Advancing The Science of Networks in Communities
Today (06/25) marks the final day of the 2021 ACM Web Science Conference. Professor Noshir Contractor closed the spotlight panel entitled The Future of the Web and Society, continuing on the conference’s theme of Globalization, Inclusion, and the Web in the Context of Covid. Check out this screenshot of the panel below and thank you to everyone who participated this year!
On Tuesday (06/22), our team organized a workshop at the 13th ACM Web Science Conference 2021. The workshop titled The Near Future of Work: Supporting Digital and Remote Collaboration in COVID and Beyond features notable thought leaders, including Ethan Bernstein from Harvard Business School, Paul Leonardi from the University of California, Santa Barbara, Balazs Vedres from the University of Oxford, Oshani Seneviratne from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and Nancy Baym from Microsoft Research. The workshop was a tremendous success, and we’d like to give a huge shoutout to our amazing SONIC organizers: Jasmine Wu, Brennan Antone, and Noshir Contractor.
Catch a glimpse of the workshop from last Tuesday below.
Workshop Information:
The COVID-19 pandemic has provided us an opportunity to participate in a global “beta-test” of Web-only based remote work. No web scientist could have conceived that we would have this “opportunity” to reimagine the Future of Work. Individuals around the world have switched to work-from-home or work-from-anywhere arrangements and rely on digital tools to support teamwork. This workforce must contend with challenges they did not encounter in face-to-face jobs, but also have benefited from new opportunities created by digital technologies.
The impacts of Web-based work reverberate all the way from the psychological states of workers (including burnout), their teaming processes and outcomes, sociological concerns (such as work-life balance), economic issues (related to labor rights in the gig economy), to geopolitical concerns (such as data privacy and protection, effects on carbon footprint). The workshop will reflect on the changing nature of work across all of these levels, identify factors that explain these changes, and how we can learn from the “new” normal to prepare for a better “next” normal. By doing so this workshop seeks to facilitate multidisciplinary dialog and research examining challenges and opportunities stemming from digital and remote work on the Web. Topics relevant to this workshop include, but are not limited to: remote work, virtual teaming, enterprise social media (ESM), computer-supported cooperative work, digital platforms, human-AI teaming, work in the gig economy, crowdsourced labor, work-life balance in the digital age, the well-being of remote workers, and workplace communication technology. We especially encourage findings about remote work and digital collaboration that are relevant in the aftermath of COVID-19 (but not necessarily relying on COVID-19 related data).
Last Friday, Professor Noshir Contractor presented at the Busines Advisory Council Meeting of the Northwestern University Transportation Center. The title of his presentation is The NExt Normal for Teaming: Transitioning Out of COVID-19.
Note that NUTC’s Business Advisory Council (BAC) is comprised of senior-level executives representing all modes of transportation including shipper and carrier firms, freight forwarders and third party logistics providers, financial institutions, consulting firms, and trade associations.
Contractor, N. (2021, June). The Next Normal for Teaming: Transitioning Out of COVID-19. Speaker at the Business Advisory Council Meeting of the Northwestern University Transportation Center, Evanston, IL.
Graduation weekend finally arrived after one of the most challenging years so far (yes, we’re referring to the pandemic) — and we’d love to celebrate the exciting achievements of all our SONIC members!
CONGRATULATIONS to all of our seniors — Arshya Srinivas, Aryaman Gupta, Chiagozie Anyanwu, Lauren Tran, Louis Ingram, Othman Muhammad, Selena Rita Suarez, Victoria Kam! We are extremely thrilled with all of the work you’ve done during your time at SONIC and Northwestern University.
We also want to extend a special shoutout to our data science intern Arshya Srinivas for winning the IEMS Department Award! We are very lucky to have you as one of our interns, and we’re incredibly excited to announce that she’ll be joining SONIC for another year as a full-time staff member.
We also want to CONGRATULATE Diego Gómez Zará, our PhD Student who received his Master of Science in Technology and Social Behavior last weekend.
Yesterday, Professor Noshir Contractor and Leslie DeChurch presented a talk on The Impact of Performance Dynamics of Human-Robot Teams at the AI@NU Community. Their presentation is the last presentation of the Spring Quarter AI@NU Presentation Session.
Last Friday, Noshir Contractor presented a keynote titled People Analytics: Using Digital Exhaust from the Web to Leverage Network Insights in the Workplace at the 1st Workshop on Computational Methods in Social Sciences at the 71st ICA Annual Conference Regional Hub – China.
At the 71st International Communication Association (ICA) Conference, our Graduate Student Diego Gomez-Zara, Leslide DeChurch, and Noshir Contractor received the Top 4 Paper Award for their paper “Do I Know You? The Effects of Social Capital on Self-Assembled Groups.”
Click here for more information about the conference.
Last Friday, Noshir Contractor’s book Theories of Communication Networks (co-authored with Peter Monge) was awarded the Fellows Book Award at the International Communications Association (ICA) 2021. This is the second awared the book received following its launched. Previously, the book received the Outstanding Book Award (2003) from the National Communication Association (Organizational Communication Division).
More information about the book and award can be found here: https://www.icahdq.org/blogpost/1523657/371174/Congratulations-2021-ICA-Award-Winners
Going for Broke: Brokerage Behavior in Organizations