Presence and IntComm WG

[Jeremy George <>]

  In the context of non-emergency communication I think I disagree.
If I'm in a restaurant with a quiet ambience, I think there might well
be a communal understanding that behavior which disturbs the atmosphere
is unacceptable.  And, cell phones are verboten.  Such policy exists
now in fact in some restaurants, this is just enforcing it.  If a
customer doesn't like it, he can go to a gabby restaurant.

  Or, as Steve noted, the classroom.

  Or, almost any sort of presentation.

  I think it's a pretty good general tussle, the group vs the individual, 
and this instance of it is one we might struggle with on campuses.

- Jeremy


On Mon, 12 Dec 2005, Candace Holman wrote:

> Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2005 18:23:20 -0500
> From: Candace Holman 
> <>
> To: Jeremy George 
> <>
> Cc: wg-pic 
> <>
> Subject: Re: [wg-pic] Consensual Interruptions
>
> It would be infinitely more useful if you could choose the priority of 
> certain callers, and not allow the group to cancel calls from top priority 
> callers.  But certainly it would be considered socially unacceptable for 
> almost anyone to tell you "don't answer that right now" - it would be just as 
> rude for anyone to veto the call any other way.
>
> Candace
>
>
> Jeremy George wrote:
>
> >   I missed this.  What an absolutely spectacular social tussle.  The three
> > people I'm meeting with vote down my wife's call to me, and I get to
> > explain later that evening why her call was refused!
> >
> >   Or, instead of having to stand up in front of a room and beg folks
> > to shut off their cell phones maybe the particpants could, in effect,
> > require that cell phones not receive non-emergency calls?
> >
> >   In a skiff or skiff-like environment the notion certainly seems at
> > least theoretically possible.  What would a 'silent survey' look like?
> > You wouldn't want to poll everyone for a response?  Maybe that could
> > just be a part of a user's profile?  No non-emergency calls in
> > meetings.
> >
> > - Jeremy
> >
> >
> > On Sun, 11 Dec 2005, Ben Teitelbaum wrote:
> >
> > > Date: Sun, 11 Dec 2005 11:48:02 -0500
> > > From: Ben Teitelbaum 
> > > <>
> > > Reply-To: 
> > >
> > > To: wg-pic 
> > > <>
> > > Subject: [wg-pic] Consensual Interruptions
> > >
> > > To complement Jeremy's posting, here's another nugget from the New
> > > York Times.
> > >
> > > The NYT Magazine's annual "Year in Ideas" this week describes work
> > > from MIT that solves the problem of unwanted interruptions of physical
> > > meetings in a creative way using geo-location and real-time polling.
> > > Basically, the people physically proximate to the called party are
> > > polled quickly as to whether the call should go through.
> > >
> > > That the handling of a two-party call might be influenced by the
> > > presence of others in the vicinity of the call is not an idea I've
> > > considered before.  We've talked about room presence (e.g. there is a
> > > class taking place in this room now), but not the notion that the room
> > > presence would be determined dynamically by the surrounding people.
> > >
> > > Still many technical and social details to flesh out (and I really do
> > > not know about the blinking squirrel!), but it's an interesting
> > > notion...
> > >
> > >    The problem is all too familiar: You're chatting with a group of
> > >    people when someone's cellphone goes off, interrupting the
> > >    conversation. What makes the intrusion irritating isn't so much
> > >    the call itself - the caller has no way of knowing if he has
> > >    chosen a good time to cut in. It's that the group as a whole
> > >    doesn't have any say in the matter. Until now.
> > >
> > >    Stefan Marti, a graduate of the M.I.T. Media Laboratory, who now
> > >    works for Samsung, has devised a system that silently surveys the
> > >    members of the group about whether accepting an incoming phone
> > >    call would be appropriate. Then it permits the call to go through
> > >    only if the group agrees unanimously - thus creating a more
> > >    consensual sort of interruption.
> > >
> > >    more here:
> > >    http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/11/magazine/11ideas1-10.html
> > >
> > > -- ben
> > >
> > > --
> > > Ben Teitelbaum   http://people.internet2.edu/~ben/