''The Social Life of Information'' is a 2000 book by
John Seely Brown (the former Chief Scientist of
Xerox Corporation and director of
Xerox PARC) and
Paul Duguid
Paul may refer to:
*Paul (given name), a given name (includes a list of people with that name)
*Paul (surname), a list of people
People
Christianity
*Paul the Apostle (AD c.5–c.64/65), also known as Saul of Tarsus or Saint Paul, early Chris ...
(Adjunct professor at the
UC Berkeley School of Information), which discusses recently developed practices in the transmission of information in social and business contexts.
The authors argue that information technology needs to be considered in a broad context that includes the entirety of society and social resources, in contrast to the narrow focus on information that tends to be the framework of such technology – what the authors criticize as "tunnel design".
[Seely Brown, John; Duguid, Paul (2017/2000). ]
The Social Life of Information
'. Updated edition. Boston, Mass.: Harvard Business Review Press. . pp. 4-9 ("Introduction to the Original Edition"). That is, increased technological delivery of information does not in and of itself contribute to a better future. The text, in part, analyzes examples of the office world's adoption of technology, offering a differentiated rather than an unquestioningly affirmative view of the effects.
User agents
Serving as an early example of the ambiguous utility of software to human, the authors discuss software known as
autonomous agents which manipulate information. Different forms of such agents include
information broker, product brokering, merchant brokering, and negotiation. The authors use an example of information brokering using the Macintosh program named Sherlock that searched for the word "knobot" via the Internet. Product brokering would be an example of an online bookstore sending a person an email about a book for sale based on the previous types of books the customer bought. Merchant brokering, now widely practiced, consists of finding the best price for a product. For example,
eBay allows users, not necessarily in the same location, to buy new, used, or refurbished products through an auction, at a fixed price, or through negotiation.
This book has been republished in 2002 with a new introduction, by the
Harvard Business School Press.
Reviews
Reviews of the book from professional journals include:
*Gleason, Sandra (Summer 2001).
Planning for Higher Education'. 29(4): pp. 38-39.
*O'Malley, Lisa (2002), in ''
Journal of Marketing
The ''Journal of Marketing'' is a bimonthly scholarly journal that publishes peer-reviewed research in marketing. It is published by the American Marketing Association. Established in 1936, It is the fourth-oldest major journal covering marketing ...
''. 66(4): pp. 124-127. .
*Watson-Boone, Peter (2001), in ''Portal: Libraries and the Academy''. 1(2): pp. 180-12. .
*''
The Library Quarterly''. 2001. 71(1): pp. 94-95.
See also
*
Knowledge management
*
John Seely Brown
*
Information ecology
*
Information society
Notes
References
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Social Life of Information
Information science
2000 non-fiction books