September 2006 Archives

It's the end of another month and time to review my mind. A lot less material has been published on this site since school began at the beginning of September. My classes are finally starting to feel like a routine. I'm currently taking Information Culture, Information Ethics, Recommender Systems, and Intellectual Property.

The month began with a look back at what I learned through half of my MSI program at Michigan. Then it was the beginning of classes.

I've spent a lot of time this month trying to define my continuing academic interest in information science. The closest parallels seem to be with the philosophy of information. Another parallel is computing and philosophy. There was a course this term that covered some of that material but it conflicted with another class.

A couple of events prompted short entries this month. Eric Rabkin spoke on science fiction and nanotechnology. Theodore Porter on Victorian Scientists. Jon Udell on apprenticeship and library superpatrons.

Udell's talk prompted some more thoughts on electronic identity, which may eventually lead to some thoughts about how we shape and present ourselves on the web. Barter and knowledge exchange was another blip on the radar.

Finally a note about the tension between technological and economic determinism arose out of a class discussion on information culture.

I've been toying around with LinkedIn this month, adding connections from work and school. If you think we should reconnect you can find my profile here.

A discussion in a recent class about information history and technology swirled around the common theme of technological determinism. It's a perennial issue for anyone that deals with science and technology studies or the history of technology. On the one side are those who argue that technology drives history, on the other are those who object. A Google search reveals this definition by Daniel Chandler.

The technological determinist view is a technology-led theory of social change: technology is seen as 'the prime mover' in history. In economics, this is known as a 'technology-push' theory rather than a 'demand-pull' theory. According to technological determinists, particular technical developments, communications technologies or media, or, most broadly, technology in general are the sole or prime antecedent causes of changes in society, and technology is seen as the fundamental condition underlying the pattern of social organization.

Technological determinists interpret technology in general and communications technologies in particular as the basis of society in the past, present and even the future. They say that technologies such as writing or print or television or the computer 'changed society'. In its most extreme form, the entire form of society is seen as being determined by technology: new technologies transform society at every level, including institutions, social interaction and individuals. At the least a wide range of social and cultural phenomena are seen as shaped by technology. 'Human factors' and social arrangements are seen as secondary.

As Wikipedia notes, technological determinism has been discredited in academic studies of history but is still very prevalent in the media.

I have no particular problem with those who object to technological determinism. The world and history are a lot more complicated than a naive view of technological determinism would admit. But at the same time I wonder about the scope of the debate. Sometimes it seems like a roundabout from which no one ever escapes.

Anyhow the discussion in my class posed an interesting side question about the relative amounts of power a line worked in a factory has versus the CEO of a company. I started to come out in favor of the idea that a CEO doesn't really have a significantly greater amount of power over the future of a corporation than the line worked, but was quickly shot down by some comments about the success of Apple after Steve Jobs returned and some other examples.

I find it interesting that people are so quick to ascribe great power to the CEOs of companies and so quick to dismiss the power of technology to change history. We're in a context where we are arguing that electrification or railroads coevolved with significant social and historical changes, but the CEO still stands out as the master of his own destiny. Odd.

Jon Udell's recent remarks on apprenticeship and barter in the new economy generated a surge in my web traffic so I want to extend some of my remarks about the reception of his idea among the audience at SI.

For one thing the STIET program at Michigan, which sponsored the Thursday talk, is particularly focused on the transactions enabled by electronic technology. A major problem with barter is the lack of information connecting traders. Jon showed the audience two examples of education exchange: fixing his reel mower, and rebuilding a laser printer. One of the comments mentioned how unlikely it would be to find someone who who wants to show Jon how to rebuild a printer and also wants to learn from Jon about repairing a reel mower. For now this information is way too opaque to make barter a reliable option on the internet.

Paul Hartzog defended barter as a means of exchange for goods that are widely needed or available. For example, exchanging baby sitting for tutoring and education. The larger the potential number of participants for barter the more likely people are to meet and arrange a trade.

Right now almost all of the web is a gift economy. People post videos about repairing their lawn mowers or fixing printers without any explicit agreement that they will get something back from their readers or viewers.

There are lots of selfish reasons for people to post this information. It can help build reputation, create community, foster a sense of efficacy, or hope for a future return of reciprocity.

I think barter may work better in a community where people know each other or are only a few social connections away from each other. The social networking sites such as Facebook, Friendster, or LinkedIn may be the real potential locations for barter to work online. The question is what kind of barter will take place.

Bartering goods is easily understood, most people have experience. Doing a favor for someone is also something that most people are familiar with. These activities usually take place among an immediate circle of friends, people that are connected to others and then to their friends of friends. Searching for a job is a great example of this kind of exchange. The untapped market for social networking sites ma be to formalize the exchange of jobs. Someone asks for a referral to a job in exchange for designing another member's website or teaching that person about fixing printers.

In order for such exchanges to work we must return to the question of information disclosure and openness on the web. A sea change in personal attitudes may be needed in order for people to become more comfortable with sharing their talents online. Newer generations are already experiencing this by living in the constantly on world.

In the meantime we are left with pockets of people who are willing to put a persona onto the web. Weblogging, social bookmarking, photo sharing, a lot of Web 2.0 technologies are all making more exchanges possible. Where the web started with a gift economy it may be soon be ready to transform into a barter economy as well.

Everywhere I turn this semester the topic of online identity is cropping up. A couple of discussions have either touched directly or indirectly on the problem of maintaining an online identity. My classes on recommender systems, information ethics, and copyright have all mentioned or discussed the motivations and pitfalls behind online identities.

Jenny Levine at the Shifted Librarian points to a recent cover story from U.S. News that dubs itself a parent's guide to MySpace. She praises the story for not going too far off the deep-end of social networking paranoia. Stephen Downes points to this summary of online risks for children.

The upshot is that the way we present ourselves to the world is changing. An online presence is becoming necessary for everyone.

Today Jon Udell gave another talk about Superpatrons and Superlibrians. The talk gave a nice summary of the efforts by himself and others, such as Ed Vielmetti, to empower users with information from libraries.

Afterwards the conversation took a turn toward the question of identity. Bill Tozier asked about openness in academia, Udell turned the question right around to the audience, and then solicited advice about managing his own identity on the web.

It turns out that the openness of academia in general is almost impossible to talk about. The stories shared in the room showed that there are as many approaches to openness as there are people and departments in academia. Some groups get it, others are still trying to catch up.

To me the challenge of openness on the web has only begun. I was recently thinking about what would happen if business started posting web pages for their employees. I bet that would start a wild discussion. Most academics, consultants, and entrepreneurs already do this. For them being on the web is an integral part of managing their reputation.

So in an effort to collect some of my own reputation capital on the web I've been playing around with two new web sites that claim to manage your online identity by creating a summary page for yourself. ClaimId and Naymz are both worth looking at. Here's what I've added about myself.

The ClaimId weblog has posted some interesting stuff recently about how to manage online identities.

Jon Udell the lead analyst at InfoWorld came to Michigan today to share some of his ideas about online learning and exchange in the new economy. Jon runs a consistently worthwhile weblog at Infoworld that combines a number of my interests: using the web for mashing technology together (Library Lookup may be one of the first examples of a mashup before the term got common), groupware or social software, and online identity.

Today he spoke to the STIET seminar about a number of examples of knowledge sharing through the medium of the internet. Jon argued that the newer technologies of blogging, screencasting, and video sharing are ushering in a new era in which tacit experience can be shared through the web. To support this idea he shared a couple of stories about guitar playing, fixing reel lawnmowers and laser printers. Describing how to accomplish these tasks might be difficult in words but a short video might be all that's needed to show a novice how to perform a task.

Udell described this in terms that sounded a lot like learning objects from the online education world. If the correct metadata is attached to such items it might be possible to share multimedia content much more widely than we can at present.

I thought Jon's point about the visibility of work in the new world of the web was much more interesting. People are now able to see into the professional activities of other people much more than they were in the past. This may be recapitulating the old order of work in which family members lived on the farm and learned the trade through apprenticeship or by working with their families. The industrial revolution moved the work process into the factory, making it disappear from everyday life.

The biggest conversation with the audience was about the economic incentives for people to share knowledge on the web. Jon initially proposed the idea of barter to explain the process, some people were skeptical that this would work, while others supported it.

He concluded with some words about the use of weblogs to create public personas for ourselves. A lot of recent news stories have warned people about how much information they reveal online through social networking sites, such as Facebook, or the threat of weblogging to finding a career. This part of the talk directly mirrored a conversation from my recommender systems class earlier this morning. In class the context was why someone would use their real name to write product reviews. For Udell it was writing a weblog. The answer in both cases was the same. The opportunity to manage your own presentation to the online world.

Another extracurricular presentation, this time on Victorian scientists and institutions. The speaker was Theodore Porter from UCLA. He was part of the Science and Technology Studies colloquium here at Michigan.

If there is any field of history that I gravitate toward it is science and technology studies. The connection to information science is sometimes tenuous but the philosophical questions about the weight of individuals and institutions are prominent.

Porter basically summarized some of his recent work on Karl Pearson and the scientific institutions in Britain during the 19th century. He argued that the professionalization of science in opposition to religion was complicated by the desires of people such as Pearson to make science into a form of public reason. I was particularly struck by the importance Pearson placed on statistics, his own major discipline, as the foundation of science and perhaps the seed of a lot of advanced educational emphasis on methodology. The final point was teased out by a comment by Paul Edwards during the question period.

One of the enduring joys of attending a large research university or living in close proximity to one is the chance to attend public lectures and presentations by faculty or experts on topics that pique your interest but don't necessarily fall inside your chosen specialty. The Michigan Nanotechnology Institute for Medicine and Biological Sciences hosted an inaugural symposium yesterday and today. I skipped yesterday's event but decided to get out of bed early today to see Eric Rabkin talk about science fiction, science, and perceptions of technology.

Last year Rabkin won the Golden Apple award for best lecturer at the University of Michigan. I've seen him present twice to large audiences so far and can attest that the reward was well-deserved. Last time I saw him he was talking on myths and narratives about Mars. Today he discussed the interplay between science and popular culture.

Rabkin started his talk with a reminder of what Frankenstein, the novel, was really about. For Rabkin the story is a myth about power and community. The monster is abominable because he is created abnormally by Victor Frankenstein, out of the parts of cadavers instead of through the normal human reproductive process. When the unnamed monster asks Frankenstein to create a wife for the monster Frankenstein initially complies but later reneges, forcing the monster to take revenge. It is a science fiction warning against transgressing the normal boundaries of human community.

The message of science fiction to nanotechnologists and medical science is to be aware of the community in which they work. If they step outside of this community or act against its interests they will be punished. Rabkin presented some evidence for this conclusion from his Genre Evolution Project and an interesting paper on the lessons of science fiction for medicine.

Rabkin also presented some interesting data about the use of the phrase 'science fiction' in the media. A Lexis-Nexis search returns more results for the phrase from regular news stories than reviews of actual science fiction. Most of time the phrase is used in the form of “it's not science fiction anymore”, where the it refers to whatever technological development the reporter is writing about.

Reporters overwhelmingly praise nanotechnology and progress. This creates a disconnect between the fear of science in popular culture and the news. Science fiction stories such as Prey by Michael Crichton express this fear. Negotiating this dichotomy is crucial to the perception of nanotechnology by the public.

Rabkin cited a recent story by Niall Ferguson at Time magazine called “The Nation that Fell to Earth.” The story sets up a frame of looking back at 9/11 from the year 2031. In the 4000 word story almost 3700 words are used to talk about the years 2001-2006. The rest of the story mentions two technological breakthroughs that help the United States triumph in the future: the first is improved energy sources, and the second is surveillance technology that allows the government to keep tabs on those bad Islamofascists that might wish us harm.

Rabkin read the sentence aloud to the audience and there was a moment of silent disbelief and shock. Here were a bunch of people who are developing the technology that some of our media elite think will be the foundation of a surveillance state. The perception and use of the technology is still up for grabs.

A list of some philosophically motivated questions about information.

• Information ethics. A lot could be covered in this area. Is there a right to privacy for personal information? Why would such rights exist or not? See David Brin and Transparent Society or not.
• Creativity and information. Is information a form of property? Why should it be protected by law? Who gets the benefit of information?
• Emergent behavior and self-organization. Is there any use to asking about the existence of truth in a system of independent agents acting on different types of information? Do groups and organizations 'know' different things than individuals?

Some references - information philosophy at Wikipedia. Article on Semantic Conceptions of Information in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. And a link to Luciano Floridi's weblog, Philosophy of Information.

And finally a quote from Floridi offering a partial definition/cateorization of information, source Wikipedia article cited above.

According to Floridi, four kinds of mutually compatible phenomena are commonly referred to as “information”:

• Information about something (e.g. a train timetable)
• Information as something (e.g. DNA, or fingerprints)
• Information for something (e.g. algorithms or instructions)
• Information in something (e.g. a pattern or a constrain).

Well the fall semester is officially underway. I had my first class session today with Paul Resnick on recommender systems. The class is a short one, only half the semester or seven weeks. I look forward to it. More classes to come tomorrow and next week.

Over the weekend I was less than enthused by the start of classes. Once the actual event occurs and I get back in the rhythm of things I'm sure my outlook will improve. The biggest question looming over the semester is what to do about further academic study. Do I want to continue on and pursue a PhD or is it time to forge my own education?

The trouble is there are pros and cons to both approaches. I've been trying to figure out what the attraction of academia is for me. Over the weekend I decided that the biggest factor I've found so far is community. For all its many flaws, academia still manages to collect a significant number of intelligent people in a single location and let them work on intellectual problems. I want to share some of that glow if only by proximity.

Some notes on what I've learned over the past year at SI. Inspired by Andrea and Brian.

• More about a smattering of web technologies: PHP, XML, CSS.
• Interviews for research and system evaluation.
• Bits about the history and theory of infrastructure. Suggestive of hidden realities which is always nice to think about. Or perhaps just seeing things that were too obvious to notice before.
• Reiterations of basic economics, psychology, cognitive science.
• Some more formal introductions to statistics.
• Practice with LaTeX.
• Taxonomy building experience and text filtering technology.
• How to break into my own apartment.

I find it hard to come up with anything out of the ordinary. The classes feel like material I've partially encountered elsewhere. There are always a fair number of interesting people and speakers to see, which is one benefit of academia I enjoy a lot. Ideas cycle in and out much more often than in any business I've been a part of.