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The Social Life of Information
In this paperback edition of The Social Life of Information, the authors dispel many of the futurists' sweeping predictions that information technology will obliterate the need for everything from travel to supermarkets to business organizations to social life itself. But beaten down by info-glut, exasperated by computer crashes, and burned by dot-com stocks, individual us...more
Paperback, 330 pages
Published
March 1st 2002
by Harvard Business Press
(first published 2000)
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Remember those predictions about the paperless office? Or the electronic cottage, where workers become telecommuters and never have to change out of their pajamas? And what about those claims by Internet enthusiasts who predicted the end of the "old economy"?
Why is it that organizational models for running a business keep going in and out of fashion? What was wrong with total quality management? Process reengineering? Flattened organizational structures? Computer scientist John Seely Brown and s...more
Why is it that organizational models for running a business keep going in and out of fashion? What was wrong with total quality management? Process reengineering? Flattened organizational structures? Computer scientist John Seely Brown and s...more
Dated. Unless you're a historian of the evolution of the internet and digital technologies and want to hear in great detail what people in 2000 thought about the future of the internet, this book serves little purpose a decade later. Most of the authors' predictions are laughable by 21st century standards, and they tend to jump from one subject to another as though they have info ADHD. It obscures and cheapens any argument they're trying to make. While certain points would have been very interes...more
This book offers a counterargument to the claim that more information (and more Information Technology) will magically make life easier. It is not an argument against technology, but it is a call for more realistic expectations when it comes to things like telecommuting, the "paperless office", and the virtual university.
The authors' engaging tone helps to overcome the dryness of some of the material. As someone who has spent a good deal of time in online communities, however, I felt that the bo...more
The authors' engaging tone helps to overcome the dryness of some of the material. As someone who has spent a good deal of time in online communities, however, I felt that the bo...more
"The ends of information, after all, are human ends. The logic of information must ultimately be the logic of humanity. For all information's independence and extent, it is people, in their communities, organizations, and institutions, who ultimately decide what it all means and why it matters." (18)
"[W]e tend to think of knowledge less like an assembly of discrete parts and more like a watercolor painting. As each new color is added, it blends with the others to produce the final effect, in whi...more
"[W]e tend to think of knowledge less like an assembly of discrete parts and more like a watercolor painting. As each new color is added, it blends with the others to produce the final effect, in whi...more
this book is easily the most influential i read during library school. duguid and brown explore the many ways in which people use and share information, as well as the necessity of having a social aspect to information architecture. it changed the way i think about presenting information and "information overload." don't leave library school without it.
This book is essentially a 250 page argument that the idea "that information and its technologies can unproblematically replace the nuanced relations between people" (preface, p.xvi) is wrong.
Obviously we believe this is wrong but everyone who wants to monetise your "friend" relationships thinks otherwise.
It's also, if you read between the lines a bit, a quite remarkable book of design theory that looks at how small-scale cultural changes happen, or don't happen.
I've blogged a bit more about thi...more
Obviously we believe this is wrong but everyone who wants to monetise your "friend" relationships thinks otherwise.
It's also, if you read between the lines a bit, a quite remarkable book of design theory that looks at how small-scale cultural changes happen, or don't happen.
I've blogged a bit more about thi...more
Though many of the examples and some arguments in this book seem out dated now, the sociohistorical approach the authors employed to examine and criticized early utopian predications about an information society remains to be highly inspirational and thought-provoking. The authors demonstrated how looking at the present, and maybe also the future, through the lens of the past could not only be fruitful but also awakening. This is a book about the history of the human society and information tech...more
Jan 26, 2011
Mark
rated it
4 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
all librarians and other information industry workers
Shelves:
12-books-12-months,
professional-reading
Review originally posted here: http://marklindner.info/blog/2011/01/...
This is the 8th book for my 12 Books, 12 Months Challenge.
Short version: Librarians, and others in any “information industry,” should read it and ponder its critiques of “information fetishism.”
I bought this book back in May 2005 and finally got around to reading it. I am following it up with Nardi and O’Day’s Information Ecologies which I bought in May 2006. Where this book focuses on the binary rhetoric of “information,” an...more
This is the 8th book for my 12 Books, 12 Months Challenge.
Short version: Librarians, and others in any “information industry,” should read it and ponder its critiques of “information fetishism.”
I bought this book back in May 2005 and finally got around to reading it. I am following it up with Nardi and O’Day’s Information Ecologies which I bought in May 2006. Where this book focuses on the binary rhetoric of “information,” an...more
Ultimately a useful book but poorly structured and even more poorly presented. A work of will is required not to drop this book in the middle of almost every page as it stutters and backfires like a poorly maintained Model T. Despite this, there are gems of perception and analysis embedded that are worth the read but make sure you capture them well so that this self-abuse need only be done once.
I read this after seeing a version of it on the Web, appropriately enough. The authors, research scientists at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center, explore how human beings actually incorporate and share information, and why the technological enthusiasm for things like virtual offices and a paperless society may not have panned out. One of the more interesting aspects, as I recall, was their discussion of how they created a shared knowledge network among Xerox copier repairmen that reduced their i...more
Very good book for what it does. It is more academic than accessible, but still a good read. It is great for anyone who must design for usability or for managers of "information".
Reminding me very strongly of the reading I did in college for Sociology and Anthropology classes, with a focus on enterprise use cases.
I find it strange to read, in 2010, a book written in 2000 about the effect of the Internet on human behavior with information. I can see places where the authors were quite prescient, and areas where they got it wrong - in particular, their prediction that newspapers will continue to be relevant and successful. I think in that case it's a matter of incomplete...more
I find it strange to read, in 2010, a book written in 2000 about the effect of the Internet on human behavior with information. I can see places where the authors were quite prescient, and areas where they got it wrong - in particular, their prediction that newspapers will continue to be relevant and successful. I think in that case it's a matter of incomplete...more
Information and knowledge are socially constructed, yada yada yada. Some good points are made, but overall nothing mindblowing was revealed.
"...we all need to get outside the information tunnel, look around, and appreciate the social life that lies beyond and makes it possible."
I remember this as provoking a good group discussion, but feeling that its insights oversold their own profundity.
Makes one important point, and makes it clearly and repeatedly: Technology can't be understood apart from the social relations in which it's situated. Useful to have it repeated, since this seems a hard lesson for us to learn.
Quick skim. At this point more valuable as historical reference.
Jul 15, 2008
mcburton
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
information technology professionals
Recommended to mcburton by:
TK Keanini
Shelves:
lis,
information-science
WOW. This book is amazing. Filled with stories and observation about the "Invisible Work" that surrounds information technology and is difficult to frame and articulate. This is a MUST READ for IT folk and engineers. While some of the anecdotes are a bit dated (MAC OS's Sherlock is long dead) the point they are trying to make is ever relevant. Don't dismiss the "old ways" before trying to understand how it was they became "ways." This is a vital starting point for learning about how to "see" the...more
Aug 31, 2010
Ginger Smith
marked it as to-read
Recommended to read before graduating from LIS school
Great Book. Lot of insights
A must read!!
Written back in 2000, it nonetheless provides a dampening to the technophile material I've been reading recently. Arguing the important place of the social in our acquiring and using information it emphasizes the importance (and difference) of knowledge compared to information. Contextual consideration and the importance of updating our ways of learning for us to keep pace with technology, as well as for anchoring our expectations of technology in the social context of knowledge.
This is an interesting view of information technology and the limits of a purely techie view. It emphasizes that information is not all worth considering, and shows how the social environment in which information is generated, transmitted, and used determines the effectiveness of new technologies much more than the technology itself.
Note that this is somewhat dated (2000, 2002) - Google isn't even mentioned in the index.
Note that this is somewhat dated (2000, 2002) - Google isn't even mentioned in the index.
Very interesting look at the importance of taking societal perceptions and views into consideration when introducing technological advances. Technology alone cannot overpower the comfort of habit (e.g. predictions of "paperless offices" have been foretold to the rooftops for decades now, where I don't believe it will ever happen). Just because we can doesn't mean it will happen (or that we should).
dated.
I read mostly for the section on distance learning. JSB thinks that most learning happens outside the classroom which isn't covered by the distance learning crowd. I think that is no longer true. At least from the programs I have seen. one thing that the distance learning approaches and this book don't stress enough is the network. networking is a key aspect of higher education.
I read mostly for the section on distance learning. JSB thinks that most learning happens outside the classroom which isn't covered by the distance learning crowd. I think that is no longer true. At least from the programs I have seen. one thing that the distance learning approaches and this book don't stress enough is the network. networking is a key aspect of higher education.
A classic Harvard Business book: full of notes and references and classifications that just don't add up to very much. It reads like a very thorough research paper with little in the way of insight or original ideas.
Mildly interesting, but very dated look at the glut of information. Published in 2000, it doesn't anticipate the rise of social media, so it's hard to find it relevant for a look at today's information.
Nov 09, 2008
Rahmad
rated it
4 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
Technical Developers whos looking a different perspective on technical matters
Give a social perspective on how technology is use. Give a clue why many predictions that technology was suppose to bring never happened.
Classic book that told us where we were heading in the information age. Hmm...even this site seems to have social networking features.
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I'm a visiting scholar at USC and the independent co-chairman of the Deloitte Center for the Edge.
In a previous life, I was the Chief Scientist of Xerox Corporation and the director of its Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). I was deeply involved in the management of radical innovation and in the formation of corporate strategy and strategic positioning of Xerox as The Document Company.
Today, I'm Ch...more
More about John Seely Brown...
In a previous life, I was the Chief Scientist of Xerox Corporation and the director of its Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). I was deeply involved in the management of radical innovation and in the formation of corporate strategy and strategic positioning of Xerox as The Document Company.
Today, I'm Ch...more
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