Pamela Ludford

Biography
Pam Ludford is a PhD candidate at the University of Minnesota, Department of Computer Science, her faculty advisor is Loren Terveen. Her research interests focus on Human-Computer Interaction, and more specifically, she is interested in developing and improving technology for mobile computing devices and location-based information services. Ms. Ludford earned her Master of Science degree from the University of Minnesota in 2004, where her thesis research identified ways to leverage social psychology theory to increase participation in online communities. This work was published in the proceedings of the ACM Conference on Computer Human Interaction (CHI) in 2004. Ms. Ludford is an active new member of the Human-Computer Interaction reviewing community, and has acted as a reviewer for CHI, the ACM Journal on Multimedia Systems, and CSCW. Prior to joining the research community, Ms. Ludford held a number of positions in the Information Systems group at Northwest Airlines, including database designer and business analyst. While there, she shaped mission-critical systems, including real-time cockpit management technology and dynamic flight crew scheduling applications.

Ms. Ludford earned her Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, emphasis in Marketing, from the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota. Today, Ms. Ludford is completing the design and implementation for a mobile technology called PlaceMail. The application promises to enhance the way people socialize in mobile contexts, to deliver intriguing advances in personal information management, and to unlock geographic knowledge held by local experts and distribute it in useful ways.

Position Paper
Imagine driving to a dinner party at your best friend’s house and suddenly your cell phone chimes. You hear your friend’s voice, “I forgot to pick up the gouda- would you mind grabbing some at Surdyk’s?” And there’s Surdyk’s, a gourmet cheese store, right up ahead. Perhaps you’re a busy high school track and field coach and your cell phone vibrates while you’re outdoors leading the team in practice drills. You look at the display and it reads, “Remember to come to Bob’s retirement party at 4:30!” Now you’re riding your bicycle up a steep hill, and like magic, a note of encouragement from a member of your cycling club appears on your cell phone display.

Using the application we call PlaceMail, individuals will be able to send messages to themselves, buddies, or the general public, and the messages will be delivered at the location and/or time specified by the sender. The application is similar to comMotion, and more recently, Dede. PlaceMail runs on a wireless cell phone whereas comMotion ran on an obtrusive, wired collection of hardware. It is similar to Dede in terms of hardware, but is different because it allows messages to be created as audio recordings, text recordings, or both. Dede only allows text messaging.

PlaceMail is also similar to GeoNotes; however it lets the user control the audience for a given message. Users can decide if they want to send a message only to themselves (perhaps a personal reminder), to one or more friends from their buddy list, or to the general public. In contrast, GeoNotes had only one level of messaging: public. In practice, we believe the audience control feature will affect PlaceMail’s use. As proof, imagine how differently people employ private task lists, email and instant messages verses public web pages and blogs.

PlaceMail promises to deliver social functions beyond location/temporal-aware messaging, too. Imagine the location-specific knowledge that will be unlocked if we extract keywords from PlaceMail messages. Over time, we imagine a database of terms such as “gouda, gorgonzola, and free samples” might become associated with the Surdyk’s cheese shop. These keywords could be used in compelling ways. For example, a passerby unfamiliar with the neighborhood might find the keywords (gouda, gorgonzola, etc.) more informative than just the name of the business (Surdyk’s).

Keyword integrity could be assured by using a technique similar to the one used in the ESP game. Before a keyword was associated with a place, the program could assure it appears in messages sent by at least 2 different PlaceMail users.

In PlaceMail, a user’s social network could be leveraged in fun and useful ways. For example, you’re working in your office and want a beverage from Starbuck’s but are too busy to leave. You associate a note with the nearby Starbuck’s and broadcast it to your social network. Soon, one of your colleagues appears at your door with a chai from Starbuck’s for you. He saw your note (asking any nearby buddies to get a chai for you) as he was walking near the coffee shop.

These are a few illustrations of how the PlaceMail application can have a dramatic effect on how individuals socialize when mobile. In addition, the system promises an intriguing possibility in its potential to provide content for socially-constructed place maps. We expect the PlaceMail implementation will be complete by May 15, 2005, and we will begin our first field study shortly thereafter.

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