Chatting with glue: cognitive tools for augmented conversation

Abstract

Conversation is a creative process. When we converse, we engage rich networks of meaning, forming conceptual connections within and among ourselves. To prevent these connections from fading, we take notes or work together through other external media. Sufficiently rich conversation is a multimedia activity. The recording media we use for conversations (audio, video, text) are immutable, linear, and one-dimensional. As conversation has become computationally-mediated, it has inherited the limitations of these recording media. Both recording and chat media coerce conversation into a structure that contradicts how its content came about in the first place. I propose tools for a more principled chat that embraces the capabilities of our minds and the computational medium. These tools augment conversation, remote or in-person, into a creative activity for knowledge-making.