Overview

Brown and Duguid in this book look at the growing futurism of the information age and present a variety of critiques to common claims that digital technology will change the face of the world. This book was first written in 2000, and many of the fantastic endeavors of the dot-com boom have begun to collapse. Given sufficient retrospect, Brown and Duguid’s warnings that the internet will not totally change the face of business (among other things) seem obvious and unsurprising as the futurist claims now seem facile. They ultimately do not pin down a solution to the question of where technology is taking society, but do assert that tunnel vision will not yield the correct answers. Rather, they advise, it is important to look around. Specifically, they emphasize that the entities threatened by new technology will still adapt in self preservation, that the existing status quo is a product of evolution and has many benefits that technology cannot replace, and that technology will fall on its face if it is unable to address social needs.

The book is published by the Harvard Business School Press, and this betrays some of the interest underlying the exploration in the text. Brown and Duguid are interested in how technology shapes the economic and business world, not necessarily its inherent or expressive capabilities.

Notes

In the preface (in 2002), Duguid and Brown say “We are not trying to ignore or denigrate information technologies (the term Luddite nonetheless appeared intermittently in conversations). Rather, we are arguing that by engaging the social context in which these technologies are inevitably embedded, better designs and uses will emerge.” This places a usability/design spin on interpretation. (p. x) They also compare technology as a replacement of man (or human processes) versus augmentation. This echoes the early division between Engelbart and common AI modes of thinking. (p. xii)

The discussion at this early point is about design: coming from the perspective of information versus social consideration in design objectives. (p. 4) A recurring theme in the book is the “6-D’s” or “6-D vision”, about several theories which emerged aound digital technologies:
“demassification”, “decentralization”, “denationalization”, “despatialization”, “disintermediation”, “disaggregation”. These visions predicted fundamental change at every level of our social structure, that would involve the demise of many of the most stable institutions, notably: offices and work space, firms and corporations, universities, national governments, etc. Evidence and hindsight would indicate that these have, indeed, not been realized. The problem is a matter of perspective: if information is seen as a cause to everything, then change in the transmission of information will create dramatic results. The authors seem to imply that the abundance of information technology has lead to the vision that everything is mere information. (Sounds kinda like Raymond Williams) (p. 22)

Predictions miss due to lack of anticipation of other factors occurring from “around”, not just in the direction of the technology (as in 50’s futurism). A question to consider: What external forces shape development of information technology today? What are the next revolutions that will occur (or have occurred) in parallel, unanticipated by information futurism? (p. 32)

On agents: the authors use a robust understanding of agents and their applications, but tend to veer down the course of doomsaying to a significant degree. They share the assessment of Weizenbaum that agents are made to seem more like people and vise versa. (p. 39) There is a great deal of fear over the ambiguity and the opacity of agents: When we do not know about what goes on under the surface, they may not be innocent. Do people expect agents to be innocent? People may be more jaded now, but still we use the Amazon recommendation and various Google technologies without complaint. Are they any more different or less scary now? (p. 45) There is further discussion on agent brokering and worrying remarks over whether people can tell the difference between an inept or a corrupt agent. Compare with Jesse James Garrett, on how agents could automate many dimensions of problem solving and search processes. (p. 48) Agents and social/cultural issues of goal oriented behavior: The author discusses “human foibles” as evidenced by shopping at a supermarket, and how decision making changes very rapidly. Also, human rules (in terms of how to perceive and select, etc) change rapidly and are more volatile than agents could hope to be. (p. 51) Doomsaying is also like tunnel vision, it neglects many states and measures in place to track agent behavior, and autonomy is extremely limited. So the fear that agents would replace human behavior seems slightly misinformed. (p. 55) This begins to follow an argument towards embodiment, but stops short explicitly. The authors do not discuss other forms of agents (for instance in games, or specifically, The Sims) whose goals are to simulate and intentionally represent human foibles to some degree. One could make an argument that human understanding of the world (and our decision changes) are already the result of manipulation and preference abstraction as represented by advertising stereotypes. So, agents could *potentially* enlighten this matter were they transparent. The authors do not go so far as to suggest that agents could have a place in the world that would not undermine its moral foundation. This fear seems as flawed as the idyllic holy land predicted by futurists.

Brown and Duguid move on to some traditional environments which information technology “threatened” to devastate, but the replaced version of the process or environment turned out to be less capable of satisfying social needs than the traditional. The problems produce sound very similar to Norman’s common frustration with everyday objects. (p. 72) Part of this, again in hindsight, indicates fledgeling technology/medium, where new experiments and changes are made at a rapid pace and the successful survive. Part of this critique sheds light on an interesting issue, though: existing institutions and processes tend to emerge via evolutionary means, that which creates success will spread by natural selection. But the problems are being critiqued in a manner that sounds like a problem with design. Could Norman’s principles of transparency and affordances and his model process-oriented interaction be applied to constructs like an office? A worthy question to consider.

Some embodiment is discussed here: it sounds like digital media does not enable or is not equipped to handle embodiment? “Putting this all on the desktop, while supporting the individual in some ways, ignores the support and knowledge latent in systems that distribute work.” This argument sounds a lot like Norman, but instead of frustration from execution/evaluation, it is from the designer’s lack of accounting for human social structures. (p. 80) An example of good social design is how Apple distributed computers in schools very liberally, which led to a wide consumer base. Additionally, IBM and Microsoft benefited from widespread distribution of IBM machines in a corporate environment.

Discussing knowledge and information: the classical concern is to find the difference. The flaw with digital futurism is to equate information with knowledge. The difference seems to involve a few details: knowledge involves a knower (***), who actually knows the material in question. It also reflects a matter of knowing how, versus knowing that. Knowledge seems to invovle a “gradual assimilation”. Furthermore, knowing how also is a matter of knowing to be. (p. 119) Knowing how requires practice. (p. 128)

Knowledge relates to learning, while information relates to search. Learning seems to require a community? The discussion here is focusing on business practices rather than more abstracted knowledge. Learning requires practice and peer support. (p. 125)

Knowledge is leaky in some areas and resistant in others. These changes seem to be community oriented. Duguid and Brown bring up the example of Steve Jobs visiting Xerox PARC and coming away with UI ideas, where the rest of the Xerox community was ill-receptive to them. (p. 151) The ability for information to disseminate like that and find footing in diverse areas is one of the greatest strengths of the internet, but it goes oddly unmentioned. Instead, they argue that the firm will persevere in their roles to nurture new buisnesses, and that regional clustering will be a significant factor in development of business. This is true, but it is foolish to ignore the many affordances of digital media to disseminate knowledge in other forms.

Document design is discussed next, and how paper has grown despite many hearkening its demise. Much of this revolves around the embodied nature of documents and the context that surrounds them. They suggest that digital technology can learn a lot from traditional document design, and I think that history has shown us that it has. Metadata and community-based aggregation services/technologies/portals have applied copious metadata to form context in many electronic documents. This change is a strong feature of modern web design. History (in all levels) has shown that, yes, metadata is important. (p. 205)

The authors leave basically without answers other than to avoid tunnel vision. They iterate that technology will not succeed without accounting for social context, but never once imagine what capability technology might have were it to do so. They assert that institutions (the firm, the paper document, the university) evolved and will continue to operate and continue their existence, as they are evolving structures. Technology will not eliminate them. BUT technology will change them, and the question of how is left unaddressed. Some institutions, ie copyright, have many forces supporting their continued existence, but clearly the digital age and ease of replication of data can not leave copyright unchanged. There are many directions and possibilities for these changes to occur, but Brown and Duguid are uninterested in identifying the problem or stressed areas, or taking a position on how or what changes may or should occur. (p. 252)