Fluidity recognizes the highly flexible or permeableboundaries of OCs, where it is hard to figure out whois in the community and who is outside (Preece et al.2004) at any point in time, let alone over time. Theyare adaptive in that they change as the attention, actions,and interests of the collective of participants change overtime. Many individuals in an OC are at various stagesof exit and entry that change fluidly over time.
Evokes boundary objects and boundary infrastructures.
In knowledge work, several related factors sug-gest the need to reconceptualize coordination.
Complex knowledge work coordination demands attention to how coordination is managed, as well as what (content) and when (temporality).
"This distinction becomes increasingly important in complex knowledge work where there is less reliance on formal structure, interdependence is changing, and work is primarily performed in teams."
Traditional theories of coordination are not entirely relevant to fast-response teams who are more flexible, less formally configured and use more improvised decision making mechanisms.
These more flexible groups also are more multi-disciplinary communities of practice with different epistemic standards, work practices, and contexts.
"Thus, because of differences in perspectives and interests, it becomes necessary to provide support for cross-boundary knowledge transformation (Carlile 2002)."
Evokes boundary objects/boundary infrastructure issues.
Under the stress of the situation, with too many peopledoing too many things at once, the socio-technical infrastructure that underliestheirwork practice wasbreaking down. Star and Ruhleder [25] explain that infrastructure becomes visible only at these points of breakdown. Volunteers directedtheir attention to their social configuration as the critical infrastructure here (the technical infrastructure remains take
Evokes Star's work on the invisibility of boundary infrastructure until a breakdown.
In this section of the paper we broach two aspects of this articulation issue, onefocusing on the management of workflow, the other on the construction and manage-ment of what we term a ‘common information space’. The former concept has beenthe subject of discussion for some time, in the guise of such terms as office automa-tion and more recently, workflow automation. The latter concept has, in our view,been somewhat neglected, despite its critical importance for the accomplishmentof many distributed work activities
A quick scan of ACM library papers that tag "articulation work" seems to indicate the "common information space" problem still has not attracted a lot of study. This could be a good entry point for my work with CSCW because time cuts across both workflow and information space.
Nicely bundles boundary infrastructure, sense-making and distributed work
Resistance Realily is 'that which resists,' according to Latour's (1987) Pragmatistinspired definition. The resistances thal designers and users encounter will change lhc ubiquitous networks of classifications and standards. Although convergence may appear at times to create an inescapable cycle of feedback and verification, the very multiplicity of people, things and processes involved mean lhat they are never locked in for all time.
Questioning the infrastructural inversion via ubiquity, material and texture, history, and power shapes the visibility and invisibility of the infrastructure that society creates for itself.
Infrastructure and Method: Convergence These ubiquitous, textured dai;sifications and standards help frame our representation of the past and the sequencing of event� in the present. They (:an best be understood as doing the ever local, ever partial work of making it appear that science describes nature (and nature alone) and that politics is about social power (and social power alone).
"Standards, categories, technologies, and phenomenology are increasingly converging in large-scale information infrastructure." (p. 47)
Convergence gets to how things work out as "scaffolding in the conduct of modern life."
Practical Politics �1 ·he fourch major theme is uncovering the practical politics of classifying awl standardizing. 'fhi<; is the de.sign end of the spectrum of investigating categories and standards as technologies. There are two processes associated with these politics: arriving at categories and standards, and, along the way, deciding what will be visible or invisible within the system.
Politics, as in power dynamics, leadership, negotiation, and decision-making authority, play a role in determining how classifications and standards infrastructures are perceived as visible/invisible.
The Indeterminacy of the Past: Multiple Times, Multiple Voices The third methodological theme concerns ihe f1asl as indetc,rr,1inate. 10 We are constantly revising our knowledge of the past in light of new developments in the present.
Visibility can be obtained by peeling back the history of the infrastructure -- how it began, how it was added to, how it changed/adapted over time.
Looking back in time also provides an opportunity to consider how different people/perspectives influenced the infrastructure. Who was vocal? Who was silent? Who was silenced?
Materiality and Texture The second methodological departure point is that. classifications and standards are material, as well as symbolic.
Another way to make infrastructures visible is to envision their physical presence (materiality) and texture (experience).
Metaphors play an important role here.
This categorical saturation furthermore forms a complex web. Although it is possible to pull out a single dassilication scheme or standard for reference purposes, in reality none of them stand alone. So a subproperty of ubiquity is interdependence, ,md frequently, integration. A systems approach might see the proliferation of both standards and classilications as purely a matter of integration-almost like a gigantic web of interoperability. Yet the sheer density of these phenomena go beyond questions of interoperability. They are layered, tangled, textured; they interact lo form an ecology as well as a flat set of compatibilities.
Ubiquitous classifications and standards are also interdependent and integrated, thus creating complex systems that work but the components of which tend to be invisible.
Example: Other classifications when the phenomena/object don't fit elsewhere or the "cumulative mess trajectory" which occurs when categories and standards interact in messy ways
Ubiquity The first major theme is the ubiquity of classifying and standardizing. Classification schemes and standards literally saturate our environment.
Methodological themes for infrastructural inversion -- how to make the invisible visible
A definition of infrastructure
Definition of infrastructure
This chapter offers four themes, methodological points of departure for the analysis of these complex relationships. Each theme operates as a gestalt switch-it comes in the form of an i11fras/:ruclural inversion (Bowker 1994). This inversion is a struggle against the tendency of infrastructure to disappear (except when breaking down). Tt means learning to look closely at technologies and arrangements that, by design and hy habit, tend to fade into the woodwork (sometimes literally!). Infrastructural inversion means recognizing the depths of interdependence of technical networks and standards, on the one hand, and the real work of politics and knowledge production8 on the other.
Definition of infrastructural inversion
How normally invisible structures become visible (gestalt -- whole is perceived as more than the sum of its parts) when there is a breakdown
Infrastructures are never transparent for everyone, ancl lheir '\\•orkabilit y as they scale up becomes increasingly complex. Through due methodological attention to the architecture and use of these syslems, we can achieve a deeper understanding of how it is that individuals and communities meet infrastructure. ·we know that this means, at Lhe leasl, an understanding of infraslructure that includes these points:
Cited verbatim from book:
Information infrastrucLUre is a tricky thing to analyze_l; Good, usable systems disappear almost by deiinition. The easier they arc lo use, the harder they are to see.
The invisibility of infrastructure
Table 1.1 A definition of infrastructure
Definition of infrastructure
This categorical saturation furthermore forms a complex web. Although it is possible to pull out a single classification scheme or standard for reference purposes, in reality none of them stand alone. So a_ subproperty of ubiquity is interdependence, and frequently, integrat10n. A systems approach might see the proliferation of both standards and classifications as purely a matter of integration-almost like a gigantic web of interoperability. Yet the sheer density of these phenomena go beyond questions of interoperability. They are layered, tangled, textured; they interact to form an ecology as well as a flat set of compatibilities.
Ubiquitous classifications and standards are also interdependent and integrated, thus creating complex systems that tend to be invisible.
Example: Other classifications when the phenomena/object don't fit elsewehre or the "cumulative mess trajectory" which occurs when categories and standards interact in messy ways
Ubiquity __ The first major theme is the ubiquity of classifying and standardmng. Classification schemes and standards literally saturate our environment.
Methodological themes for infrastructural inversion -- how to make the invisible visible
This chapter offers four themes, methodological points of departure for the analysis of these complex relationships. Each theme operates as a gestalt switch-it comes in the form of an infrastructural inversion (Bowker 1994). This inversion is a struggle against the tendency of infrastructure to disappear (except when breaking down). It means learning to look closely at technologies and arrangements that, by design and by habit, tend to fade into the woodwork (sometimes literally!). Infrastructural inversion means recognizing the depths of interdependence of technical networks and standards, on the one hand, and the real work of politics and knowledge production8 on the other.
Definition of infrastructural inversion
How normally invisible structures become visible (gestalt -- whole is perceived as more than the sum of its parts) when there is a breakdown
Infrastructures are never transparent for everyone, and their workability as they scale up becomes increasingly complex. Through due methodological attention to the architecture and use of these systems, we can achieve a deeper understanding of how it is that individuals and communities meet infrastructure. We know that this means, at the least, an understanding of infrastructure that includes these points:
Cited verbatim from book:
• A historical process of development of many tools, arranged for a wide variety of users and made to work in concert • A practical match among routines of work practice, technology, and wider scale organizational and technical resources • A rich set of negotiated compromises ranging from epistemology to data entry that are both available and transparent to communities of users • A negotiated order in which all of the above, recursively, can function together.
Information infrastructure is a tricky thing to analyze.6 Good, usable systems disappear almost by definition. The easier they are to use, the harder they are to see. As well, most of the time, the bigger they are, the harder they are to see.
The invisibility of infrastructure