initial version of coverletter sent to UW

[bmh-jobmarket_coverletter] / uw_comm_cover.tex

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\begin{letter}{Prof. Patricia Moy\\
Christy Cressey Professor of Communication\\
University of Washington\\
Box: 353740\\
Seattle, WA 98195}

\opening{Dear Professor Patricia Moy and the Assistant Professor
  Search Committee,}

\baselineskip 13.5pt

I am writing to apply for a position as Assistant Professor of
Communication at the University of Washington. I have also included
the latest version of my curriculum vitæ. Letters of recommendation
from Professors Eric von Hippel, Yochai Benkler, Tom Malone, and Mitch
Resnick will arrive separately. As per the posted job notice, I have
not included writing samples but will happily provide them upon
request.

My research and teaching interests are the social impact of
communication and information technologies, collective action, and
``big data'' quantitative research methods. Before graduate school, I
worked as a computer programmer and entrepreneur in volunteer-driven
``peer production'' projects. Some of my efforts -- like the
\emph{Ubuntu GNU/Linux} operating system which I helped found and
which is now used by over twelve million people, and \emph{Wikipedia}
where I contribute actively and serve on its non-profit advisory board
-- have become inspirational examples of the productive power of
online collective action. That said, through a series of less
successful ventures, I also learned that most similar attempts never
get off the ground. I returned to graduate school to learn how to
answer why.


I study collective action in online communities and seek to understand
why some attempts at collaborative production -- like Wikipedia and
Linux -- build large volunteer communities while the vast majority
never attract even a second contributor. I am particularly interested
in how the design of communication and information technologies shape
fundamental social outcomes with broad theoretical and practical
implications -- like the decision to join a community or contribute to
a public good. My research is deeply interdisciplinary, consists
primarily of ``big data'' quantitative analyses, and lies at the
intersection of communication, sociology, and human-computer
interaction.

One major feature of my research is the comparison of failures to
build communities to rare successful attempts. The vast majority of
previous work on collective action -- on and offline -- has selected
on the dependent variable by only studying projects that
successfully mobilize volunteers. In one working paper, I compare
Wikipedia to seven attempts to create online collaborative
encyclopedia projects that were launched previously and propose four
hypotheses to explain why Wikipedia attracted many more
contributors. I have also followed this strategy in a series of
quantitative studies of the Scratch online community: a public website
where millions of users create, share, and collaborate on interactive
media. In one study, co-authored with Andrés Monroy-Hernández and
forthcoming in \emph{American Behavioral Scientist}, I test and find
support for several widely cited theories but also show that factors
associated with more collaboration are also associated with less
original and transformative types of joint-work. In an in-progress
analysis of a new dataset I have created from 80,000 attempts at
wikis, I have tested and found little support for a widely cited
ecological model of collective action from sociology that treats
volunteer labor as a fixed and finite resource. By looking at
failures, these studies provide tests of several of the most
influential theories of the conditions for collective action, suggest
important practical and theoretical limitations to existing models,
and point to previously untheorized mechanisms.

A second major theme in my research is attention to the role of
reputation and status in the mobilization of volunteers. In a study of
status-based awards in Wikipedia called ``barnstars'' -- a
collaboration with Aaron Shaw and Yochai Benkler -- I provide an
empirical test of an influential status-based theory of collective
action from sociology and find that it is supported only for a
sub-population of contributors who show off their awards. In another
study of Scratch, written with a team at Microsoft Research and
nominated for best paper at the \emph{CHI 2011} conference, I present
both a quantitative analysis of a design change and in-depth
interviews of users to show that credit-giving is ineffective when it
stems from an automated system because systems fail to reinforce
status-ordering with credible human expressions of social deference
and gratitude. These studies, and my other work on status, suggest
important limits to previous theoretical work on status as a motivator
for collective action, and describe a more nuanced theoretical model.

A third theme in my research is the analysis of design changes as
``natural experiments'' to offer a deeper, and often causal,
understanding from observational data.  For example, in a study
evaluating the impact of status-based incentives to collaborate in
Scratch, I treat the creation of a new ``leaderboard'' for
collaboration as a exogenous ``shock.''  Framed in terms of motivation
crowding theory, the study finds that increased status for the
creators of collaborative projects resulted in more collaboration but
also caused a decrease in the amount of total effort exerted by
contributors. In other work with Leah Buechley published at
\emph{Design of Interactive Systems}, I have analyzed sales records of
hobbyist microcontrollers to argue that relatively simple design
changes in the \emph{LilyPad Arduino} -- a electronics toolkit
minimally re-designed for women and girls -- led to large increases in
the proportion of female contributors and drastic shifts in the type
of projects created. In addition to the important theoretical findings
in both studies, this type of work represents an important
methodological advance in that it allows for stronger causal claims
while also closing the gap between theory and design.

In a new stream of work, I am using my existing datasets to compare
the performance of collaborative production to individually produced
works to understand when successful collection action leads to better
products -- and when it does not. For example, in an analysis using
data from Scratch which is currently under review at \emph{Computer
  Supported Cooperative Work} -- done in collaboration with
Monroy-Hernández -- I find important limitations of collaboration
through remixing in regards to project quality, particularly for more
artistic or media-intensive works. These findings call into question
the wide applicability of the basic assumption in peer production that
collaboration leads to high performance and points to important areas
for improvement in the design of online community software.

As is clear in my vitæ, my work is deeply interdisciplinary. My PhD is
from a self-designed interdepartmental program that brings together
social science faculty at the Sloan School of Management with design
and engineering faculty at the MIT Media Lab. I have collaborated with
co-authors across a range of academic departments. And although the
bulk of my current work is targeted at journals in communication and
sociology, my vitæ lists publications in social science, computer
science, and media studies. It also shows an eclectic and successful
record of fundraising. I have been generously funded by Sloan, the
Media Lab, the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard
University, and the NSF. I have successfully sought additional funding
for research assistants and computational resources with grants from
Amazon, Cisco, and MTV/Viacom.

I also have experience and a passion for teaching. In addition to
acting as a teaching assistant, mentor, and advisor to undergraduate
and masters students, I am, to my knowledge, the only current PhD
student that is routinely invited to lecture in MIT Sloan's Executive
Education and Visiting MBA programs. Your department's undergraduate
courses on \emph{Computer-Mediated Communication} and
\emph{Organizational Communication} are both good matches for my
expertise as are your graduate courses on \emph{Theories of Technology
  and Society}, quantitative research methods, and your course on
\emph{Internet Research}. With my experience with successful startups
and in executive education, I would be also be well positioned to
teach in your \emph{Masters in Communication in Digital Media}
program.

Although the large majority of my energy is put toward research,
teaching, and service, my vitæ also shows evidence of the value that I
place on my role as a public intellectual. I blog actively for a
regular audience of thousands of readers and give regular talks at
conferences and universities around the world on my research. I am a
board member of the Free Software Foundation, sit on the advisory
board of the Wikimedia Foundation, and have advised One Laptop per
Child and several other organizations.

I grew up in Seattle and love the city. Many years ago, I was
recruited by John Gastil to study as a doctoral student in your
department. Although I chose a different path, I have maintained and
fostered warm collegial relationships with several members of your
faculty and with others at University of Washington.  Based on these
experiences, I believe that my skills would be an excellent match for
this job and for your department. I hope that you will consider giving
me an opportunity to join you.

Sincerely,

Benjamin Mako Hill\\
\emph{MIT Sloan School of Management}\\
\emph{MIT Program in Media Arts and Sciences (MIT Media Lab)}

%\closing{Sincerely,}

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