Come Together: Places for Lightweight Meetings (The Video)

Abstract

This video illustrates Come Together, a groupware system that supports the rapid creation of lightweight places for on-going meetings between distance and time-separated people. The video illustrates how Come Together represents both people and their things as media items, which can be quickly brought together to form an ad hoc place. Places, which are persistent, can be presented in a variety of forms (e.g., as a stand-alone window, or as an element in a sidebar), with interaction mechanisms that let a person quickly adjust the degree of awareness he or she wishes to maintain of the place and its contents. A console collects all people, artifacts, and places, where these components can be used to rapidly compose the meeting place. Privacy settings adjust how non-members can see and enter a place.