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| The Social Life of Information | 
| Authors: John Seely Brown, Paul Duguid
Publisher: Harvard Business School Press
Category: Book
List Price: $18.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  (54 reviews)
Sales Rank: 88379
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1st
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 330
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.5 x 1.1
ISBN: 1578517087
Dewey Decimal Number: 303.4833
EAN: 9781578517084
ASIN: 1578517087
Publication Date: February 15, 2002
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Good counter-arguement to available books December 28, 2006
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I read this book recently and I thought it was decent but not really great. I liked it because it was a counterpoint to what you always hear about modern technology and globalization. I read some of the Thomas Friedman's books and I thought they were well written and had a great point, but I always was skeptical about his message. It was just too rosy for me: Globalization flattens the world and changes existing power structures. I don't think it's neccessary to describe Friedman's other points and for the most part I think they are valid; I just think that there's more to it than that. This book, on the other hand, is all about taking that with a grain of salt. It really highlights the fact that the new technologies and the information systems really enhance the existing power structure rather than immediately break down existing norms.
The reason I gave this book 2 stars, though, is because I felt that it wasn't the easiest read. I often wondered what the authors were talking about and I had to re-read several passages because I just couldn't follow their logic or they just didn't elaborate enough on the important points. Maybe it was too dry and just not captivating.
 An interesting and useful antidote to technotopia December 23, 2005
5 out of 7 found this review helpful
Most books on internet and computing are optmistic in a 'infine linear projection' fashion - the common bane of all futurological speculations. Others are characterized by Luddite approaches to technology and media.
Every 'IN' medium is greeted with tremendous enthusiasm or pathological fear. Yet the history of technology and media shows that time and again the course taken by these is very different from the one predicted.
'The Social Life of Information' is one of the rare balanced outlooks on internet and computing technology. Written by eminent information scientists associated with Xerox PARC and University of California, it is based on well grounded empiricism and clear, level-headed reasoning.
The authors warn against a tunnel vision of narrow focus and blind optimism (or pessimism) and state that all problems are not information problems and therefore information by itself can not be the solution. They distinguish the promise of technology and the actual context of use and show how these are related or different.
The eight chapters of the book 'demythify' one or the other popular assumptions about power of information technology to change our lives and put things in context.
In one of the chapters they launch a scathing critique or technology-driven process engineering mania, showing how process engineering often ignores people, and even -- more seriously --actual practices that help solve problems.
In another they make useful distinction between knowledge and information and explain why knowledge management is not simply a question of using tools in isolation but of one of communities empowered through tools.
In yet another they explain the paradox why paper consumption has increased with increase in sales of computers and why we have not moved to a paperless office as prophesized.
They also show why universities are not just places where you take courses and degrees such that they can be replaced by online universities but places where you partake in the liesure needed for learning and the community interactions needed for developing good social skils as well as shared 'dialogical' learning.
They also explain why startups and home-offices fail and why IT has lead to agglomeration and not small enterprise. They state that there is a great deal of 'tacit' or hidden learning in a workplace that is not possible in a home office.
Other chapters discuss other issues like nature of problem solving, nature of 'knowledge ecologies' etc.
While this book won't 'open your mind' if you are basically level-headed, it will certainly correct any one-sided opinions that get formed by listening more often to one-side of the debate repeated ad nauseam in media.
 The Social Life of Information September 16, 2005
5 out of 7 found this review helpful
John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid present an interesting look into the future relationships of technology and social life. The book is aptly titled, "The Social Life of Information," and delivers on a promise to study the past, present and future of information. Brown and Duguid point out early on that as a society we often feel that technology will replace the need for social contact at work and at play. However, they also point out that specific users rarely experience this. In fact, they argue at several points throughout the book that just the opposite is true, humans need social contact for work and play.
The book is filled with real world examples of how new inventions and workplace improvements would never have happened without social contact between employees. The authors make the point that using technology to work from home may actually take more time and money. You have no human technical support available at home and may spend several hours trying to fix a problem that a coworker could fix in a matter of minutes. In an office setting most people would ask a friend if they had ever encountered a similar problem before calling IT. More often than not, this is how technical problems are fixed in an office. Without this "social life" the information is much harder and more expensive to obtain.
The authors do not say that technology will have no effect on business in the future; in fact they believe there will be significant changes to how we do business because of technology. They do however make the point that information is often more successfully passed on and understood in a social setting. Their main contention is that no amount of improved technology will replace workers sitting and talking to each other.
This book was overall a good read, if not a bit slow at times. If you are interested in information technology and how that will affect the future office, this is a great book to read. If you are looking for a page-turner that will entertain you from start to end, you may want to reconsider. I believe this book to be a great resource for college students, especially graduate students in the IT or telecom fields. I did not feel the book was particularly well written or interesting for those outside of the field.
Excellent shape! July 16, 2005
0 out of 24 found this review helpful
The book arrived in time for my class. It's in excellent shape and the price was more than fair!
 The worst psuedo-intellectualism I have read in ages March 23, 2005
11 out of 21 found this review helpful
This book is the worst form of psuedo-intellectualism I have read in a long time. It is chock full of unexamined philosophical pretensions that anyone even remotely schooled in philosophy let alone educational theory would shudder before. This is a book of jargon for people that want philosophy without tears. Fundamental distinctions between cognition, learning, information, knowledge etc. are just thrown out onto the page like onions chipped into a frying pan. Unabashed by history, the book blithely sails past whole continents of philosophical work. The work seems torn between recommending more online interaction (information retrieval) and less of it with a few chants about the importance social contact slipped in as a chorus. Overall it fails by trying to be all things to all people while never offering an proper critique of technology and its social impact. Can't afford to offend the multinationals here. Possibly goood journalism.
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