Aviation disruptions

"British Airways: Thousands disrupted as flights axed amid IT crash" in BBC news

"With a lack of technology, staff were using whiteboards in Heathrow" in BBC news

information fragmentation

M. Kljun, “The information fragmentation problem through dimensions of software, time and personal projects,” Ph.D. dissertation, Lancaster University, 2013.

"The findings show (i) the extensive information fragmentation in each individual PIM tool besides cross-tool fragmentation, (ii) the information overload preventing focusing on the subset of fragmented project related information and changing focus over time, and (iii) the importance of support information (information scraps) and its integration into project flow." [pdf]

Reconfiguring working spaces

Pinheiro, M., Barrulas, M. J., and Carvalho, J. A. (2013). Role of artifacts for reconfiguring working spaces and information systems. In Conferência Associação Portuguesa Sistemas de Informação. CAPSI:

"Individuals, like organizations, need to manage information for work (and non-work) related activities, on a daily basis. In order to extend their communication and fulfill information needs, people use artifacts (man made objects), that became increasingly technological, and in turn, these very technological artifacts are increasingly more dependent upon other supporting technologies, widely referred as infrastructures. In order to design information systems that support workers’needs, what do we know about their use of artifacts? Across time? Inside and outside their organizations? And on the move?"

Accepted

«We are pleased to inform you that your submission to the Internet Technologies & Society 2013 Conference (ITS 2013) has been accepted as a "Full Paper"»:

Pinheiro, M., Cardoso, M., Barrulas, M. J., and Carvalho, J. A. (2013). Some things I tend to overlap even if not necessary. A discussion on PIM artifacts between researcher and research agent. In International Conference on Internet Technologies & Society.

information artefacts on the move

The social life of information: displays of information artefacts in a small event. From personal workspace to event workspace and back. «Memory of the event» created and shared between participants: web object with embedded information used in the event, meta data about used information, summary of talk, and visual memory. Ciclo de Seminários sobre Estudos de Informação, June 14, 2009, Instituto Nacional de Engenharia, Tecnologia e Inovação, Lumiar, Portugal. Image by Monica Pinheiro, license CC BY-NC-SA (CC)

Communication history in stamps

Image from Kees Graaff post

Historical narratives of information artefacts, in a collection curated by Kees de Graaff, Communication: a history in stamps.

Information as thing

In accordance with the view of information as thing by Buckland (1999), the article by Jones, W. (2010, No knowledge but through information, First Monday, vol. 15 (9-6), September) brings back the arguments of the need to operate/manage information items and not knowledge: "Knowledge is not a thing to be managed directly. Knowledge is managed only indirectly through information". His view is directed to show that Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) should be viewed as a subset o Personal Information Management (PIM) and not as a higher level approach. 

"The ways in which an item is manipulated will vary depending upon its form and the tools available for this form. The tools used for interaction with paper–based information items include, for example, paper clips, staplers, filing cabinets and the flat surfaces of a desktop. In interactions with digital information items, we depend upon the support of various computer–based tools and applications such as e–mail applications, file managers, Web browsers, and so on. (...) Knowledge as ‘no thing’ cannot be managed directly. If we think we have knowledge ‘at our fingertips’ we are most likely touching information in some form instead. This is not to say that knowledge management is not possible. But we do so through its expression in information. There is no management of knowledge except through the management of information."

In his paper he also evokes a pictorial representation of "[i]nformation management activities viewed as an effort to establish, use and maintain a mapping between needs and information. ["illustration was done by Elizabeth Boling and is a variation of a figure that first appeared in Jones (2008)."]

Could not help myself recalling the nonsense of 'knowledge management' by Tom Wilson (2002), which as always provoked great discussions and food for thought in my journey.