Dan and my correspondence began with email: a medium in which we were
both well practiced.  Our exchanges could convey all of the richness
of written word- wit, irony, save-able, re-readable information. We
could pick up on subtle e-culture cues; who wrote first, how long
before a reply, and so on. We coudn't see or hear eachother and we
weren't interacting live.

We were both new to the iCom technology. Besides the new level of
'connectedness', the shared caution and play with this novel
technology caused us to bond.  Seeing oneself on camera, and having
live windows to play around with by holding objects very close and
writing signs, for example, was unspeakably entertaining.  The
stop-action appearance of Dan, which froze his morphing facial
expressions at random moments, presented unnatural and wildly funny
mid-speech snapshots.  I learned about Dan from his own amusement as
well as his reaction to mine.

The topic of the conversation was shaped in part by the technology.
He talked about the space he was in- this would probably not have
occurred had we been sharing the space.  He drew a floorplan map and
held it in front of the camera, and pointed a camera at the shared
wall between his group and another while telling an anecdote about the
interaction between the goups.  He introduced me to people as they
walked by, some of whom I knew, which was somewhat of an interruption
to the 'getting to know you' assignment- or so it might seem at first.

Actually, the iCom's somewhat public nature, although it presented
some problems which I'll talk about eventually, allowed me to witness
Dan interacting with people in an environment away from where I was,
and I imagine that to some degree, for the moments that the 'real'
person came along, I fell into the background as an inanimate
projection- I was not physically present, but I was a big flat fly on
his wall, watching and hearing Dan.  And of course, there were things
that I was able to pick up (or so I thought) about Dan's personality
based on the way in which he interacted with his work mates.

The public space placement of the iCom also caused us to be shy about
what we talked of.  I had a headset, so on my end I was audible to
ambient eavesdroppers and he was not.  He had no headset, so the whole
interaction was exposed.  Perhaps there is something unsettling about
random passer-bys having a more complete glimpse at you than the
person with whom you are engaged in an 'official interaction' with.
Either way, neither of us felt comfortable getting into deep thoughts
about work or life or goals, and kept the talking flippant and
anecdotal.

We discussed these things over email in addition to sending our
perceptions of one another.  We decided to meet over iCom again, when
no one was around, to see if the content of our conversation would be
more intimate.  Then, back on email, his interpretation of me lent
further insight into his personality- as much as can be interpreted by
examining style and content. Regarding what he got right and wrong: he
mostly commented on actual data about my interests and life that I had
told him explicitly, or which he dug up on the web.  The only thing he
got wrong was guessing that I liked fried chicken based on my
suggestion that we both get some and have a lunch date.  I just
thought fried chicken was funny.