Thomas Erickson

Minneapolis United States

Social Science & Interaction Design

Electronics / Computer Hardware

I'm an interaction designer and researcher in the Social Computing Group at IBM's Watson Labs. My research focuses on designing systems that enable groups of people to interact productively over networks: originally focused on online systems, the scope of my work has expanded to include real world environments ranging from rooms to cities. More generally, I'm interested in topics such as pattern languages, urban design, real and virtual communities, and the sociology of human-human interaction, all of which inform my approach to systems design. I've been at IBM since June '97; before that I spent 9 years at Apple, and before that at a small start up.