Flipping thoughts

Two days of not writing, and a mini sized crisis of confidence...
And then some thinking that came in on a tangent :)

I'd been reading Tatnall, A., & Davey, B. (2003). An actor network approach to informing clients through portals. Issues in Informing Science and Information Technology, 771-779.
Their very clear description of a network described from the perspective, primarily, of those creating the change, who happen to be service providers, had me do a flip on my thinking.
I was spot on way back when i thought the mobile was an obligatory passage point (in ANT speak). I just was unable to make it fit because i was coming at it from the wrong direction. AND was unable to hold that point of tension because of the multiple OPPs involved, which could all be explained in a pre and after Ant way.
ANT has been criticised for its management centred approach and i was blind to the bias as it resided within me. I knew the options for counselling made it far from obligatory...until today.
Turning this on its head I get this:
From the users perspective; the text format on the mobile is an OPP as its "use this or we dont talk."
Its the users who are binding the other actors into place.
Text counselling wasnt the first choice of counsellors, the organisation or its techy people.
Here's an example of an organisation that prides itself on its responsiveness to its target group...and inside of this is an example where the target gp even tho it never meets and has no 'leader' , and only has artefacts, or one-on-one conversations, is driving a change. Even where there is voice given to their concern, its created by users... This is a pretty unique experience in change theory. Unique in actor-network worlds also by putting the focus on the users in the network. It is relational and the change might be seen as initiated more by the ebb than the flow.
Worth following up a bit more Clay Shirkey in Here comes everybody, of how social media used in this way is shaping those it connects.

Working with a primarily volunteer / not for profit organisation, and with a service claiming to be responsive to its consumer group, challenges the conventional thinking on how change occurs.

Seems so obvious in hindsight...

How to win friends and influence people; an Ant rant.

If you want to change what your boss believes, or the strategy your company is following, the first step is to figure out how to be the best informed person in the room(Seth Godin, 2009).

Seth Godin's approach on being willfully ignorant or aggressively skeptical is useful up to a point; being well informed helps, but of itself its not enough. What would take this a bit further is a consideration for the type of knowledge needed.

The type of knowledge is important. Actor-network provides a structured approach, as do many other theories, but central to this approach is a focus on relational knowledge; what it is that maintains what is, and in knowing this, there is scope for knowing that things might always be otherwise.

In looking at change, what's not so helpful, and could be considered offensive even, is an approach that is trivial, and neglects the multiplicity involved.
An informed, multilevel analysis broadens the options; being the best informed person in the room means understanding the network at play.

Entice me with lies.

The capacity to consider change during, rather than before and after, is a challenge.
To compare before with after is, in contrast easy.
I've taken on a PhD researching change as it progresses, and sometimes it doesn't (the change that is). Sometimes things change and I barely notice as the small shifts have unrecognised impact.

Reading Clay Shirkey's blog on newspapers and thinking the unthinkable suggests some very ANT like insights on change. (I find it useful to see ant like analysis everwhere, it helps me convince myself I'm progressing my PhD)

It's never one thing that makes it all happen. The printing press did not of itself, change the world. An enormous amount of other work was also going on.
Shirky refers to Elizabeth Eisenstein's The Printing Press as an Agent of Change. An analysis informed by ANT would suit her approach: “How did we get from the world before the printing press to the world after it? What was the revolution itself like?”
A similar question to my own- in using emergent technologies in a telephone counselling agency, how are those involved shaped and shaping?
Taking Callon's 1998 approach with ant, the printing press revolution can be identified by stages identified as Translation:
1. Problematizing: if reading is good, then being able to do this without needing to wait for others to read it to you must be better; how then to make this a possibility? Make the making of printed matter smaller, faster ...
2. Interessment: others need locking in to make this happen, there's a need for push and pull, a negotiation with others, and not just of human actors but also of technology.
3. Enrolment involves actors accepting positions to make such change occur
4. Mobilisation; an assemblage of the social that works; oil based ink, compatable with paper rather than parchment, and with the movable print molds from metal alloys rather than carved in wood or stone... People also need mobilising, there would be no value in a press without a growing literacy in the middle classes...

At this point it is really necessary to restate that neither Guttenberg- credited with the invention, nor the invention itself happened in isolation, there's a network at play within which they were situated. Further work was required to maintain the change, the expectations do not rise in and of themselves. What sustained the change was sometimes small; literally. The ability to make a book small enough to carry...

And here's where modern day change similarly could learn from a past.
In telephone counselling, the landline is no longer a prime means of communicating. Young people are using mobiles, cell phones. And in this there are other actors at play; the cost of a call is significantly higher than the cost of text. Having limited income, the young person then develops a way of relating that is text based, they get used to it, it becomes the first option and the preferred option. This is sustained even when the receiver pays the cost of the communication transaction.
At this point it gets really interesting, because the small changes, being mobile with a phone, having cheaper text than calls, create a revolutionary moment for the 'old' system; how to meet young people where they are at in the medium they they are choosing to use. And what does this do in terms of reshaping those involved?

The argument that Shirkey makes is that when old stuff gets broken down faster than new stuff can be put in its place lends itself to experimentation, and more than this, experimentation based on plausible promises if one reads Here comes everbody. However in this blogpost, he instead refers to the demand for lies. Its as if we know that we dont know where this is going, so promise me that its going to be good; entice me with lies as i know you also don't know where this might lead. However, agreements with stakeholders need to be firmed up...'this is a change in name only', 'its the same but different', 'its only a tool', if we dont like it we can go back to what was'....such lies minimize the anxieties involved, and allow for movement forward. Its as if they create a keel for plowing through uncharted waters. Dont rock my boat ...keep things on an even keel...
From Clay Shirky:

That is what real revolutions are like. The old stuff gets broken faster than the new stuff is put in its place. The importance of any given experiment isn’t apparent at the moment it appears; big changes stall, small changes spread. Even the revolutionaries can’t predict what will happen. Agreements on all sides that core institutions must be protected are rendered meaningless by the very people doing the agreeing. (Luther and the Church both insisted, for years, that whatever else happened, no one was talking about a schism.) Ancient social bargains, once disrupted, can neither be mended nor quickly replaced, since any such bargain takes decades to solidify.
And so it is today. When someone demands to know how we are going to replace newspapers, they are really demanding to be told that we are not living through a revolution. They are demanding to be told that old systems won’t break before new systems are in place. They are demanding to be told that ancient social bargains aren’t in peril, that core institutions will be spared, that new methods of spreading information will improve previous practice rather than upending it. They are demanding to be lied to.

A last lie; here's Frodo helping ailsa write a thesis :)

Witnessing 'withness'

Getting digital with counselling
Auckland Youthline is a youth counselling agency that has in recent times begun using digital formats such as sms messaging, email and social networking sites to provide avenues for counselling. The intent in transitioning to 'new' media is described by the CEO of this organisation as meeting with young people in the places they are in. It is this 'withness' I want to tell of.

There is 'withness' that involves the philsophical intent between agency and its members, being with is also a counselling inherent in the therapeutic relationship of counsellor and counsellee, there is also 'withness' of each of these parties with the instruments required in conveying a message. And 'withness involving the curious melding of old with new, getting 'with' the times. In this research such times are a changing with a counselling approach historically based within an oral tradition being melded into a digital text based one.

The underlying concept of withness is outlined by Nick Bingham (2009). He describes his interest as stemming from coexistence, ideas of being with. To engage with coexistence he described storied research from different domains: Technology where technological praxis involves coexistence of protocols; Ecology in species more classically involving social science in inter-ethnic notions of peaceful coexistence. His own research is of GM in agriculture that explores the ways in which legislative and practices make it possible for GM and non-GM coexistence without contamination. Interrogating the practices of these domains, he argues, involves getting to grips with the specificity of the domains and of 'withness'.

In looking at change, the concept of 'withness' is somewhat neglected. The literature such as that of E M Rogers in Diffusion of Innovation explores newness by focusing on the something old as superceded, but whats brought forward, transitioned with, may also be worth exploring. People come with their memories of what was, they do not leave these at the door as it were.

I'll hold this thought for a while, the exploration and performance of withness...

Twitter changes

This post is in response to the TED talk (Feb, 2009) by Evan Williams: How Twitter's spectacular growth is being driven by unexpected users.

A summation of the 8 minute transcript- without visuals. The absence of visuals alters whats involved in the tedtalk; take into account that live feeds of tweet are an aspect that a transcript doesnt show, and interestingly graphics associated are ironic given twitter is not a picture oriented medium.

4 years ago on the ted stage i announced a company ODEo, raised venture capital and hired an engineer called Jack Dorsey, and a year later when deciding which way to go with ODEO Jack presented an idea he had been tinkering with for around with for a number of years around sending simple status updates to friends and we put two and two together and early 2006 launched twitter as a side product (had earlier launched blogger as a side product and it took over my life, so i learned to follow hunches even though cant really justify them or know where they are going to go.) Twitter based on a very simple seemingly trivial concept, you say what yu want to say in 140 characters or less, and people interested in you get those updates, and if there really interested in you they will get it on cell ph. in my case 60,000 people receive message in seconds sharing of momentus or mundane moments, sharing these moments as theyre happening despite distance and in real time, what we didnt anticipate were many other uses that would eveolve from this very simple system, eg during real time events, eg wildfires San Diego Oct 2007, people turned to twitter to find out what was happening, neighbours, but not just individuals LA times even dispensed with an rss feed, 100s and 1000s around the world then follow coz they want to know what its like to be here. There is also businesses eg to an insanely pop korean bbq truck as to where it will stop....47 members of congress, president himself most popular twitterer, even in presidential circles...originally designed as a broadcast medium, you send one message and it goes out to everyone, one of many ways users shaped was inventing a way to respond eg syntax @ailsa...and we didnt invent this or write this in, the users did, and they have shaped another is through api , it further, writing currently we know of 2000 applications interface either mac or windows, iphone or blackberry or even a baby when it kicks or a plant twitter when its thirsty.

Twitter search engines, an incredible resource to find out about any topic or event while its going on. We liked this so much we bought the company and built it into the main one of my favourites was following a gas shortage in Atlanta, appending a specific tag to allow others to search and to find out... a trend of people using it to help each other out, whether raising money or keeping contacts. Seems when you give people easier ways to share information, more good things happen. I have no idea what will happen next with twitter, I have learnt to follow the hunch but never assume where it will go.

As a story of change there are some fascinations here; change happens in tinkering, is iterative, is altered by users and designers, comes out of a history, the seemingly trivial can yield significance, whats designed differs from what is, whats envisaged differs from what is, shaped in practice...and that where things will go to is known retrospectively rather than in advance.
In contrast with conventional change theory wisdom such as that proposed in E. M Rogers diffusion of innovation text, it is evident that:
Technology is not so much diffused as infused; altering what it touches and in turn is also altered.
Unanticipated second level effects can be as powerful or more powerful than the expected or first level effects.
The myth of early adopters doesnt get a look in here; rather than who or how it is pushed is its perceived usefulness whether or not such planned usefulness was a factor or not.
Being connected or having a sense of this appears to matter to people. As Evan Williams notes here, having more means of communicating seems to make good things happen.

On power, durability, resistance and survival in a climate of change

Bruno Latour writes

Strenght does not come from concentration, purity and unity, but
from dissemination, heterogeneity and the careful plaiting of weak ties.
This feeling that resistance, obduracy and sturdiness is more easily
achieved through netting, lacing, weaving, twisting, of ties that are weak
by themselves, and that each tie, no matter how strong, is itself woven out
of still weaker threads, permeates for instance Foucault's analysis of
micro-powers as well as recent sociology of technology. But the less
intuitive philosophical basis for accepting an ANT is a
background/foreground reversal: instead of starting from universal laws
-social or natural- and to take local contingencies as so many queer
particularities that should be either eliminated or protected, it starts
from irreducible, incommensurable, unconnected localities, which then, at a
great price, sometimes end into provisionnaly commensurable connections.

This is a reminder to me that 'power' is not something to curl up and die in the face of...its made of little things. Its not nebulous, its not plaited ropes of sand.

I am reminded, again, of my background in critical social theory, and how to reconcile this with the descriptive form of actor- network theory. Here I have it. Power is plaited.

The man who writes to the masters of Pig Island
about the love they dread
plaits ropes of sand
but i was born among them
and someday will lie amngst their dead

James K Baxter (New Zealand poet)

Phd's: an act of faith or congealed labor

'think of technology as congealed labor' so says Latour (1994) On technical mediation - Philosophy, sociology, geneology. Common knowledge, 3(2), 29-65.

I am thinking how naive I ever was to think I might study change and understand how change occurs. My insight now is that I/we can only ever have limited knowledge.
What I might know is only what i can congeal at that moment. What at a particular time is held together. In looking I observe more, I broaden a picture, but there's always more, the traces are never fully made. And I suspect some of the traces I make might be seen by others as distractions or only loosely connected. The researcher is always situated. What brings me to this?
The path of being a Phd student is anything but straight. The iterative processes have me doubting my purpose and any end product. I sense that I might lose myself in navel gazing but for a willingness to consider a Phd as an act of faith made real; A pragmatic piece of work thats done when its done.

"I rely on many delegated actions that themselves make me do things on behalf of
others who are no longer here and that I have not elected and the course of whose
existence I cannot even retrace."

Latour (1994)
Taking this further; when i think i am acting, more than just me is acting, I am a product too of past and current actors, as are others involved, both human and otherwise. I might be able to say of the actors I identify, that they had such and such an influence, but even in this my sight will be limited to what I am able to perceive and uncover.
To use another of Latours analogies; at any time, some parts of the cloth will be more, and less, uncovered.

Studying change; thriving on the happenstance of smoke and mirrors

Part of the joys in researching are the times when the really interesting stuff comes up.
Its not when there's a formal interview happening, so there's no ipod recording it, no notes taken. Seems it happens when the researcher is out of the room. Reminds me of a great little film, kitchen stories.
There are tantalizing snippets left on a whiteboard where the agenda covered seems to indicate an area of interest to me, but which i know nothing of; not why its there or how or whta it means... And where conversations rush in with we thought of.... but the 'we' is never clarified so i dont know who or where/when. Seems its all done with mirrors and smoke.

And then there's happenstance.

"I'm glad to see you, i/we have been thinking about ... instant chat messaging, msn, we had looked at ... but its not... and also at skype but its... and ..."

aaargh i've already forgotten why it cant and why this is better, but it is, and young people are using msn and...

"and looking at skype with icam and coz its similar to f2f and i think a charge but others ...could you look at .... would you be interested in ...and ... developing guide material for this..."

Being a researcher creates its own interference.
And I'm studying change, but its not in an interview and its sudden and out of left field...
the stuff of change seems to unfold around me, not when its being recorded in a formal research moment, but in the day to day stuff. I'm dropping off something and get called over,
"i wanted to tell you about, ask you..."

Theres stuff happening, and I trip over it or into it by happenstance, and am then looped in.
My sense is that it's spur of the moment, I'm here, your available, and its your interest area, what do you think and can you....

Might also be relevant with what Johansson, F. (2006) describes in The Medici effect. What elephants and epidemics can teach us about innovation. He talks of making innovation happen by going intersection hunting, creating opportunities for intersection or combination effects.
I suspect in studying change, its also about spotting those intersection crashes as they occur.

Yesterday was my first acute awareness of an intersection collision
:)
I'm feeling bumped into, small dent, and am bumping back
And again I am thankful that I have a methodology (ANT) that gives space to my own interference.

Early adopter wants to meet like minded other

My partner told me he is an early adopter.
I laughed.
He attempted to convince me....he had a mac in the mid 80's, he belonged to a local internet group of like minded others....obviously he was at the forefront of technologies.
I laughed.
I'm surprised I still have a partner.
He has never learnt how to use the dishwasher, programme the clock on the microwave or use any function on the oven. All digitally enhanced technologies.

At least one of us is selectively deluded methinks.
The language of change theory continues to be uncritically accepted, but being an 'early adopter' is neither permanent nor a pervasive trait.

Nor is being a laggard :)
He managed to load and turn on the dryer yesterday.
The sun is shining and I'm still laughing :)

sustaining change in the hinterland

I have been (re)reading John Law(2004) After method; Mess in social science research.
He argues for a reconstruction/deconstruction of current research methods. In doing this he also identifies how in science

"statements do not idly freewheel in mid-air, or drop from heaven. They come from somewhere....but without support from other statements or inscriptions of an appropriate provenance they do not go very far. So we might put it this way; if a statement is to last it needs to draw on- and perhaps contribute to- an appropriate hinterland. "

He then elaborates further describing elements in this hinterland:
A part of the hinterland of a statement is other related statements. Is it consistent with these? Do they tend to support it? If the answer is yes' then they tend to add to its authority...or toare there inscriptions that endorse or support such as might be emboddied in figures etc to which such statements might be compared and where such a relationship between ideas or inscriptions tend to reinforce one another. When this is the case the authority of a statement increases. Where this is not the case the statement is likely to enter the limbo of the might have beens.

I was thinking he could have been explaining the acceptance or not of ideas more widely.
He might have extended this to change generally.
It got me thinking of Freud (Ok, maybe i need to get out more...and I am pretty sure Law would be surprised by such an outcome for his work also). However, Freud initially accepted the stories of his clients of sexual abuse and it was only after the disparaging reception in a hinterland of disbelief and impossibility that his views changed and he developed theory relating to 'hysterical women'.

Maybe it takes a readiness in the hinterland for an idea to take hold and grow, its very difficult to sustain when there is no support for it. Similarly sustaining a new practice needs scaffolding of support...

There's the moment in the youtube video of web 2.0 where a nest is being built and it seems any sustained change is like this, it requires attachment and stability provided by other like minded or ready minded.
As Leadbetter says in his video, ideas take life when they are shared (what he doesnt say is that only when the sharing occurs in a ready hinterland where it can get a purchase on others- or on other things).
"Its like building a birdsnest where everyone leaves their piece" 'cept the material semiotics of what the bird, the birds partner, the twigs, trees, technologies, wind, rain, storm or sunshine, airplanes, food sources, local industry... are doing also need to be included. Hence an argument for taking an ANT approach to get a better understanding and a possibility for deliberately effecting change.

communities of practice

Having spent Saturday morning with Etienne Wenger, I can see that there are areas of compatibility and difference with actor-network theory.
This post identifies some relevant to the 'community of practice' I am involved with in my doctoral studies; a youth telephone counselling agency utilising text messaging.

There are compatibilities.
Shaping of people, identity formation happens in relationship.
Maintaining a community of practice takes work.
A community of practice is 'most interesting' when confounded.

There are also substantive differences:
There is no consideration given to non human actors. Semiotic relationality is limited to shaping people and does not consider the influence of non human entities whether technological, or of place.
The theory regarding community of practice is restricted to the learning environment rather than all assemblies that shape. In assembling the social, there is so much more learning that happens in hap hazard ways.

I recall reading of communities of practice when doing my Masters thesis (A Philosophical analysis of community care)and at that time was hit by the rosy glow effusing; a saturation of warmth emanated from such communities, and at the time this was far from my experience of community (where an absence of care seemed to be in ascendance politically, though I acknowledge my analysis is contestable).
Etienne openly acknowledging the validity of earlier critique identifying that communities are not necessarily warm or embracing places.
He also engaged in discussing a dissertation he had recently been involved with where the notion of community of practice for learning was argued as being amoral. This evolved into a discussion of identity formation. How we might be influenced or shaped also occurs in choosing to distance oneself from a community. How free we are to choose being an interesting debate that reminded me of Sartre's philosophical questions. Latour I imagine would respond that the influence needs to be tangible, connections, even if fleeting or via secondary sources still needs to connect, need to be traceable.

More recently I had read Wenger, E., McDermott, R., & Snyder, w. (2002) Cultivating communities of practice. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.
I enjoyed the way they describe how knowledge 'sticks' to practice in unexpected ways (p152). That knowledge can have difficulties crossing boundaries of practice even within an organisation. The tendency for practitioners to stick to their own kind- and the resulting 'stickiness' of knowledge itself, apparently explains why knowledge brokers are so important in organisations that depend on combining knowledge from different domains (p.251).
However, I am not convinced that 'knowledge brokers' are not just another morphing of the notions of change theory where people are seen as holding stable attributions such as being an early adopter etc. They cite a reference on this from Hargadon and Sutton, 1997, Technology Brokering and innovation in a product development firm (Administrative Science Quarterly 42, no 4; 716-749.) The language of innovation from E. M. Rogers is pervasive.
I like how they name knowledge as sticking in unexpected ways. I agree. I'm just not convinced that its because of any inherent stickiness of knowledge. (As with technology, so too with knowledge, neither have their own trajectory.)
I would argue that practices or performances do stick, but there are assemblages that make it more or less likely that these are sustained.

They also describe knowledge as 'leaky' where it flows easily within a practice, even interorganisationally. Again, I think Latour and Law and others, nail this in assembling the social, assemblages make it more or less likely.

The community of practice argument is that boundary crossing can be a scene of deep learning. Radically new insights and developments often arise at the boundaries between communities. Something very creative can take place in the meeting. Extending on the idea put forward that boundaries are learning assets in their own right as argued by Wenger, McDermott and Snyder (p. 153) I suggest this is because the assemblage is altered. Things can always be / always are different.

Turn and face the strain

I've chosen to turn and face the strain even though I'm not clear on what Bowie means on tracing time.
In rereading Aramis; the love of technology the tracing of what is the murder of a good idea/project could be deemed a 'learning opportunity'.
From a counselling perspective it may even be cathartic.

To this end I explore: What does it take to kill a good thing?
Seems timely to look at changes; so I'll turn and face the strain.

According to John law, it's simple: work holding it together stops.
Doing one's own thing quietly could be blamed, not making a fuss could be blamed.
Staying below the radar contributes.

Retrospectively its possible to recognize that a lack of resourcing comes from a lack of actors. As they peel away, the project dies. Its not economics. Its not politics.
Latour points to these excuses as just that, excuses. Excuses for not doing depth sociology, where naming forces becomes shorthand to not probing deeper. The big explanations are used precisely because there is disinterest; because responsibility is being avoided.
I can paraphrase this: Where there is not a will, there is not a way.

People make decisions. People with names. Not politics or fiscal constraints, not context, positions or offices, but people who no longer work collectively to make the thing work. The chain that binds, breaks.

Confessions to a murder are rarely forthcoming.
In the area of technologies Latour suggests there is nothing very solid, just the accumulation of little solidities, little durabilities, little resistances and a project ends up becoming gradually more solid. the converse also happens. The erosion's of actors; people leave, jump ship, those who argue for more of this without realizing the impact is less of that...and so projects become more, and less, real. Reality is polymorphus, shape shifting, changing. Actors come and go. Progressive slippage of interest is traced (retrospectively).

Latour playfully suggests looking for the mice and fairies that turn a pumpkin into a coach. I extend this; who are they that turn a coach into a pumpkin? When the disinterest starts what's done to hold on? Whats allowed, required, or given away, what's not done, undone, neglected, abandoned, what alliances have been prevented, constrained. When does love lost turn to murder, dismembering, annihilation?

A technological project is never realistic or unrealistic; it takes on reality, or loses it, by degrees.
What becomes more or less real depends on the chains...the continued generation of interest, of seduction.

In Aramis, Latour manages the convincing love story that was Mary Shelly's Frankenstein: By the virtues that I once possessed, I demand this from you. Hear my tale....you reject me? Have I not been good?...Did not all the fairies hover over my cradle...If you did not want me, why keep me alive?...If badly conceived why not conceive me again? ....why turn away...

A lack of love kills things, kills projects, is soul destroying; by degrees.
I'm left feeling that

"love lies bleeding in my hand" (Elton John, funeral for a friend)

holding on and letting go

Do an internet search for Leunigs holding on and letting go cartoon, its a special piece advising one to hold on as one might a day old chicken, or a live fish, or the queens handbag....and that letting go is a whole new area to be managed in another cartoon, another day.
In making change happen, the hype isnt enough.
No matter how evangelical the early adopters might be, this isnt enough.
No matter how sparkly the innovation, the sparkle does not create its own S shaped curved trajectory.
To make change happen in Health promotion there is a mantra about making the healthy choice, the easy choice.
Sometimes this is about letting go- recognising habits, letting go of whats comfortable, identifying goals, creating opportunities for doing things differently ...
Leunig's cartoon wisdom on how to hold on points to this.
Latour, Callon, Law all point to this. Actor network theory identifies the 'work' involved but it still seems that the letting go is often bypassed when talking about change. I have just been reading futurelab 2006 on social software and learning networks. Little regard was given to what would have to be unmade, unattached.
Looking at what maintains the status quo is as important as strategizing implementation.