The Zephyr Help Instance as a CSCW Resource

Abstract

This chapter discusses, as an example of a resource in use, the Zephyr Help In- stance as used at MIT. The Zephyr Help Instance is a chat-like system that allows users to ask questions and other users to answer. The Zephyr Help Instance has the social and technical affordances for continued use as socio-technical system in its environment of use and has become a resource for its users. This chapter highlights many of the structures and interactions necessary for the adoption of a system to serve as a sustained and dependable resource in people’s environment. To continue providing help, the Help Instance requires, like any so- ciality, a common-enough understanding of the space’s purpose, a shared under- standing of the key roles (i.e., questioners and answerers), some norms about ac- ceptable and preferred behavior, and a positive adaptation to the organizational culture. In other words, in order to continue as a social place, there must be a ne- gotiated social order. The Zephyr Help Instance is a simple but successful and ef- fective example of this. The way these social mechanisms work together and rein- force one another allows Zephyr to function appropriately for its users―to become a resource for them. As well, in the Zephyr system’s technical capabilities for new instances (for po- licing of the topics), the system speed (for background attending), the public mes- sages (for rewarding and recruiting answerers), as well as, paradoxically, the lack of memory and the poor display options (for background attending) provide tech- nical affordances for these social mechanisms. We found that the Help Instance’s users have made creative use of system af- fordances to organize and regulate their electronic social space. Users were able to seize upon the system features for their own social purposes. The Zephyr Help In- stance became a resource in the users’ world, allowing them to create and main- tain a socially useful and usable system over time.