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Amidst the hype and hubris surrounding computers, information technology and the new economy, critics occasionally ask if the emperor is wearing any clothes.
Often, these critics are not just neo-Luddites: many are closely involved in computers. Two well-known such authors, Steve Talbott and Clifford Stoll, have written what can be seen as the founding texts in this area. Talbott's The Future Does Not Compute is a scathing criticism of the hope that computers would make everything perfect, particularly in education. Stoll's books, Silicon Snake Oil and High-Tech Heretic, are mordant wake-up calls to those who think that all the changes brought about by computers are positive.
The authors of The Social Life of Information are themselves heavily involved in computers. John Seely Brown is chief scientist for Xerox and director of the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), which has been responsible for some of the computer revolution's main breakthroughs. At first glance, you would not expect someone in his position to be espousing "anti-computer" views. Co-author Paul Duguid, a historian and social theorist who works with the University of California at Berkeley and Xerox at PARC has a broader background in the humanities.
One chapter of this book touched me directly. Entitled "Home Alone", it examines the omnipresent claim that computers and the Internet will allow more people to work at home, and lead to a renewal of rural and village life. I am one of the people who is directly experiencing this trend, and I have long been a believer that such a change may occur. Working as a freelance writer and translator, I live in a village in the French Alps, and work thanks to the Internet; computers are the tools of my trade.
Yet Brown and Duguid's argument is compelling. They point out that the lack of support structures prevent this change, and show that, while the computer can be an empowering tool for such a situation, that its complexity is limiting the number of potential home workers. The simple fact that computers do not always work correctly, and the lack of any "IT manager at home," means that home workers who are not computer-savvy will end up losing far too much time for this to be worthwhile. In my case, writing about computers and translating computer documents, I have been able to get by this problem through my own knowledge and help from mailing lists and newsgroups, but those who have less computer knowledge will need better support if they wish to work efficiently.
The authors take on "intelligent agents", pointing out that users can have little confidence in them, not knowing what interests have programmed them. The authors mention the example of American Airlines' SAABRE reservation software, which was discovered to have been "subtly weighted to favor American's flights." As the authors point out, "Who really controls your agent, you, the designer, or the person feeding it information?" They ask how the user can be sure that it is not really a "double-agent."
Citing the example of the book market, which was one of the first markets to truly adapt to the Internet, they point out how online booksellers use "collaborative filtering" systems to provide dynamic recommendations to returning users. Personally, this has always annoyed me. It means that when I visit online vendors where I regularly purchase items I see a different "shop window" than other users. In a way, I understand the vendor's desire to tailor their services to me -- I have worked as a bookseller, and know just how effective it is to tell a customer about a new book in a field they are interested in. But, on the other hand, I would also like to see the same shop window as other users, to know about what is new that might not fit my interests. Such vendors assume that users only buy products in set areas, but I would like to discover new books and CDs that differ from what I have bought in the past.
The over-dependence on information in today's business environment has lead to a misunderstanding of the difference between information and knowledge. As companies gain control of vast amounts of information, and exploit it in new and more powerful ways, they lose sight of the forest for the trees. Information is basic data, but "knowledge is something we digest rather than hold." Companies are finding it difficult to learn that knowledge depends mainly on the people who possess it.
Many companies have lost market share or competitive advantage by assuming that their knowledge did not depend on the holders of that knowledge. The authors cite several such cases, where companies let go of workers or avoided cultivating their knowledgeable workers, and the companies in question include some of the world leaders in technology.
Proponents of knowledge management, a recent business trend, feel that "mining" knowledge is a simple search and retrieval operation. But anyone who has ever consulted a "knowledge base" accessible over the Web knows just how wrong this is.
Knowledge is transmitted by communities and networks. Whether within a company or across corporate borders, it requires human intervention to have an effect. In a fair show of humility, the authors discuss the now-famous story of Steve Jobs' visit to Xerox PARC, where he first saw Xerox's prototype of a graphical user interface (GUI). While Xerox, like other companies at the time, did not believe in the personal computer, Jobs and Apple did. They were able to exploit the knowledge they got from Xerox and create the first commercial GUI-based operating system. The rest, as we all know, is history.
But this, and the many other breakthroughs in computing, were also partly a result of the concentration of technology companies in California's Silicon Valley. In today's decentralized world of business, such knowledge transfer is hindered by much more than simply corporate boundaries -- the lack of physical contact among employees and managers of different companies means that there is no shared knowledge, and less likelihood that companies will work together informally as they did during the growth of the personal computer.
Ever since Business Week magazine proclaimed the impending arrival of the paperless office, people have been awaiting it eagerly. Yet, in spite of (or perhaps because of) the omnipresence of computers and the increasing use of digital and digitized documents, paper use in offices has doubled since that time.
The main reason we still use paper is that paper often provides a more authoritative context for our documents than do digital media. An article printed in the New York Times has more authority than text displayed on an unknown home page, just as a book (a paper one) has more cachet than a novel downloaded for free from an aspiring writer's web site. Printed information is often validated, selected, edited and approved (for better or worse), whereas anyone can now create digital documents.
But another reason is that, in spite of what the manufacturers of e-book devices want us to think, paper is a very versatile technology. Look at a book, any book. It needs no batteries, is totally portable (okay, I have some dictionaries I wouldn't want to carry around), has extensive hypertext (contents, notes and index), and lasts for a very long time. Why fix what's not broken?
Frankly, there are some places where I would prefer digital documents: I subscribe to two daily newspapers and many magazines, both weekly and monthly. When I look at how much paper I take to the local recycling center, and think of how many people don't even recycle paper, I see a justification for this type of text being available in electronic format.
The Social Life of Information presents opinions that go against the grain. While many of the authors' opinions are controversial, they are presented thoughtfully and persuasively. I have a weakness for this kind of book, partly because of my natural distrust of anything that "pundits" say, partly because I have seen that not everything about the information revolution is positive.
These views need to be heard more often, as a balance to the overly optimistic and positive opinions that are the stock in trade of the computer and Internet press. Read this book; you will have a different outlook on how the information revolution affects you now, and how it may change your world in the future.
-- Kirk McElhearn (kirk@mcelhearn.com)
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