Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!ucla-cs!zen!ucbvax!hplabs!hplabsz!taylor
From: denning@src.dec.com (Dorothy Denning)
Newsgroups: comp.society
Subject: Re: Information and Empowerment
Message-ID: <1241@hplabsz.HPL.HP.COM>
Date: 18 Dec 87 02:22:00 GMT
Sender: taylor@hplabsz.HPL.HP.COM
Lines: 31
Approved: taylor@hplabs

Edith Bevan requested information on research into information and
empowerment.  I recently took a course where power was defined
as the rate at which intentions are turned into results. I like
this definition, because it takes the focus off of "control" and "roles"
and places it in the realm of accomplishment, of achieving what is
important to us in our lives.  After all, it really doesn't matter
who is in charge and what our role is if we get the results we want.
The work of Martin Luther King is a good example.  He empowered all
of us, including blacks, by helping us reach a common goal of a better
world for people of different races and nationalities.   He empowered
us, though few of us were in direct control over the specific actions
that came out of his work.  The definition is also useful because
it is measurable.

When one shifts the focus from control to results, the role of
communication becomes vital because it is at the heart of action,
of getting things done. Thus, I really like Edith's emphasis on
ommunication systems.  Communications systems not only can provide
access to knowledge that is useful for getting things done, but
can provide stuctures for action.

Terry Winograd & Fernando Flores have done some work on designing
mail systems that provide structures for action as well as simple
exchange of knowledge.  A good starting reference is Winograd, "A
Language/Action Perspective on the Design of Cooperative Work", Stanford
Report No. STAN-CS-87-1158, Dept. of Comp. Sci., Stanford Univ., Stanford,
CA 94305.  The paper describes communication patterns for groups as
well as a PC-based product called the Coordinator that implements
the ideas.

Dorothy Denning