Oral Histories of your Family: Questions I Failed to Ask With age, I’ve become more aware of the questions I should have asked my parents and grandparents. Like many others, I was interested in my family’s history. For example, I have long treasured my “Aunt Ann’s” family bible with key dates and events recorded in … Continue reading Oral Histories of your Family
Social Informatics
The Myth of an AI Leisure Class?
The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) is real and significant. But AI is not new albeit in 2023 it is more focused on machine learning than programming. On a recent trip to Singapore, the rise of robots was clear, cleaning the floors of the airport and moving trays around restaurants, for instance. That said, the … Continue reading The Myth of an AI Leisure Class?
Information Policy: An Unsettled Issue of the Digital Age
Information Policy: Broadening our Perspective on the Issue for the Digital Age There is widespread awareness that we are living in a post-industrial, information society, as we have learned from such seminal thinkers as Daniel Bell (1973). Given such an awareness, it is surprising to that the study of “information policy” is not more prominent. … Continue reading Information Policy: An Unsettled Issue of the Digital Age
Should Elites Get Off Twitter?
Should Elitists Get Off Twitter? An opinion piece in the Financial Times by Janan Ganesh (2022) argued that the real reason to get off Twitter was that it “reeks of low status”. Stay on it long enough and you can “catch” its tone of “domestic mediocrity”. Even elites who use this micro-blogging site should beware … Continue reading Should Elites Get Off Twitter?
Linking Cybersecurity Capacity Research to Development in Africa and Worldwide
The value of having a global constellation of cybersecurity capacity centres was brought home today. I viewed the many sessions of the hybrid annual conference of the network of cybersecurity research centres focused on cybersecurity, which was organised by C3SA in Cape Town, South Africa. Conferences held at other centres, including Oxford’s Global Cybersecurity Capacity … Continue reading Linking Cybersecurity Capacity Research to Development in Africa and Worldwide
Cybersecurity Problems?
Cybersecurity Problems Before, During, and Post-Pandemic William H. Dutton, Patricia Esteve-Gonzalez, and Ioannis Agrafiotis We interviewed a set of experts on cybersecurity to get a tentative idea on whether the pandemic and its effect on working from home (WFH) caused more cybersecurity problems. The interviews led us to entertain the idea that cybersecurity advances over … Continue reading Cybersecurity Problems?
The Attraction of Working from Home
William H. Dutton and Patricia Esteve-Gonzalez Global Cybersecurity Capacity Centre, University of Oxford A growing number of studies are documenting the shift to working from home (WFH) in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. McKinsey & Company’s American Opportunity Survey supports the importance of this shift and claims that “Americans are embracing flexible work”.[1] Our … Continue reading The Attraction of Working from Home
Stay-at-Home Workers
Stay-at-home Workers: The Global Rise of Hybrid and Online Working from Home Bill Dutton and Patricia Esteve-Gonzalez The impact of lockdowns and working from home initiatives during the COVID-19 pandemic has been substantial on such issues as who works from where. Our global survey of 7,330 respondents spread across 133 countries found that hybrid work … Continue reading Stay-at-Home Workers
Cybersecurity and Changing Workplaces
A study on shifting patterns of working and cybersecurity.
Social Intelligence
Social Intelligence: Fascinating progress in a new approach to understanding public issues. In research on governmental and management use of computing in the 1970s, I found that some of the most consequential management information was gained by mining operational data (Dutton and Kraemer 1978; Kraemer, Dutton, and Northrop 1981). For example, there was a complaint … Continue reading Social Intelligence