Info Enthusiasm And The Social Norms, Expectations, Rules, And Perceptions
Info enthusiasm can be a good thing, if watched and managed appropriately. Technology is evolved in our everyday lives, and it is the up to people choose to accept it or not. Information enthusiasts often are just very excited about the possibilities of what technology can do. IT managers need to temper what an info enthusiast wants by keeping in perspective the needs of society and those that need the information. Info enthusiasts often envision a futuristic setting where we use nothing but technology, and predict the end of something such as paper. The info enthusiast is of the mind set that their vision is the way it is going to be, ignoring the needs of others that don’t embrace the technology quite as quickly. So it is up to an IT manager to take what he or she needs from the info enthusiast and disregard the rest.
Brown and Duguid (Brown and Duguid 2000) talk about info enthusiasts as people who view the world as information. Info enthusiasts generally have put themselves in a mode where they don’t care about societies need for organizations and their way of doing business. Info enthusiasts do not see what the rest of society does in long standing organizations, such as libraries and schools; instead the info enthusiast would feel that these places could be disassembled. Info enthusiasts often think of the physical places not being relevant anymore. Info enthusiasts think that “datafication” is more relevant in today’s society and the need for physical places to do business just does not exist. While the use of information can make societies life easier the physical organization and how business has been done is still relevant.
Change is a part of life, and technology can help us deal with changing demands. Info enthusiasts are not wrong entirely. After all can you imaging going backwards to a simpler time? Without technology people would be forced back to rooms of files to keep records, and secretaries relegated to searching though them....
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