The Social Life of Information - Softcover

John Seely Brown; Paul Duguid

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1578517087 ISBN 13: 9781578517084

Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press, 2002

Synopsis

Argues that the technology of the information age cannot replace the social resources and networks that make learning, working, and innovating possible.

About this title

Review:

How many times has your PC crashed today? While Gordon Moore's now famous law projecting the doubling of computer power every 18 months has more than borne itself out, it's too bad that a similar trajectory projecting the reliability and usefulness of all that power didn't come to pass, as well. Advances in information technology are most often measured in the cool numbers of megahertz, throughput, and bandwidth--but, for many us, the experience of these advances may be better measured in hours of frustration.

The gap between the hype of the Information Age and its reality is often wide and deep, and it's into this gap that John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid plunge. Not that these guys are Luddites--far from it. Brown, the chief scientist at Xerox and the director of its Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), and Duguid, a historian and social theorist who also works with PARC, measure how information technology interacts and meshes with the social fabric. They write, "Technology design often takes aim at the surface of life. There it undoubtedly scores lots of worthwhile hits. But such successes can make designers blind to the difficulty of more serious challenges--primarily the resourcefulness that helps embed certain ways of doing things deep in our lives."

The authors cast their gaze on the many trends and ideas proffered by infoenthusiasts over the years, such as software agents, "still a long way from the predicted insertion into the woof and warp of ordinary life"; the electronic cottage that Alvin Toffler wrote about 20 years ago and has yet to be fully realized; and the rise of knowledge management and the challenges it faces trying to manage how people actually work and learn in the workplace. Their aim is not to pass judgment but to help remedy the tunnel vision that prevents technologists from seeing larger the social context that their ideas must ultimately inhabit. The Social Life of Information is a thoughtful and challenging read that belongs on the bookshelf of anyone trying to invent or make sense of the new world of information. --Harry C. Edwards

From the Back Cover:

Selected as "One of the Best Books of 2000" by Strategy & Business, Harvard Business Review, Training & Development, and ForeWord Magazine

"As Brown and Duguid show, seeing the present clearly is far harder, but far more rewarding, than making grand pronouncements about it." -LA Times

"Deserves to be one of the best-read books of the internet age. It offers something far more valuable than a concluding soundbite: a common language for discussing the impact of technology on our workplace, our communities and our lives." -Financial Times

About this edition

• Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 1578517087
• ISBN 13: 9781578517084
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 330