There are opportunities for special issues, and publishing teaching cases.  So don’t be shy with those ideas.

Out of 39 papers, I was able to link to the actual, published paper on the web twice.  I found links to early drafts or versions of the paper in five other cases.  Google Books has part or all of four other publications, and a copy of another paper in its cache.  The rest are either paid access only, or don’t exist as far as the web is concerned.  Prices ranged from $20 to $43 US per article.

Not only is some kind of open access the ‘right thing to do’, it helps work get cited more often–from 45 to 500% more often, according to MIT’s open access policy FAQ.  I’ll be proposing that USF adopt a similar open access policy for scholarly works and course syllabi, with the ability to opt-out no questions asked.  But it’s important for the default to be open, as the NIH found out when they started their open access policy in 2008.  Sharing shot up from 4 to about 60%.

I do love the citations feature on Google Scholar though, and I’ve added that to the page.  It’s a lifesaver for those of us without ISI/Web of Knowledge access.

You can see the high quality line-up of speakers and abstracts at our workshop website, available here.  (If anyone wants to know the pros and cons of building with Google Sites, I have some opinions…)

Looks like we’ll go for another post-ICIS workshop in St. Louis next year.

• Journal of Algorithms
• Topology
• K-Theory

Perhaps others would like to follow their lead?

In my remarks, I advise folks to keep an eye out for these Virtual World trends:  open source to create your own worlds, public grids, virtual workspaces, serious gaming, casual gaming, and the return of virtual reality technologies (now that we have more interesting places to visit, maybe it’s time to start digging those gloves and goggles out of the closet).

The legal types seem to be most interested in virtual property rights and regulating money transactions, but we had time to talk about fun stuff like the virtual ’strike’ against IBM in Second Life.  A continuing point of controversy:  the terms of service for most virtual worlds give users little recourse if a company decides to suspend or delete their account. But what if I built and furnished my whole mansion online?

My argument is that the best Web 2.0 sites have stumbled upon a set of capabilities that solve a big problem: how to share knowledge. Sharing knowledge is not something that businesses are good at, not something that governments are great at (see CIA), and, sadly, not even something that my beloved universities are great at, even though that’s supposed to be our raison d’être. The best Web 2.0 sites have made knowledge sharing so cheap, easy, and effective that it can be a part of everyday life. As time goes on, we will come to expect free access to the best available knowledge about anything. And that will change things in interesting ways.

My current five page outline (alpha release 1) is available here. As the project firms up over the next few months, I will be blogging various parts of the argument, case studies, and data that might be interesting on their own.

I am happy to take requests from potential collaborators, publishers, and agents. An extended 26-page outline is available on request.

• “The role of professional networking websites in business relationship building” by Lih-Bin Oh (National University of Singapore) and Yao Zhang (Xiamen University)
• “The establishment of pervasive control mechanisms as a consequence of compliance with the Sarbanes-Oxley act” by Gasparas Jarulaitis (Norwegian University of Science and Technology)
• “Is IT employment in the United States really hurt by offshoring and work immigration?” by Sonia Vilvovsky (Bentley College)
• “A longitudinal investigation of practice adaptation in a successful open source development project” by Mary Beth Watson-Manheim (University of Illinois, Chicago), Katherine M. Chuboda (Utah State University), and Sanjeev Jha (University of Illinois, Chicago)
• “The integration of tools and systems in inter-disciplinary work” by Torstein Hjelle (Norwegian University of Science and Technology)
• “The three modalities of work and their needs for IT support” by Markku I. Nurminen (University of Turku)
• “How the new web is embedding itself in everyday life and work” by me (USF)
• “Users and information systems: Two empty concepts that mean so much” by Steve Sawyer (Penn State University).

Why not join us in Montréal on Wednesday, December 12th?

Whether we call it Web 2.0, mass collaboration, online community, or social networking, I believe what’s really new is how large-scale knowledge sharing, and the services built on top of this knowledge, are allowing the web to deeply embed itself in normal, everyday life.

Research has shown how the boundaries between online and off, private and public, work and living are all being blurred by mobile phone use (see my review essay in The Information Society, January 2007, for more details). I argue that these boundaries are also blurring on the new web.

“Worklife is being affected by the ‘consumerization’ of IT, and everyday non-working activities are being subjected to analytic scrutiny normally reserved for the working world: detailed peer review, in-depth data collection and analysis, and rapid experimentation.”

The abstract for my presentation on “How the new web is embedding itself in everyday work and life“, to be delivered at the 2007 IFIP 9.1 post-ICIS workshop on Computers and Work is available online. Slides to come.

Information technology offers us the possibility of changing the world for the better.  Humanity now possesses a mind-boggling ability to store information, process it, and send it around the world for almost no cost.   And the raw power of information technology is still doubling every couple of years.

Over the past few decades, we information systems academics have found that turning better information technology into better human activity is hard work.  The difficulties can come from many different sources–technological complexity, organizational confusion, human frailty–but all stem from a common truth: the absolutely central role that information plays in organized human activity. When you try to change the guts of anything, it can get messy.

A big part of what we information systems people do is try to figure out what works, and what doesn’t (through the use of examples, methods, applications, frameworks, theories, and the occasional display of exaggerated enthusiasm or despair).

At a deeper level, though, the whole idea of improving things through technology is a tricky one.   For one thing, what does improvement mean?  For whom?  Some applications of information technology have definite ‘winners and losers’.  The results for different groups can vary greatly, depending on specific decisions about how to store, process, and access information, and how that information is tied to human activity.  Whose needs are most important?

Second, it’s not obvious how much control people really have over the outcomes of any technology-based change.  The world of information technology is full of ‘unintended consequences’.  Perhaps this is inevitable, because we’re dealing with the most flexible of technologies, supporting the most flexible and open-ended of human activities (such as decision-making and communication). While we information systems experts might strive for the timeless bits of wisdom that will always translate better information technology into better human activity, our potential ’silver bullets’ of advice will always have these fundamental limitations. Human activity, and human technology, is too ambiguous for it to be otherwise.

The joy of information systems, for me anyway, lies in this intoxicating mixture of awesome technological power and the mystery of social activity, combined with the possibility that things really can get much better if we use our knowledge to avoid the mistakes of the past.  Being involved with information systems gives me the chance to make a huge difference.  And it puts me right where the action is in the modern world–business, the global economy, politics, health care, the media, and modern warfare are all difficult to get a handle on without some understanding of how the information systems process works.  Though it sometimes makes my brain hurt, I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.

After a few years of inactivity, a team of new officers is working to ‘relaunch’ IFIP WG 9.1. As the newly elected Secretary of the group, I will be the true power behind the throne, with the new Chair (Steve Sawyer, Penn State) and Vice Chair (Rudi Schmiede, Technische Universität Darmstadt) filling out the rest of the management team.

One of our first tasks is to create a new mission statement for the group. The current draft is:

The mission of IFIP Working Group 9.1 (Computers and Work) is to promote, facilitate and disseminate research on ICTs and work, in order to promote quality of life, technology that meets human needs, and social accountability. IFIP WG 9.1 strives to identify important new perspectives on the future of ICTs and new ways of working, and to communicate the social and organizational consequences of ICTs and work.

If you have comments or suggestions, we would love to hear them, either here on the blog, or at the new official IFIP WG 9.1 website.

Our next official workshop and meeting will be immediately after the ICIS 2007 conference in Montréal. Please join us!