The first week of college is usually crazy, hectic, exhilarating. For Lili Cheng, the research manager of the Social Computing group, it was portentous. She went to a lecture that made her question, "Why am I studying to be an architect? What am I doing here?"

"Don Greenberg, the computer graphics guru at Cornell, talked about his work. I decided to quit architecture and change to computer science. Then I changed my mind again, over and over."

Years later, she met Red Burns, chair of the Interactive Telecommunications Program at NYU, who told her, "sometimes you need to make a leap and follow what you believe in even if you're unsure." She made the leap and after studying at NYU, went to work for the Human Interface Group at Apple Computer.

But she didn't give up on architecture. The first project she worked on at Apple was QuickTimeVR, which focus on representing physical places on the PC. She is also a registered architect who has designed urban and public spaces in both Tokyo and Los Angeles. Today at Microsoft, she also gives guest lectures at the Harvard Design School and works on projects with the MIT Architecture School.

In 1995, Cheng arrived at Microsoft Research as a member of the Virtual Worlds group (now Social Computing), again mixing a physical place metaphor with people interacting, lessons from architecture and computer science.

Another of the projects she got involved in was a blend between her first and second careers. The professors at MIT were researching the link between technology and students' needs at the same time Cheng and Victor Bahl, another researcher, were looking for ways to help people connect.

Victor Bahl had come up with an idea to connect laptop users using location-aware technology. He tested his idea at a local shopping mall.

Unfortunately, though the system worked fine, he didn't find users lining up to try it. The problem, according to Cheng, was that "most people don't carry laptops in the mall, except maybe a few Microsoft employees. Most shoppers like talking to friends with common interests, but not strangers."

However, Cheng knew that Bahl's research would be good for students who needed to find each other to work on projects together - say, students who were studying architecture at MIT.

"The design studio course is the center of the architectural education. Groups of about 10-12 people work together in an open studio," explains Cheng. "Classes are typically held three days a week for four hours in the studio. However, students study in and around the studio all night, almost every night, designing their projects and working together. This intense pace creates a very close social group. We thought it would be very interesting to see how this would impact the learning process."

A more recent project that Cheng's group has designed is Wallop. The project is an experimental blog and photo sharing application. It helps people to connect with those close to them - families and friends, and friends of friends.

"Most of my current projects use computers to connect us with the people we care about and want to know about, rather than to process or retrieve information. It is challenging and exciting because computers weren't designed to do this, so we need to rethink many of our current assumptions about the way technology expects humans to think like machines rather than vice versa," said Cheng.

"In today's lifestyle, especially in the American culture, we often aren't around to communicate with the people and things we care most about. Technology can help us coordinate and keep in touch. It can show us different viewpoints. There are many problems technology can't solve. I hope it can help us be more aware of other people and other cultures and keep a perspective on the problems we are trying to solve."