Contact:cdent@burningchrome.com
Brown, J.S. & Duguid, P. (2000). Chapter 3: Home alone. In _The social
life of information_ (p. 63-89). Boston: Harvard University
Press.
A diagnosis of why working from home has not caught on as well as
predicted by futurists and technologists. The social networks that
surround any activity, including work, cannot be ignored. Communities
and peers provide intangible benefits that must be considered and
included in plans to migrate workers out of the standard office.
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Two aspects of this chapter are disturbing:
- There is a presumption that the level of poor workmanship in
existing computer systems will remain. That for the foreseeable
future computers will need specialized knowledge to be "taken care
of".
- Migration of control of the computer to the individual is considered
an unfortunate displacement of responsibility.
In both cases a mistake is being made. If the computer is cast as
some kind of specialized super tool that needs to be coddled as a child
like a professional athlete it is misperceived. A computer is a tool.
It is supposed to perform tasks. It is supposed to perform them well.
When we have a hammer that does not work, we complain to the vendor
and buy another one. We don't blame ourselves or think it
inconsiderate. It is simply broken. Computers (actually the software
on them) as now sold are simply broken.
Maintaining a caste of computer experts who are to be responsible for
these tempestuous machines only reinforces their ability to be broken.
If control of the machines is migrated to individuals, if the computer
is popularized, it will become more and more a tool.
We see this migration in progress in the last twenty years. Someday
we'll be saying power to the people at last.
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