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The Social Life of Information



An interesting new book...

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ts/book-reviews/0875847625/002-3260689
-1065839#08758476255000

To see the future we can build with information technology, we must look
beyond mere information to the social context that creates and gives
meaning to it. 
For years pundits have predicted that information technology will
obliterate the need for almost everything-from travel to supermarkets to
business organizations to social life itself. Individual users, however,
tend to be more skeptical. Beaten down by info-glut and exasperated by
computer systems fraught with software crashes, viruses, and
unintelligible error messages, they find it hard to get a fix on the
true potential of the digital revolution. 
John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid help us to see through frenzied visions
of the future to the real forces for change in society. They argue that
the gap between digerati hype and end-user gloom is largely due to the
"tunnel vision" that information-driven technologies breed. We've become
so focused on where we think we ought to be-a place where technology
empowers individuals and obliterates social organizations-that we often
fail to see where we're really going and what's helping us get there. We
need, they argue, to look beyond our obsession with information and
individuals to include the critical social networks of which these are
always a part. 
Drawing from rich learning experiences at Xerox PARC, from examples such
as IBM, Chiat/Day Advertising, and California's "Virtual University,"
and from historical, social, and cultural research, the authors sharply
challenge the futurists' sweeping predictions. They explain how many of
the tools, jobs, and organizations seemingly targeted for future
extinction in fact provide useful social resources that people will
fight to keep. Rather than aiming technological bullets at these
"relics," we should instead look for ways that the new world of bits can
learn from and complement them. 
Arguing elegantly for the important role that human sociability plays,
even-perhaps especially-in the world of bits, The Social Life of
Information gives us an optimistic look beyond the simplicities of
information and individuals. It shows how a better understanding of the
contribution that communities, organizations, and institutions make to
learning, working and innovating can lead to the richest possible use of
technology in our work and everyday lives. 


************************************************
Lisa Potter
School of Information and Library Science
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill, NC  27599