This was a trip down memory lane. Not in a bad way.  A volume in the important series Computers, Cognition, and Work, the editors present 25 studies of what was then an emerging phenomena–both technologically and socially.  In the thick of things before the technology had standardized, before we were certain of the value of the enterprise, and before we knew what VMC was supposed to look like, this volume demonstrates how science and research pushes a field forward, imagining, exploring and creating possibilities rather than taking things as a given.

Resulting from a workshop held in 1994, the volume has four sections but what I think are really two halves.  The first half of the volume consists mainly of difference studies, as in, what is the difference between VMC and face to face, or this type of VMC and that type of VMC, or this technological infrastructure and another one. This type of study is typical when a new communication technology is developed or introduced. And they can be very useful in the moment, helping to guide technology development.

The second half of the volume is more interesting to me, given my own interest in using technology to imagine new, previously unimaginable, possibilities for communication and interaction (rather than working to recreate as closely as possible what we have now). These are chapters that present new designs and that imagine the future, by researchers well known now, including Steve Whittaker, Bonnie Nardi, Hiroshii Ishii, Christian Heath, Paul Luff, Paul Dourish, and of course Robert Kraut.

The volume has captured in time ideas and designs that either were incorporated into technologies we take for granted today (such as Skype) or that were abandoned for any number of reasons.  EuroPARC’s RAVE. Bellcore’s Cruiser.  SunSoft Montage. MAJIC. NTT’s TeamWorkStation. DIVA virtual environment.  Xerox PARC’s media spaces. Active Desk. Portholes. Hydra. Rapport. Windseeker. This was a time of great imagination and possibility. Some of it is preserved here, to remember and to continue to inspire.

Finn, Kathleen E., Abigail J. Sellen, & Sylvia B. Wilbur. eds. 1997. Video-mediated communication. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates: Mahway, NJ.