Workshop: Growing Information Infrastructures (Santa Calra Univ, 1 May 2007)

We invite you to join a short workshop to be held Tuesday, May 1,
10AM-2PM at Santa Clara University's Center for Science, Technology
and Society on the theme of "Growing Information Infrastructures."

This invitation-only workshop will build on our recent National
Science Foundation report "Understanding Infrastructure: Dynamics,
Tensions, and Design," on building cyberinfrastructure (download at
http://www.si.umich.edu/~pne/PDF/ui.pdf.) The workshop will bring
together leading social scientists studying the development of large
scale information infrastructures with interested participants from
Silicon Valley research labs. Following a brief orientation, we will
proceed to an open-ended discussion centering around two themes:

1. 'Planner' vs 'Seeker' approaches to growing information
infrastructures. This is a variation of William Easterly's
discussion of development in The White Man's Burden, where he
contrasts the approach of planners, who try to maintain centralized
control of very large scale projects (the Millenium Villages project
is an example) to seekers, who find out what is working on the ground
and try to grow synergistically from there. In the information
technology world, the archetypal planner would be Microsoft, in
contrast to the FOSS movement.

2. Strategies for information infrastructure growth. Where in
the first session we will take a bird's eye view of contrasting
approaches, in the second we will drill down to some specific
strategies for information infrastructure growth. In particular, we
will explore ideal relationships between industry, the academy and
government. This discussion will be kicked off by a presentation of
two case studies, which will allow us to ground the conversation.

This promises to be an exciting mix of people - we hope that you can join us.

If you can come, please rsvp to Sherrill Dale (sdale@scu.edu) and she
will provide logistical details. A catered lunch will be provided.

Geoffrey C. Bowker
Center for STS
Santa Clara University

Paul Edwards
School of Information
University of Michigan

Steve Jackson
School of Information
University of Michigan