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BOX 4.2
Technology that genuinely supports informed participation will be inherently democratic and adaptable. It will allow us to take advantage of our social diversity and not force us to conform to the limits of our limited foresight. The philosophical model for understanding knowledge acquisition and the communication of information holds at least three primary lessons for anyone designing or deploying information systems for groups of people, as follows: 1. Focus more on relationships than things.Information technology can and should change relationships among people; that is where its chief value lies. Information technology that changes the nature of relationships can change the fundamental features of a given complex system. 2. Honor "emergent behavior."The new theories of complex adaptive systems hold that the adaptability of any system greatly depends on the "genetic variance"—or pluralism of competing models—within it. Therefore, information technology should allow the emergence of competing agents (or models or schema) and enhance their interrelationships. 3. Underdesign systems in order to let new truths emerge.It is a mistake to set forth some a priori notion of truth or to try to design in totality (which requires an infinite intelligence in any case). Rather, one should underdesign a system in order to assist the emergence of new ideas. The brilliant logic of an underdesigned information system is well illustrated by the constitutional and cultural principles espoused by Thomas Jefferson, one of the preeminent information architects of all time.
SOURCE: Brown et al. (1994). |