Author: Merritt Roe Smith Publisher: Cornell University Press ISBN: 0801454395 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 372
Book Description
Focusing on the day-to-day operations of the U.S. armory at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, from 1798 to 1861, this book shows what the "new technology" of mechanized production meant in terms of organization, management, and worker morale. A local study of much more than local significance, it highlights the major problems of technical innovation and social adaptation in antebellum America. Merritt Roe Smith describes how positions of authority at the armory were tied to a larger network of political and economic influence in the community; how these relationships, in turn, affected managerial behavior; and how local social conditions reinforced the reactions of decision makers. He also demonstrates how craft traditions and variant attitudes toward work vis-à-vis New England created an atmosphere in which the machine was held suspect and inventive activity was hampered.Of central importance is the author's analysis of the drastic differences between Harpers Ferry and its counterpart, the national armory at Springfield, Massachusetts, which played a pivotal role in the emergence of the new technology. The flow of technical information between the two armories, he shows, moved in one direction only— north to south. "In the end," Smith concludes, "the stamina of local culture is paramount in explaining why the Harpers Ferry armory never really flourished as a center of technological innovation."Pointing up the complexities of industrial change, this account of the Harpers Ferry experience challenges the commonly held view that Americans have always been eagerly receptive to new technological advances.
Author: Calestous Juma Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0190467053 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 433
Book Description
It is a curious situation that technologies we now take for granted have, when first introduced, so often stoked public controversy and concern for public welfare. At the root of this tension is the perception that the benefits of new technologies will accrue only to small sections of society, while the risks will be more widely distributed. Drawing from nearly 600 years of technology history, Calestous Juma identifies the tension between the need for innovation and the pressure to maintain continuity, social order, and stability as one of today's biggest policy challenges. He reveals the extent to which modern technological controversies grow out of distrust in public and private institutions and shows how new technologies emerge, take root, and create new institutional ecologies that favor their establishment in the marketplace. Innovation and Its Enemies calls upon public leaders to work with scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs to manage technological change and expand public engagement on scientific and technological matters.
Author: Diane E. Bailey Publisher: MIT Press ISBN: 0262028425 Category : Language Arts & Disciplines Languages : en Pages : 289
Book Description
An analysis of the occupational factors that shape the technology choices made by people who perform the same type of work. Why do people who perform largely the same type of work make different technology choices in the workplace? An automotive design engineer working in India, for example, finds advanced information and communication technologies essential, allowing him to work with far-flung colleagues; a structural engineer in California relies more on paper-based technologies for her everyday work; and a software engineer in Silicon Valley operates on multiple digital levels simultaneously all day, continuing after hours on a company-supplied home computer and network connection. In Technology Choices, Diane Bailey and Paul Leonardi argue that occupational factors—rather than personal preference or purely technological concerns—strongly shape workers' technology choices. Drawing on extensive field work—a decade's worth of observations and interviews in seven engineering firms in eight countries—Bailey and Leonardi challenge the traditional views of technology choices: technological determinism and social constructivism. Their innovative occupational perspective allows them to explore how external forces shape ideas, beliefs, and norms in ways that steer individuals to particular technology choices—albeit in somewhat predictable and generalizable ways. They examine three relationships at the heart of technology choices: human to technology, technology to technology, and human to human. An occupational perspective, they argue, helps us not only to understand past technology choices, but also to predict future ones.
Author: Philip Agre Publisher: MIT Press ISBN: 9780262511018 Category : Computers Languages : en Pages : 342
Book Description
Over the last several years, the realm of technology and privacy has been transformed, creating a landscape that is both dangerous and encouraging. Significant changes include large increases in communications bandwidths; the widespread adoption of computer networking and public-key cryptography; new digital media that support a wide range of social relationships; a massive body of practical experience in the development and application of data-protection laws; and the rapid globalization of manufacturing, culture, and policy making. The essays in this book provide a new conceptual framework for the analysis and debate of privacy policy and for the design and development of information systems.
Author: Felix Dodds Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1000467678 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 172
Book Description
As we witness a series of social, political, cultural, and economic changes/disruptions this book examines the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the way emerging technologies are impacting our lives and changing society. The Fourth Industrial Revolution is characterised by the emergence of new technologies that are blurring the boundaries between the physical, the digital, and the biological worlds. This book allows readers to explore how these technologies will impact peoples’ lives by 2030. It helps readers to not only better understand the use and implications of emerging technologies, but also to imagine how their individual life will be shaped by them. The book provides an opportunity to see the great potential but also the threats and challenges presented by the emerging technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, posing questions for the reader to think about what future they want. Emerging technologies, such as robotics, artificial intelligence, big data and analytics, cloud computing, nanotechnology, biotechnology, the Internet of Things, fifth-generation wireless technologies (5G), and fully autonomous vehicles, among others, will have a significant impact on every aspect of our lives, as such this book looks at their potential impact in the entire spectrum of daily life, including home life, travel, education and work, health, entertainment and social life. Providing an indication of what the world might look like in 2030, this book is essential reading for students, scholars, professionals, and policymakers interested in the nexus between emerging technologies and sustainable development, politics and society, and global governance.
Author: Kathleen R. Allen Publisher: Pearson ISBN: Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 392
Book Description
This book presents a comprehensive look at the issues related to the commercialization of intellectual property, and contains three major themes that infuse all of the concepts presented: value creation, speed, and entrepreneurship. It enables readers to understand different business models and processes from mainstream types of businesses, and teaches them how to successfully commercialize the intellectual property they develop. The book focuses on management, marketing, product development, and operations strategies that work in a high tech environment. A four-part organization covers: The Foundations of Technology Commercialization, Intellectual Property and Valuation, Financial Strategies for Technology Start-Ups, and The Transition from R&D to Operations. For potential entrepreneurs and corporate venturers.
Author: Vinnie Mirchandani Publisher: John Wiley & Sons ISBN: 1118237277 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 400
Book Description
How-to guidance for optimizing incumbent technologies to deliver a better product and gain competitive advantage Their zip codes are far from Silicon Valley. Their SIC codes show retail, automobile or banking. But industry after industry is waking up to the opportunity of "smart" products and services for their increasingly tech-savvy customers. Traditionally technology buyers, they are learning to embed technology in their products and become technology vendors. In turn, if you analyze Apple, Google, Amazon, Facebook, Twitter and eBay, you marvel at their data centers, retail stores, application ecosystems, global supply chains, design shops. They are considered "consumer" tech but have better technology at larger scale than most enterprises. The old delineation of technology buyer and vendor is obsolete. There is a new definition for the technology elite - and you find them across industries and geographies. The 17 case studies and 4 guest columns spread through The New Technology Elite bring out the elite attributes in detail. Every organization will increasingly be benchmarked against these elite - and soon will be competing against them. Contrasts the productivity that Apple, Google and others have demonstrated in the last decade to that of the average enterprise technology group Reveals how to leverage what companies have learned from Google, Apple, Amazon.com, and Facebook to your company's advantage Designed for business practitioners, CEOs, CFOs, CIOs, technology vendors, venture capitalists, IT consultants, marketing executives, and policy makers Other titles by Vinnie Mirchandani: The New Polymath: Profiles in Compound-Technology Innovations If you're looking to encourage technology innovation, look no further. The New Technology Elite provides the building blocks your company needs to become innovative through incumbent technologies.
Author: Jeffrey L. Funk Publisher: Stanford University Press ISBN: 0804784922 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 264
Book Description
Technology Change and the Rise of New Industries explores why new industries emerge at specific moments in time and in certain countries. Part I shows that technologies which experience "exponential" improvements in cost and performance have a greater chance of becoming new industries. When "low-end" discontinuities incur exponential improvements, they often displace the dominant technologies and become "disruptive" innovations. Part II explores this phenomenon and instances in which discontinuities spawn new industries because they impact higher-level systems. Part III addresses a different set of questions—ones that consider the challenges of new industries for firms and governments. Part IV uses ideas from the previous chapters to analyze the present and future of selected technologies. Based on analyses of many industries, including those with an electronic and clean energy focus, this book challenges the conventional wisdom that performance dramatically rises following the emergence of a new technology, that costs fall due to increases in cumulative production, and that low-end innovations automatically become disruptive ones.
Author: Seong Jae Min Publisher: Penn State Press ISBN: 0271092610 Category : Language Arts & Disciplines Languages : en Pages : 197
Book Description
News organizations have always sought to deliver information faster and to larger audiences. But when clicks drive journalism, the result is often simplistic, sensational, and error-ridden reporting. In this book, Seong Jae Min argues in favor of “slow journalism,” a growing movement that aims to produce more considered, deliberate reporting that better serves the interests of democracy. Min explores the role of technology in journalism from the printing press to artificial intelligence, documenting the hype and hope associated with each new breakthrough as well as the sometimes disappointing—and even damaging—unintended consequences. His analysis cuts through the discussion of clickbait headlines and social-media clout chasing to identify technological bells and whistles as the core problem with journalism today. At its heart, Min maintains, traditional shoe-leather reporting—knocking on doors, talking to people, careful observation and analysis—is still the best way for journalism to serve its civic purpose. Thoughtful and engaging, Rethinking the New Technology of Journalism is a compelling call for news gathering to return to its roots. Reporters, those studying and teaching journalism, and avid consumers of the media will be interested in this book.
Author: Victoria Carty Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 0429961669 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 241
Book Description
The emergence of new communication technologies (such as the Internet and social media networking sites and platforms) has strongly affected social movement activism. In this compelling and timely book, Victoria Carty examines these movements and their uses of digital technologies within the context of social movement theory and history. With an accessible and unique mix of theory and real-world examples, Social Movements and New Technology takes readers on a tour through MoveOn and Tea Party e-mail campaigns, the hacktivist tactics of Anonymous, global online protests against rapists and rape culture, and the tweets and Facebook pages that accompanied uprisings across the Arab world, Europe, and the United States. In each case study, the reader is invited to examine the movement, organization, or protest and their use of digital tools through the lens of social movement theory. Discussion questions at the end of each chapter invite critical thinking, further reflection, and debate.
Author: Merritt Roe Smith
Author: Calestous Juma
Author: Diane E. Bailey
Author: Philip Agre
Author: Felix Dodds
Author: Kathleen R. Allen
Author: Vinnie Mirchandani
Author: Jeffrey L. Funk
Author: Seong Jae Min
Author: Victoria Carty