Dynamic interaction in organizations is facilitated--created and maintained--by electronic or digital technology, a variety of information, communication, and collaboration (ICCT) systems. Our work environment is a blend of people and technology that demands that workers have a reasonable control over their work environments, devising the processes by which they make decisions and complete tasks in a collaborative manner. Workers must have appropriate autonomy while workplaces must be adaptive and flexible to workers needs and the tasks to be completed.
Organizations are information processing ecologies, knowledge generating networks, practical wisdom applying communities.
Laptops, iPods and Blackberries are about mobile computing, about “all-the-time,” “anytime,” continuous information flow and connectivity. The heart of Twitter and Facebook is social networking and the sharing of experiences. Adobe Connect and Cisco’s telepresence system strive to establish person-to-person “real time” encounters.
Digital information and communication technology is no longer about “pushing data.” Its purpose is to create dynamic conversations and relationships that enable collaboration and knowledge generation, thus forming an evolving system of critical reflection, dialogue, learning, innovation, and application.
Both the 21st century civic community and organization have become intelligent cyber-socio webs. Each are interdependent “sociotechnical networks of networks” forming constellations of individuals, teams, organizations, and governments interacting and achieving tasks via ICCT. Civic communities are not just citizens communicating with their neighbors “down the street” about local issues. Nor is the contemporary workforce merely employed men and women using ICCT tools. Both are the seamlessly weaving of people and technology into systems—knowledge generating and collaborative problem solving ecologies with specific identities able to accomplish tasks and create change.
Focusing on for-profit and nonprofit organizations, Organizations as Sociotechnological Systems, critically explores:
Laptops, iPods and Blackberries are about mobile computing, about “all-the-time,” “anytime,” continuous information flow and connectivity. The heart of Twitter and Facebook is social networking and the sharing of experiences. Adobe Connect and Cisco’s telepresence system strive to establish person-to-person “real time” encounters.
Digital information and communication technology is no longer about “pushing data.” Its purpose is to create dynamic conversations and relationships that enable collaboration and knowledge generation, thus forming an evolving system of critical reflection, dialogue, learning, innovation, and application.
Both the 21st century civic community and organization have become intelligent cyber-socio webs. Each are interdependent “sociotechnical networks of networks” forming constellations of individuals, teams, organizations, and governments interacting and achieving tasks via ICCT. Civic communities are not just citizens communicating with their neighbors “down the street” about local issues. Nor is the contemporary workforce merely employed men and women using ICCT tools. Both are the seamlessly weaving of people and technology into systems—knowledge generating and collaborative problem solving ecologies with specific identities able to accomplish tasks and create change.
Focusing on for-profit and nonprofit organizations, Organizations as Sociotechnological Systems, critically explores:
- The nature of sociotechnical systems.
- The dynamics of electronic information ecologies.
- The designing of knowledge management and communities of practice in global organizations.
- The potential of social media.
- The characteristics and human ramifications of 24/7 connectivity.
- How digital technology is reshaping the human person, the way we socialize and communicate, and how enterprises self-organize to achieve their missions.
So, as we begin this exploration, why are you interested in this notion of sociotechnical systems, and what are concepts, phenomena, or questions you want to explore?
This is my very first blogging experience and I am so proud.
ReplyDeleteReading your suggestions for reflective questions for our journal, I thought of a comment my supervisor once made about negative email messages. His position speaks somewhat to your question about when technological applications might be dehumanizing and counter-productive. He refers dissent by way of email as "a coward's way out" and strongly discourages their use for this purpose. He insists that if something is important enough to say, it should be said directly - at least via a phone call.
As a human services professional I am interested in the potential digital technology holds for connecting families and communities with shared interests or and/challenges for the purpose of exchanging ideas and solutions. I am also personally interested in the potential social media holds for helping me accomplish my professional goal of building a successful consulting business.
This is my last semester of course-work so I will be thinking about ways sociotechnical systems thinking relates to my dissertation topic which has to do with how and if communication, creativity and teamwork can be enhanced in work-groups through participation in arts-based activities. I have developed a number of work-shops based on this question. They work quite well in person. I wonder how I might make them as effective electronically? I have learned that an enormous amount of non-verbal communication is exchanged in face to face encounters. So my question is, how can I provide meaningful, on-line workshops? How might I, as a workshop leader, and group members access the non-verbal information they would exchange in person? I followed the link in your blog to Cisco's Telepresence system (the Jetson's have arrived) and wonder if that might be a useful tool.
Obviously, there is much to explore and discover.
I just watched the videos for Polycom and Cisco telepresencing services and all of the other videos in the two sections before. I am speechless. I feel as if I have been completely asleep in my shoes.
ReplyDeleteYes there is much to explore and discover. I had no idea how much - probably still don't.
Hey CPiazza,
ReplyDeleteHope you are well and happy.
I just found your blog on a website I visited looking for shoes made sustainably by people in Columbia, South America. A colleague wore a pair to a meeting and I must have a pair...or two...or three. I signed up to follow the site so I can request my size in the style and want and there you are. I, on the other hand, am no longer asleep in my shoes. I may be a bit overwhelmed by the vast aray of options available to me in anything I might think of, but no longer asleep.
Great to find you!
idealist