The Petabyte Age

To reflect and provoke! 

In the last Wired News, The Petabyte Age: Because More Isn't Just More — More Is Different, they have an entry about «The End of Theory: The Data Deluge Makes the Scientific Method Obsolete».

So where is the method? The scientific rigour? If what they state was true, than scientist would be obsolete. Scientific method is not only about finding correlations in data. The scientific method allows for a number of triangulations: data, methods & theory. Scientific method starts from choosing what kind of data to look for, how to collect it, how to analyze, how to interpret the data.

Anyhow, it shows that the perception that having access to large amounts of data can suffice to make science :S

Infrastructure for interoperability

Global Research Library 2020 - Goals & Objectives:

"Either as individual institutions or a part of consortia, we are all working on improving existing (local) infrastructures and establishing new systems, but moving forward we need to be absolutely certain that these effort are all tightly-linked and easily interoperable (e.g. leveraging community protocols, suites of standards, etc). Infrastructure is used here to include people with appropriate skill sets, systems, standards and protocol suites, and even policy frameworks."

Homo mobilis

Rich Ling disponibilizou as ligações para os capítulos do relatório especial do Economist sobre Mobile Communication:

• Nomads at last
• Working from anywhere
• The new oases
• Family ties
• Location, location, location
• A world of witnesses
• Homo mobilis

• Author interview
• Sources and acknowledgments

Inscrevi-me no Grupo «Mobile Communication» e através do link de um dos membros (Carsten Sørensen) do qual já tinha conhecimento através de artigos publicados, fui dar à Research Network for Mobile Interaction & Pervasive Social Devices.

Tracking Transition

"(...) the transition to employment is only one of a number of possible transitions which the individual may experience upon leaving university and as noted above these are not necessarily mutually exclusive events, but often exhibit a degree of interaction between the various transitions. (...) a number of transitions may simultaneously be in operation: that of status (undergraduate to graduate); in terms of accommodation, living arrangements and even location of domicile; and, in terms of activity (undergraduate to post-graduate or from part-time to full-time work or from student to employee). In the case of some of the respondents as noted by comments above, the transitions were not always unproblematic. Moreover, for some of the respondents, the transition especially in relation to independent living was conditioned by a lack of financial resources and this could impact on relationships with partners and parents." Houston, Muir (2008). Tracking Transition: Issues in Asynchronous E-Mail Interviewing. FQS, vol 9(2).

memex

Vannevar Bush (1945). As We May Think. The Atlantic Monthly, vol. 176(1), pp. 101-108.

Drawing of Bush's theoretical memex machine was published in Life Magazine, November 19, 1945, vol. 19(11), p. 123, also under the title «As we may think». Since I have not found an image of the original article, I'll use the one circulating in many different places that have paid homage to Bush vision.

PS - From Memex To Hypertext arrived (same picture in p. 109)

ecotone

Uma boa metáfora para explicar espaços de transição. Neste caso, a palavra «ecotone» serviria para explicar espaços de transição próximos. Notei que as palavras «edge» e «boundary» também são utilizadas como sinónimos em algumas das definições.

Define: ecotone

"A narrow and fairly sharply defined transition zone between two or more different communities. Such edge communities are typically species-rich. (Allaby 1998)" www.oup.com.au/orc/demo_glossary.aspx

genetics as «pure information»

Edge: LIFE: a gene-centric view, by Craig Venter & Richard Dawkins, in a conversation in Munich:

"RICHARD DAWKINS: What has happened is that genetics has become a branch of information technology. It is pure information. It's digital information. It's precisely the kind of information that can be translated digit for digit, byte for byte, into any other kind of information and then translated back again. This is a major revolution. I suppose it's probably 'the' major revolution in the whole history of our understanding of ourselves."

PIM - 10 years after first study

Barreau, D. (2008). The persistence of behavior and form in the organization of personal information. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, vol. 59(2), pp. 307-317:

"This study revisits managers who were first interviewed more than 10 years ago to identify their personal information management (PIM) behaviors. The purpose of this study was to see how advances in technology and access to the Web may have affected their PIM behaviors. PIM behaviors seem to have changed little over time, suggesting that technological advances are less important in determining how individuals organize and use information than are the tasks that they perform. Managers identified increased volume of e-mail and the frustration with having to access multiple systems with different, unsynchronized passwords as their greatest PIM challenges. Organizational implications are discussed."

downsizing & (in)communication at work

«We pay special attention to the structural capability of each IPN in the context of corporate downsizing, because downsizing is a common phenomenon in contemporary organizations that dynamically reconfigures the means by which people process information both within and across firm boundaries. Moreover, emphasis is placed on the specific contexts in which workforce reduction leads to concomitant increases in information processing and communication responsibilities for those remaining (i.e., “survivors”), and may thus produce adverse effects such as work overload and “burnout.”» (p.202) 

 

«(...) one underlying presumption shared by these various conceptual approaches is that organizations are information-processing entities whose survival and longevity largely depend upon how efficiently and effectively they handle information within and across firm boundaries» (p.204)

in Kwon, D.; Oh, W. & Jeon, S. (2007). Broken Ties: The Impact of Organizational Restructuring on the Stability of Information-Processing Networks. Journal of Management Information Systems, vol. 24(1).

implosion of the world on the individual

Janelle, D. G. and Gillespie, A. (2004). Space-time constructs for linking information and communication technologies with issues in sustainable transportation. Transport Reviews, vol. 24(6), pp. 665-677.

"Human extensibility and the implosion of the world on the individual (time-space compression) represent simultaneously opportunity and threat - the opportunity to communicate and engage in dialogue and commerce, and the threat of besiegement and incapacity to absorb or cope with relentless volumes of information calling for attention. Clearly, the temporal aspects of this problem require abilities to engage and disengage in one's connectivity to the world - to network selectively or to broadcast universally, as required."

Information Scraps

Image and text from: Bernstein et al (2007). Information Scraps: How and Why Information Eludes our Personal Information Management Tools (in Submission version):

"In this paper we describe information scraps -- a class of personal information whose content is scribbled on Post-it notes, scrawled on corners of random sheets of paper, buried inside the bodies of e-mail messages sent to ourselves, or typed haphazardly into text files. Information scraps hold our great ideas, sketches, notes, reminders, driving directions, and even our poetry."

Recover list - on campus:

Lansdale, M. (1988). The psychology of personal information management. Applied Ergonomics, 19(1):55-66.

different PIM's for different Workers

Nardi, B. and Barreau, D. (1997). "Finding and reminding"revisited: appropriate metaphors for file organization at the desktop. SIGCHI Bull. 29(1), pp. 76-78.

"While we recognize that researchers have need for organizing and retrieving information and building archives to support their research, the results of our studies suggest that users in most work environments have different needs and priorities. A greater concern for such workers is the management of the growing volume and variety of ephemeral information that must be managed and utilized."

crossing organizational spaces

Efimova, L. & Grudin, J. (2007). Crossing boundaries: A case study of employee blogging. Proceedings of the Fortieth Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS-40). Los Alamitos: IEEE Press:

"Editors, email, and instant messaging were first widely used by students who later brought knowledge of their uses and effective practices into workplaces. Weblogs may make such a transition more quickly. We present a study of emergent blogging practices in a corporate setting. We attended meetings, read email, documents, and Weblogs, and interviewed 38 people loggers, infrastructure administrators, attorneys, public relations specialists, and executives. We found an experimental, rapidly-evolving terrain marked by growing sophistication about balancing personal, team, and corporate incentives and issues"

From Stationary Work Support to Mobile Work Support

Yufei Yuan & Wuping Zheng (2005). From Stationary Work Support to Mobile Work Support: A Theoretical Framework. International Conference on Mobile Business (ICMB'05), pp. 315-321:

"In this paper we propose a theoretical mobile work support framework and use this framework to analyze four fundamental aspects of mobile work: mobile workers, mobile tasks, mobile context, and mobile technology. The key differences between office work support and mobile work are also highlighted."

ANT and Integration of Knowledge

Akera, A. (2007). Constructing a Representation for an Ecology of Knowledge: Methodological Advances in the Integration of Knowledge and its Various Contexts. Social Studies of Science, vol. 37(3), pp. 413:

"As we move away from studying laboratories, institutions, and sociotechnical networks to the more loosely coordinated technical exchanges that have begun to seem as important to scientific knowledge production and engineering work, an ecological view of knowledge re-emerges as a powerful metaphor for our discipline."

video

YouTube - Information R/evolution

farewell

I had to say goodbye from my workspace in INETI. The extintion of INETI by the Government has been something beyond my comprehension. I'm on unpaid leave from July 2007 to July 2010. 

[self] information behaviour

... and postponed access to information space, in my research routines, made me decided to start registering my own information behaviours and disturbances i encounter, and strategies i follow.


Looking for information, or following a lead or a clue, depends on:

• the time/place where one is - different places allow different accesses to different spaces, namely information spaces (ex: if i was working in INETI and not in my house, i could have accessed the papers posted below. Instead, i have to leave a «to do» message to myself, with enough elements to recover it when I am back to INETI, or UMinho, or other place where i am granted access to that piece of information... or buy myself an entrance and have my own almost-independent-place password). What's different about my scenario experience in 2007 and that of someone 10 years ago? The time of access to information, the amount of information available, the tools, the infrastructure... the status of the work (in this case, the PhD work). Information space's time/place dependent.
• the tools one has at the moment (and the supporting infrastructure needed for the tools to work). Information space's tool dependent. Need to explore if this kind of information spaces might configure also opportunistic access to information.
  
• formato of the information (and the medium required to interpret the information). Information space's format dependent.
  
• previous information to access information - examples can include: passwords and user IDs, bookmarks, reference lists, memos... since not every information is readily available, sometimes we need other pieces of information to be able to access the information we want. Information space's access dependent.
  
• passing the information without having access to it - if one of the persons that has access to my blog, happens to be in a place where access is granted, this message might be confusing: here i am saying that i can not see something that i give the link, and yet, if that person clicks the link, might get the complete paper. Information space's mediation dependent.
  
• interpret and make sense of the information around - this kind of information is best observed when one person moves from one country to another one, with a different language. This was of critical importance in the case of expatriates, when they where assigned to another country [refer to BCP study]. Information space's [code]/language dependent.
• having previous knowledge - «Quem não sabe é como quem não vê». One can read all the words in a book and still not «see» the information contain in the book. Later, when one reads the book again with more knowledge on the book's subject, one can «see» the information while reading the very same words. Information space's knowledge dependent.

Following the above described cases, information spaces can depend on:

• time/place
• tool
• format
• access
• mediation
• [code] language
• knowledge
  

Whittaker, S. and Hirschberg, J. (2001). Research alerts: the character, value, and management of personal paper archives. interactions 8, 4 (Jul. 2001), pp. 11-16.

Gwizdka, J. (2000). Timely reminders: a case study of temporal guidance in PIM and email tools usage. In CHI '00 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (The Hague, The Netherlands, April 01 - 06, 2000). CHI '00. ACM Press, New York, NY, 163-164:

"We describe our research in progress that explores the use of personal information management (PIM) tools in time and attempts to establish temporal attributes of information. We report on a short field study undertaken to examine relations between tools and information life-cycle. We propose four information types: prospective, ephemeral, working and retrospective. We outline relationships between PIM tools, email and different types of information. We use this framework to explain problems observed with handling information."

Wang, Y., van de Kar, E., and Meijer, G. (2005). Designing mobile solutions for mobile workers: lessons learned from a case study. In Proceedings of the 7th international Conference on Electronic Commerce (Xi'an, China, August 15 - 17, 2005). ICEC '05, vol. 113. ACM Press, New York, NY, 582-589:

"Based on recent literature of systems engineering, business engineering, information systems design, and project/process management, an analysis framework is presented that assesses the design approach of workforce solutions. An exploratory case based in the Netherlands was studied under the framework. The results indicate a need for a design approach that integrates "soft system thinking", collaborative business engineering activities, and process management strategy. The study provides a basis for further research to design mobile workforce solutions."

Equiparação a Bolseira

Através de email dos RH do INETI, tomei hoje conhecimento que o meu pedido de equiparada a bolseira, sem vencimento [que tinha dado entrada em Dezembro de 2006], foi autorizado pela tutela [Ministério da Economia e da Inovação] a 19 de Julho de 2007. Aguardo publicação na 2ª série do Diário da República.

Periodo de equiparada a bolseira, sem vencimento: 01.Jul.2007 a 30.Jun.2010

mobile professional work

Kakihara, M. & C. Sørensen (2004). Practicing Mobile Professional Work: Tales of Locational, Operational, and Interactional Mobility. INFO: The Journal of Policy, Regulation and Strategy for Telecommunication, Information and Media, vol. 6(3), pp: 180-187:

"The results of the fieldwork in Tokyo clearly demonstrate that the conventional understanding of mobility, rigidly confined to geographic aspects, does not suffice for grasping the diverse realities of dynamic work practices of contemporary professional workers, in particular mobile professionals. Their work practices exhibit not only an extensive geographical movement in daily work activities but also intense interaction with a wide range of people through both physical and virtual interaction means. They also show flexible operation as an independent unit of business that can be flexibly mobilized by the firms."

Ver tabela 2, página 7. Não tenho acesso à revista. O artigo que aqui disponibilizo faz parte dos arquivos do author.

mobility as duality: fluidity & stability

"(...) we proposed setting an integrative approach that sees mobility as a duality and thus facilitate the practice of theorisation on mobility; namely, studying both fluidity and stability in contemporary society and work organizations and understanding their mutual influences. The next step will be to test our arguments in various real-world contexts. We believe that field studies with rich and contextualized data on the actualities of mobile devices’ usage and on the kind of mobility we engage in are essential to fertilize this embryonic research field." Pica, Daniele & Kakihara, Masao (2003). The duality of mobility: understanding fluid organizations and stable interaction. ECIS 2003. Image by Monica Pinheiro, license CC BY-NC-SA (CC)

emerging work practices of mobile professionals

Masao Kakihara (2003). Emerging Work Practices of ICT-Enabled Mobile Professionals. PhD thesis submited to the Department of Information Systems, London School of Economics and Political Science, University of London.

"This thesis aims to offer a theoretical foundation for the concept of mobility, particularly in contemporary work contexts. With support of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in general and mobile technology in particular, contemporary work activities are increasingly distributed and dynamically conducted in various locations. In such an emerging work environment, maintaining a highly level of ‘mobility’ is becoming critical for contemporary workers, particularly for mobile professionals. Based on the theoretical considerations on the concept of mobility, this thesis empirically explores the dynamic and heterogeneous nature of mobile professionals’ work practices.

(...)

The mode of mobility is characterised not only by extensive geographical movement but also by operational flexibility and intense interaction in mobile professionals’ dynamic work activities. Based on these theoretical and empirical discussions, this thesis aims: 1) to theoretically underpin our understanding of mobility in contemporary work contexts; 2) to offer empirically grounded implications for the post-bureaucratic, fluid organising of work; and finally 3) to advance the ongoing debate on the dynamic interplay of work, organisation, and technology."

Europe cross-border transitions

A case study (1) that run between 2004 & 205, illustrates other information needs that occur during the cross border transitions faced by mobile European workers. The case under analysis concerns geographic terrestrial mobility and mobility formalities for different countries, hence legal and process country frameworks (Government Level).

In order to solve bureaucratic workers loss of time, the study managed to elicit the needed requirements for civil data information about individuals to «move» between countries. More details on the project in
IDABC - Case Study in the Euregio: Reducing the administrative burden:

"The study examined the administrative processes and requirements which had to be completed by the mobile citizens in these border areas. In doing this, it adopted the customers’ perspective, who wanted to reduce paper work and contacts with administrations. This study prepared the ground for the implementation of the trans-border eGovernment services that were able to improve the life of citizens wishing to move or take up activities in another Member State."

(1) "The Mobility Case Study focused on municipalities of the Euregio Maas-Rhine, located at the point where the three countries Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands meet, on an area of nearly 11 000 km² and with a population of 3.7 million"

Information fragmentation

Paper proposing a framework to deal with information fragmentation. This is importante for my research since it is one of the PIM problems identified at the individual level with consequences to the group level, mainly at sharing information across project teams.

Defragmenting Information using the Syncables Framework

Context of Work

Kirsh, D. (2001). The Context of Work. Human Computer Interaction, vol. 16, pp. 305-322 [versão html / falta arranjar versão pdf c/ numeração de páginas]:

"I have been describing the context of work as a highly structured amalgam of informational, physical, and conceptual resources that go beyond the simple facts of who or what is where, when. Some of these resources are shared knowledge between participants, others have to do with the structure of the tasks a user is involved in and the different ways he or she has of coordinating the use of physical, informational and conceptual resources between himself, the work setting, and teammates."

"First, we must understand the factors which bias how people react to rich information spaces, loaded with entry points to more information. Second, we must unravel the complexities of the activity landscapes we interactively construct out of the resources we find and the tasks we have to perform. Finally, we must chart the diverse ways people coordinate their activity with their environment and with others."

mobile worker

Perry, M., O'hara, K., Sellen, A., Brown, B., and Harper, R. (2001). Dealing with mobility: understanding access anytime, anywhere. ACM Trans. Comput.-Hum. Interact. 8(4), pp. 323-347:

"The rapid and accelerating move towards use of mobile technologies has increasingly provided people and organizations with the ability to work away from the office and on the move. The new ways of working afforded by these technologies are often characterized in terms of access to information and people anytime, anywhere. This article presents a study of mobile workers that highlights different facets of access to remote people and information, and different facets of anytime, anywhere. Four key factors in mobile work are identified: the role of planning, working in "dead time," accessing remote technological and informational resources, and monitoring the activities of remote colleagues. By reflecting on these issues, we can better understand the role of technology and artifacts in mobile work and identify the opportunities for the development of appropriate technological solutions to support mobile workers." [my bold]

They also talk about facets... connect with entry on facets.

mobile work practices

Kakihara, M., Sørensen, C. and Wiberg, M.(2002). Fluid Interaction in Mobile Work Practices. 1st Tokyo Mobile Roundtable, Mobile Innovation Research Program, Institute of Innovation Research, Hitotsubashi University. Tokyo, Japan. 30th-31st May:

"This is clearly the world of the contemporary mobile work mode. Mobile workers engage themselves in getting their job done not only at their formal offices but at various sites such as home, clients’ offices, hotels, moving vehicles and so on. Looking at their nature of work, there is no rigid boundary that determines whether inside or outside the office: anywhere can be their office. They permeate across “regions” and “networks.” In this sense, we can argue that mobile work is the fluid mode of working."

Thoughts on Mobility

Falamos em objectos de mobilidade, mas quem move os objectos somos nós, as pessoas. Estes objectos de mobilidade (telefones móveis, computadores móveis, etc.) não são de facto móveis. A mobilidade de que se falava em séculos anteriores, correspondia a objectos de mobilidade, como os transportes (barcos, combóios, carros, aviões, foguetões, etc). Nesses objectos as pessoas eram transportadas, deslocadas, mobilizadas para outros locais. Nos actuais objectos que qualificamos de «móveis», somos nós que os deslocamos para lhes dar a mobilidade.

Para que os nossos telefones nos possam acompanhar e nós os possamos adjectivar de «móveis», outras infraestruturas (bem) fixas, têm que existir para nos permitir «dar mobilidade» aos nossos objectos móveis: antenas, amplificadores de sinal,....

É tão óbvio, que se torna ausente do utilizador comum. O enfoque na mobilidade humana , torna-se o ponto central do olhar. Nós somos a mobilidade.

This thoughts came stumbling after reading in a different kind of journal. One that makes use of multimedia in such a different way to present a line of thought, that my mind was receiving so many stimulus that it was hard to process all the signals i was being bombarded with:

• Vectors Journal of Culture and Technology in a Dynamic Vernacular. See also pdf with static information about WiFi.Bedouin, by Julian Bleecker. To luch the project, look for the «Launch Project» on the right side of this page.

framework for information overload in organizations

"(...) this review article examines the theoretical basis of the information overload discourse and presents an overview of the main definitions, situations, causes, effects, and countermeasures. It analyses the contributions from the last thirty years to consolidate the existing research in a conceptual framework, to identify future research directions, and to highlight implications for management." Eppler, Martin J. and Mengis, Jeanne (2005). A framework for information overload research in organizations. Image by Monica Pinheiro, license CC BY-NC-SA (CC).

Usefull tool

Mojiti, different from YouTube and others, because it allows direct manipulation of the objects (adding content to videos and still being able to display them online, with the new added user data). Also, it can fetch videos stored in Youtube and others which is a great example of interoperability:

"(...) personalize any video. Use Mojiti Spots to narrate your personal videos, add captions or subtitles in any language, or just comment on any scene to share your thoughts and opinions."

Control & Space

Zierhofer, W. (2005). State, power and space. Soc. Geogr., vol 1(1), pp. 29-36:

"No other institution eases global contacts and mobility of persons, goods, information and services as much as the state by guaranteeing standards for systems of representation. It is thus above all that the state creates spaces for certain purposes – only one of which is to let social life take place in a physical space in order to control it." (p.35)

Visualization of Data, Information & Knowledge

Lengler R., Eppler M. (2007). Towards A Periodic Table of Visualization Methods for Management. IASTED Proceedings of the Conference on Graphics and Visualization in Engineering (GVE 2007), Clearwater, Florida, USA [click on the Table, and then move around the «elements»]:

[Note to self on 2011/05/10: added to citeulike collection]

Individual Differences in PIM

Gwizdka, Jacek & Chignell, Mark (2007). Individual Differences in Personal Information Management. in Jones, William & Teevan, Jamie, (Eds.), Personal Information Management. University of Washington Press:

(Gwizdka & Chignell, 2007, p. 11)

Note: already have Personal Information Management!

Blogging as a research tool in ethnography

[connecting links from here]: Erkan Saka (2006). Blogging as a Research Tool for Ethnographic Fieldwork. Paper submitted to the annual conference of the Association of Internet Researchers, Internet Research 7.0: Internet Convergences, Brisbane, Qld, Australia, September 27 - 30.

Sociedade em Rede

Castells, Manuel (2005). A Sociedade em Rede: do Conhecimento à Política. Gustavo Cardoso & Manuel Castells (Org.) A Sociedade em Rede: Do Conhecimento à Acção Política. Lisboa: Imprensa Nacional - Casa da Moeda, pp. 17-30:

"Frequentemente, a sociedade emergente tem sido caracterizada como sociedade de informação ou sociedade do conhecimento. Eu não concordo com esta terminologia. Não porque conhecimento e informação não sejam centrais na nossa sociedade. Mas porque eles sempre o foram, em todas as sociedades historicamente conhecidas. O que é novo é o facto de serem de base microelectrónica, através de redes tecnológicas que fornecem novas capacidades a uma velha forma de organização social: as redes."(p.19)

"[As redes] podem, ao mesmo tempo, ser flexíveis e adaptáveis graças à sua capacidade de descentralizar a sua performance ao longo de uma rede de componentes autónomos, enquanto se mantêm capazes de coordenar toda esta actividade descentralizada com a possibilidade de partilhar a tomada de decisões. As redes de comunicação digital são a coluna vertebral da sociedade em rede, tal como as redes de potência (ou redes energéticas) eram as infra-estruturas sobre as quais a sociedade industrial foi construída, como demonstrou o historiador Thomas Hughes." (p.18)

Wishlist: Hughes, T. (2005). Human-Built World: How to Think about Technology and Culture. University Of Chicago Press.

PS [18/May/2007] - I already have Human-Built World: How to Think about Technology and Culture :-)