should be seized or threats to be dealt with?Social informatics has focused on the stakeholders, the actors — the people involved with technologies as designers, developers, hands-on users, and the indirectly affected. There has been some resistance to recognizing that the most powerful actor in this drama could be the demon who has been enforcing Moore’s Law. That demon has been gathering strength for close to half a century, and it’s starting to pound on the table.
