The CRITO Hour

November 18, 2005: Alladi Venkatesh, CRITO Faculty Associate and Professor of Marketing at The Paul Merage School of Business, gave a presentation titled, “An Empirical Investigation of the Global Diffusion of the Internet in the Home: Results from the U.S., Sweden and India.” The talk presented the results of a study of computer/Internet diffusion in the household sector in the U.S., Sweden, and India. The project investigated how different theories of diffusion (evolutionary, leapfrogging, structural, and agentic) account for the cross-country data. Professor Venkatesh explained that the study found that no one particular theory accounts for all the developments and detailed how all four theories apply in varying degrees.

December 2, 2005: Kelly Garrett, CRITO Senior Research Fellow, presented a talk on “Echo Chambers or Windows on the World? Partisan Selective Exposure and the Online News Environment.” The talk addressed questions such as how will people use the Internet and other emerging information and communication technologies (ICTs) to shape their exposure to political information and will Internet users be inclined to fashion an information environment that reflects their own political predispositions, or will they continue to encounter a range of perspectives online? Using results from two different research projects, Garrett drew the conclusions that individual preferences for support and aversions to challenge are different. People (1) seek out sources that support their viewpoints; (2) are interested in news items with which they agree; and (3) use online sources to increase their repertoire of opinion-supporting arguments. They do not, however, systematically exclude exposure to other viewpoints. Ultimately, this research suggests that individuals value awareness of other perspectives, while simultaneously wanting to limit their contact with them.

February 21, 2006: Jonathan Grudin, Senior Researcher, Microsoft Research, discussed “The Psychology of Non-Linear Growth.” In his talk he explained that errors in forecasting or making accurate assessments of consequences, and perhaps accepting hyperbolic claims, are a consequence of rarely encountering “exponential” growth. Therefore, Grudin went on to say that studies show that providing people with data, including graphical data, does not improve reasoning. In studying the history of human-computer interaction he has been struck by consequences of nonlinear growth that were not recognized at the time even by people dramatically and adversely affected, including himself. In his own research, Grudin has concluded that the typical static linear or log-linear representations of data are part of the problem and postulates that novel visualizations may help. He concluded his talk by noting some examples, past and present.

February 23, 2006: Erran Carmel, Associate Professor and Chair, Information Technology Department, American University, spoke about "Narratives that Software Nations Tell Themselves." An expert on globally dispersed software teams, Professor Carmel explained that by examining prominent software nations, he has observed that software developers tell various stories or narratives about themselves to explain their successes. For example, the US has had the cowboy programmer, Ireland has the Celtic Tiger, and Israel has the commando programmer. These stories, known formally as narratives, provide us with a new vantage point to examine a diverse set of issues, such as software competitiveness, sourcing decisions, and group motivations.

March 23, 2006: Martin Kenney, Professor in the Department of Human and Community Development at the University of California, Davis and a Senior Project Director at the Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy, gave a talk on "The Global Reorganization of Knowledge Work: The Rise of India." Offshoring of services is a recent phenomenon, but has been growing rapidly in scale, scope, and depth. India is a primary recipient of this offshoring because it has a large number of skilled workers with low wages. In his presentation, Professor Kenney introduced the topic, traced its trajectory, and considered the implications for the location of service work. In particular, Kenney noted India’s gradual shift to providing more judgment based/knowledge work such as research and development, risk management, and consulting. The activities of various firms were used to illustrate the development of offshoring in India.

April 21, 2006: Georgina Born, College Lecturer in Social and Political Sciences and Director of Studies; Reader in Sociology, Anthropology and Music and Official Fellow, Emmanuel College, Cambridge University, presented “The Social Dynamics of Intellectual Property Issues in a Software Research Culture.” Dr. Born discussed her ethnographic study of the culture in software research environments and how knowledge and intellectual property issues evolve in such settings. Her paper, published in Social Anthropology, can be read at http://les.man.ac.uk/sa/Virtsoc/(Im)materiality.htm and offers an empirical case study of the dynamics of intellectual property in an organization engaged in the research and development of advanced computer software. The study touches on issues of the “management of knowledge” and the changing conditions of the management of research in the university system. It offers a sense of the conflictual dynamics of intellectual property in process and examines how the particular materiality of software as a medium, and the forms of its production and circulation, are implicated in these dynamics.