Although people frequently seek mentoring or advice for their career, most mentoring is performed in person. Little research has examined the nature and quality of career mentoring online. To address this gap, we study how people use online Q&A forums for career advice. We develop a taxonomy of career advice requests based on a qualitative analysis of posts in a career-related online forum, identifying three key types: best practices, career threats, and time-sensitive requests. Our quantitative analysis of responses shows that both requesters and external viewers value general information, encouragement, and guidance, but not role modeling. We found no relation between the type of requests and features of responses, nor differences in responses valued by requesters versus external viewers. We present design recommendations for supporting online career advice exchange.

Collective intelligence (CI), a group's capacity to perform a wide variety of tasks, is a key factor in successful collaboration. Group composition, particularly diversity and member social perceptiveness, are consistent predictors of CI, but we have limited knowledge about the mechanisms underlying their effects. To address this gap, we examine how physiological synchrony, as an indicator of coordination and rapport, relates to CI in computer-mediated teams, and if synchrony might serve as a mechanism explaining the effect of group composition on CI. We present results from a laboratory experiment where 60 dyads completed the Test of Collective Intelligence (TCI) together online and rated their group satisfaction, while wearing physiological sensors. We find that synchrony in facial expressions (indicative of shared experience) was associated with CI and synchrony in electrodermal activity (indicative of shared arousal) with group satisfaction. Furthermore, various forms of synchrony mediated the effect of member diversity and social perceptiveness on CI and group satisfaction. Our results have important implications for online collaborations and distributed teams.