Collaborative Information Behavior: The Case of an Interdisciplinary Charrette

We present early findings from an ethnographic study of the information behaviors of nine groups with three to eight members each, conducted during a ten day interdisciplinary design Charrette (period of intense, collaborative design activity). Information from the organizers is shared using a portal that includes a rich set of social awareness, social navigation and information production tools. Six of the groups select different, publicly available technologies to support information sharing and production during the Charrette. Our poster will present two interconnected findings. First, technology choice diffuses according to physical adjacency of the groups. Second, technology choice influences collaborative information behavior (CIB) within each group