'This collection provides numerous and refreshing insights into the claims about the ever more proactive role of users of information and communication technologies. Through a variety of case studies, illustrating the array of theoretical frameworks available, the authors throw light upon the diverse ways in which users engage with innovations. From outlining the challenges of involving users in design, through appreciating the diverse origins and nature of user engagement with ICTs to critically commenting upon the constraints of the user experience, this book provides a welcome and useful contribution to the field.
In presenting examples from the most extensive and demanding fire in modern Swedish history, this paper describes challenges facing hastily formed networks in exceptional situations. Two concepts that have been used in the analysis of the socio-technical systems that make up a response are conversation space and sensemaking. This paper argues that a framework designed to promote understanding of the sensemaking process must take into consideration the time at which as well as the location in which an individual is engaged in an event. In hastily formed networks, location is partly mediated through physical systems that form conversation spaces of players and their interaction practices. This paper identifies and discusses four challenges to the formation of shared conversation spaces. It is based on the case study of the 2006 Bodträskfors forest fire in Sweden and draws on the experiences of organised volunteers and firefighters who participated in a hastily formed network created to combat the fire.
This paper proposes a model for describing resilience in emergency management of irregular events. The purpose of our model is to describe three parallel developments in an emergency response scenario. Namely, changes in the ongoing events processes, the actors' sensemaking and control functions, and the technologies used for sensemaking and control. Focusing on the three separate developments enables identifying resilience in the choice of control functions and technologies in response to foreseen and actual process changes, their consequences and new disturbances. Our model was created following an emergency exercise that proved to be difficult to analyse with respect to resilience using existing models. We use the exercise to illustrate and apply our model through a qualitative analysis.
This paper discusses how various actors communicate about and coordinate sea rescue activities in networks. We combine a network approach with theories of inter-organization communication to understand how communication can facilitate or limit coordination in networks. Search and rescue officers retain the overall authority to direct rescue missions, and coordination with several other professions is central to this. When coordinating different professional actors in a network it is important to develop trust, legitimacy, and a shared and uniform understanding of the situation and of how to act. Communication deficiencies often result from the fact that involved actors belong to different organizations with different cultures or representing different professions. The greatest gap we found was between those working and not working at sea, and between those habitually or seldom involved in rescue activities. Communication comprises more than simply exchanging information; it also entails the forging of relationships, to facilitate future coordination and cooperation and to develop mutual trust and understanding. In any rescue operation it is important that the actors interpret communication in the same way and act according to a shared pattern. Joint training and follow-up are important conditions for continuous learning and development in this regard.
The complexity and diversification that characterise society of today arereflected both in socio-technological systems and labour organisations but also in the renewal of the language a profession uses. The transfer of knowledge, meaning and understanding through communication between people is not neutral and unproblematic.
In the Maritime Search and Rescue Service different professionals withdifferent norms, knowledge bases and use of technology have to communicate effectively in order to be able to carry out their duties in the best way possible. The Maritime Search and Rescue (sAR) undergo big changes and the activities make great demands on co-ordination, organisational as well as geographical. The development of ICT has lead to new technology and new organisational structures being established within the former organisation.
Information and communication technologies (ICT) are a condition for the inter- and intraprofessional communication in the modem Maritime Search and Rescue Service. Its participants are found in geographical separated pockets of local order, which together creates the virtual pocket of local order of Maritime Search and Rescue organisation. ICT makes it possible to coordinate all the activities that are needed to create an order (temporary pockets of local order) at SAR operations. Further, ICT create new and big potentials for learning. They are however not yet fully used, partly because the different actors during their everyday work at the same time handles both old and new ICT. Rules and laws restrict the cooperation between the different organisations in the same virtual and local pocket of local order but the cooperation is also restricted by how ICT is used in its socio-cultural context.
Demola is both a concept and an international organization that facilitates co-creation projects between university students and companies, either locally or internationally. The network consists of various partners including universities: faculties, researcher as well as students but also of both local and international companies, and different types of agencies. The co-creative concept aims to solve real challenges where the outcome can be a new concept, a demo, or a prototype. If the partner company finds the students’ outcome useful, the company can license or purchase it, and take it for further development. The framework makes is easy for partners outside the university to cooperate with student groups. Each partner has a clear role, and the work is guided by simple procedures. Contracts, intellectual property rights, licensing models, and other legal requirements are in place and meet international business standards and practices. At Linköping University the Demola concept is implemented through the course Cross Disciplinary Projects that also is designed to meet the demands expressed in the CDIO Syllabus. What makes this course unique and different from other project courses is that students from the Faculty of Arts and Science, The Institute of Technology and the Faculty of Health Sciences are working together in one course towards the same goal. The students are participating in the work order to creatively and independently contribute with expertise from their different areas and therefore the course is open only to those who are at the end of their studies. The course is conducted in the form of independent cross disciplinary projects. The briefs are externally specified from companies or other interested parties who wish to have an idea eloborated or a problem solved. In addition to the project some lectures are given, for instance in applied ethics and inter professional communication. Upon completion of the course the student is expected to have acquired knowledge and understanding concerning how to independently work on issues related to the knowledge and skills previously acquired in education. The course also aims to enforce their capabilities and competences regarding communication with representatives of other professions since they are expected to demonstrate ability to work in a team and in close collaboration with other professions. Demola is now listed by OECD and World Bank Group as a best practice for innovation policy-makers globally.
This paper will describe and try to understand how user together functions as innovators when they use already established information and communication technology (ict) in creative ways. The paper describes two case studies that both are about mobile recreational activities in nature, namely elk hunting and bird watching. Both these cases show that the social context plays a significant role in the introduction and use of ict and that the development takes place in interaction between individuals. In the first case, producing users, in this case (the hunting association and its web editor) that starts and in some way monitors the development while in the later case it is both producing users and everyday users (different bird watchers with different technological knowledge and competence) that during different development stages are active. Both cases show that it is a process innovation and that it could be enabling and constraining in the same time depending on which virtual pocket of local order the user belongs to.
The aim of the course is to create understanding for how to be an engineer; this is achieved by imitating the situation many engineers face when they are introduced into the workplace. As a new employee at a company, it is often many things the students need to learn in a short amount of time. In the course the students are expected to take on the role of a new employee in a company. They are expected to learn about the technical-, group-and project aspects that are needed for working within the company. The student is expected to live up to the company's requirements for technical solutions, professional communication with customers and internal requirements. They learn to cooperate actively with the project members/customers/experts with different backgrounds and knowledge and see how organizations influence the structure of the team and the individual's freedom of action. In addition, they must learn to see the big picture and thus reflect on societal and ethical aspects. They also gain knowledge of the organization's significance from an economic perspective and how organization affects the team structure and process which in turn can affect an individual's freedom of action and behavior. The course is connected the CDIO Syllabus v2.0 in that sense that the student shall
As natural and man-made disasters become increasingly common, ensuring effective disaster response, mitigation and recovery is growing into a high-priority task for governments and administrations globally. This paper describes the challenges of collaboration within multi-organisational hastily formed networks for post-disaster response, which are increasingly relying on emerging ICT infrastructures for communication and cooperation. We present an interdisciplinary analysis of the conditions for establishing an effective mutual conversation space for involved stakeholders, and how the development of socio-technological systems affects cognitive and behavioural aspects such as established communities of practice and virtual pockets of local order.
Our observations thus far suggest that some of the key issues are overcoming organisational and cultural heterogeneity, and finding solutions for technical interoperability, to ensure effective, pervasive and sustainable information exchange within and between organisations participating in hastily formed networks.