Week 4: Dispersed Workplaces as Information Ecologies.

The conversation continues...

Besides being a virtual site with a vast amount of information, there are many different, yet related conversations--dynamic interactions--taking place. The conversations about telework, virtual teams, knowledge sharing, collaborating, and dispersed organizations continue, and are occurring in many places--discussion forum/water cooler, journal entries, emails, and here on the course blog.

In the discussion forum the information shared ranges from sharing about personal preferences and reflections, workplace experiences and questions, and comments, articles and websites. Students are meeting informally around a "cyberspace water cooler." The conversations are ad hoc, and open ended.

On the site as a whole, students are meeting with students--people engaging with people, not just interacting with useful data and text. They are listening to each other and sharing from their point of experience and expertise--responding from their reflection and with their practical wisdom. The course site is becoming an "warm human information place" (not just a "cold technological place"), a interactive knowledge commons rooted in human networks--relationships.

This is important for virtual teams for information--be it information about team members so they can build rapport and trust--or knowledge needed for the completion of the assigned task, must continuously flow through the teams network--communication channels, information systems, and work relationships. The virtual teams culture and structure is a information ecology and a web of knowledge generation and application.

Bonnie Nardi and Vicki O'Day (1999) in Information Ecologies: Using Technology with Heart describe information ecologies as sociotechnical (people and technology) ways of connecting people, as "a system of people, practices, values, and technologies in a particular local environment. In information ecologies, the spotlight is not on technology, but on human activities that are shared by technology....An information ecology is a complex system of parts and relationships. It exhibits diversity and experiences continual evolution. Different parts of an ecology coevolve, changing together according to the relationships in the system.... Information ecologies have a sense of locality....An information ecology begins with our own efforts to influence the shape and direction of the technologies we use and the settings in which we use them" (p. 49-51, 58).


A key notion in information ecologies as they relate to workplaces with teleworkers and virtual teams is "connections." Central to effectiveness and success is the vibrancy of the connection--ensuring that there is more than just linking and "information pushing and pulling." In today's fast-paced, agile, innovative business environment organizations have to be a web of individual and team "conversations and relationships" that share knowledge, make decisions, and act. It is people meeting with and engaging with people. Checkout Sun Microsystems current view of the workplace--the Open Workplace.

So, how are dispersed workplaces and virtual teams information ecologies? How do individuals, teams and technology form one "informing and collaborating system"? What are some of the specific characteristics of this ecology?

What do you think, and why?

Chuck Piazza