🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1991Mar10.074044.16329@syacus.acus.oz.au> I wrote:
>Back in 1985, Anatol Holt wrote a paper on 'Coordination Technology and
>Petri Nets'. (Paper was published in LNCS 222 - Advances in Petri Nets 1985)
>Abstract of paper reads as follows:
>
>'This paper introduces a new apporach to Petri net interpretation. With this
>approach, properly interpreted Petri nets yield new insights about the
>mechanics of human work organizations. Furthermore, these insights take
>technically useful form. In the last few years, the approach has led to the
>development of an industrial software technology - Coordination Technology -
>for the construction of electronic work environments. The technological and
>scientific background are described enough to provide motivation for the new
>approach to Petri net interpretation.'
>
>At that time, CSCW and Groupware were unheard of (at least to me).
>I am curious as to the following:
>
>1) was groupware and CSCW actively researched back in 1985
>2) if so, was Holt's paper well-known amongst you people
>3) were there further papers from Holt (or his colleagues from ITT) on
>   this topic
>4) is his paper relevant to the area of groupware/cscw (or am i barking up
>   the wrong tree)
>
>(email me and I shall summarise to this newsgroup. I am happy to send copies
>of paper to anyone if LNCS 222 is difficult to obtain from your library)
>
>Chek Yoon WONG
>A.C.U.S.
>115 Wicks Rd
>North Ryde NSW 2113

here's are the replies I've received:
-----------------------------------
From: Ken Grant <kgrant@us.oracle.com>

About 1) & 2)- Yes, work was going on before 1985.  The first meeting
explicitly on CSCW I know of was organized by Irene Greif (who coined
the term "CSCW") at MIT's Endicott House in (I think) August 1984.
About 2 or 3 dozen people were invited to come talk about their
research.  I think that people had been doing CSCW for a while but
the field lacked organization - a lot of credit is due Irene for doing
much of that organization herself.

Anyway, I don't remember if Holt was at that first meeting - my
binder with things from that meeting disappeared a couple of years ago :^(
However, I am certain that there were attendees there who knew him and
had read his work.

I'm not sure about 3); as to 4), sure its relevant.  

Ken Grant

Internet:  kgrant@us.oracle.com 
UUCP:     ...{hplabs,apple,uunet}!oracle!kgrant
USMail:   Oracle Corporation, 400 Oracle Parkway, Redwood Shores CA 94065
AT&T:     (415) 506-2908

-----------------------------
From: "Hanhwe N. Kim" <hnkst2@unix.cis.pitt.edu>

When I first started my Master's back in 1985, I became interested in
CSCW and hypertext. The research was dispersed, and could be gleaned
from journals that had to do with user interface design .. eg.
"From cognitive to social Ergonomics(john Seely Brown)" in Norman and
Drapers 'user centered systems design'. 
The first time I ran into Holt's research was in "Computers and
Cognition" by Terry Winograd and Fernando Flores.. there is a small
reference to the work he did at ITT... So it was 1986-7 I think.

Holt's work is relevant for defining collaborative tasks in terms of
resource allocation, time constraints, dependencies. I'm not sure
whether, industrial engineers use petri nets to layout automated
factories, but Holt tries to describe office/professional work in an
anolgous manner. He mentions in later articles that the 'Coordination
base' is to occupy a layer in a future distributed, networked operating
system.. defining the sematics of collaborative applications.