My work focuses on the emergence and management of conflicts that arise as people attempt to make decisions, solve problems, and learn. I investigate the practices and technologies people implement to regulate and shape their communication and the consequences for how people interact and reason with each other when facing complex situations.

Among the real world sites that I investigate are organizations trying to develop workable information systems, decision-makers trying to sort out disagreement among experts, groups trying to formulate collective action, communities grappling with development issues, couples trying to negotiate divorce settlements, households trying to coordinate the rush of life, and individuals searching for the meaning of good work in their professional practice.

Common among these is a concern with the role and nature of communication to resolve these complex situations. This work connects theory and research on argumentation and social interaction to explain decision-making, conflict resolution, technology, and the organization of work.

My empirical investigations point to the significant attention in contemporary society given to designing communication. This yearning to design communication does not mean, however, that design activity is reflective about the assumptions implemented when people attempt to regulate and shape communication through procedures and technologies. Toward this end, I have, along with my colleagues, begun to further articulate key concepts and premises for understanding communication as an object of design and a process of design.

Communication Design: Investigations of interventions that aim to make communication possible that was once difficult, impossible or unimagined. These studies articulate tacit theories of communication in the practices and technologies intended to improve communication and the consequences for communication.

• Social Responsibility, Accountability & Communication in the Business-Society Relationship: An initiative exploring the intersection of communication, information, and media with the global transformations in the relationship among business, society, and government.

• Mediation and Facilitation Practice: Projects examine roles and technologies that perform mediative and facilitative roles in interpersonal, group, organizational, and community action.

• Reflection on Practice: Development of a web-based tool to support an individual's transition from novice to expert practice through individual and community reflection on work and professional practice.

• Deliberation and Policy Process: Projects examine impasse and resistance in policy processes and the creative action taken in response.

• Information and Communication Technology in Everyday Life: Projects examine the web in support of life - that is, how technologies are taken-up as means to support sense-making in everyday activities.

Pragmatist Information System Research (SIGPrag): A special interest group of the international Association for Information Systems focused on how Information Technology and Information Systems enables human activity and supports collaboration and communication.

Pragmatic Web: A research community interested in how groups, organizations, and communities co-evolve with technology and manage meaning and commitments in web-based interaction.

Global Sensemaking - Tools for Dialogue and Deliberation on Wicked Problems: An international community dedicated to helping humanity address complex, interrelated global problems—such as climate change, energy policy, poverty, and food security—by developing and applying new web-based technology to assist collaborative decision making and cooperative problem solving.

Communication and Interaction Laboratory: A research and outreach workbench for examining interaction in communication, information, and media processes.