Ideas for essays

Almost two weeks ago I had an interesting conversation with Lilia about her PhD, and how to drive formulating a good and coherent proposal forward. In the course of that discussion two themes emerged, which Lilia deemed outside her scope, but are well inside mine.

In order not to forget, I'm writing them down here, because it might be some time before I get around to actually writing it. At the moment my attention to my study in philosophy of science is severely limited if not non-existent, due to work related stuff, and me looking for a new job. And of course, the exstensive rebuilding that started in our house today and which will continue for the coming three weeks does not help either.

1. If the knowledgeworker is better served with medieval guild-like master/apprentice situations for e.g. training and knowledgesharing, and knowledgesharing itself becomes much more likely when knowledge workers look at themselves as artisans, in stead of pieces in a hierarchical machine, this set of questions arises:
Historically which reasoning was behind the organizational decisions industrial revolution came up with, and exactly which of those decisions do we now find counterproductive? Historically which traits of the artisan/guild view on work have been thrown overboard with the industrial revolution, and would be feasible again now to address the limitations felt in the current situation.
And what, if anything, should we keep from the industrial era organisational forms?

2. Technology always has behaviour 'scripted' into it by the designer(s). Users also always find novel ways of using technologies, not intended or foreseen in the design stage. Which behaviours are scripted into blogging tools, and which behaviours have been triggered by the emergence of the technology? What white spots does this show, what areas for improvement are possible based on that overview?

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(posted by Ton Zijlstra at October 13, 2003 03:00 PM)