Image by Wonderlane
A few months ago I had the pleasure of meeting Michael Nilan, a professor at the School of Information Studies at Syracuse University. I spoke to him about my interests in local community focused websites and what role they played in helping residents find information on local resources. Immediately he challenged me to throw away the notion of information as something that people find, and instead think of it as the product of conversations.
In their 2007 article “In the Spirit of Collaborating”, Nilan and D’Eredita point out that in the study of cognitive behavior, the moments when people contend with problems or situations are seen as ” a “chunk” of time/space about which people collaborate/communicate.” This chunk of time/space is what Nilan and D’Eredita say informs system designs where people converge to “share and create meaning to address their situations/solve their problems through access to resources (information/data; computing functionalities; links to others, e.g., experts). “
Taking this concept outside the realm of cognitive science, the authors apply the idea to their definition of community, which “refers to the (direct and vicarious) communicating among individuals engaging with or involved in addressing uncertainty in one or more problems/situations.”
