Social division of ICT work the role of

Social division of ICT work: the role of local experts in supporting ICT adoption and use JAMES STEWART RCSS UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH EASST/4 S, Paris 2004 1

Local Experts • Local experts • Informal economy – Whole life space – Cross boundaries of home work, community – Exchange, gift giving, borrowing, advice, skills, knowledge. – Familiar relationships in extended networks 2

Questions • • What are local experts Why do they exist? What do they provide, to whom and how? How do they become local experts? How and where do they get their knowledge What is it like to be one? What position do they have in a community and in social networks? • What role do they have in translating and creating knowledge and practice 3

The social network and personal influence in ICT • Domestication – Social dimension of use and diffusion of technologies • Diffusion of Innovations – Roleand mechanisms of social networks • Organisation and Family studies Division of labour, responsibilities, power, decision making processes. • Role of “Change Agents” 4

Use of the Social network • Wellman a number of roles for the network, as: “Havens; Band-Aids; ladders; levers (Wellman, Carrington et al. , 1988). • Network in adoption of innovations: – Information gathering – Reduction in uncertainty (subjective opinions) • Relationships and positions within the network – centrality, periphery – Opinion leaders v. marginals – Weak ties and strong ties (Granovetter) 5

Social Influence • Reference groups and primary groups • Personal Influence – Comparison with others in structures – Word of Mouth • ‘vast and powerful network’ of neighbours exchanging product information (Whyte, 1954) 6

Obtaining information & Resolving uncertainty • Weak ties - Strong ties (Granovetter) – Weak - for information search, and – strong ties” relational proximity” for referral - more trust. – subjective opinions, thus reducing community uncertainty (Rogers, 1995) – Weak ties - bridge to larger community • Cohesion and Structure – Cohesion - close ties important for early adopters – Structural equivalence for later adopters (Burt 1997) • The networks people use for information, and those that they are influenced by (conformity) are often different Gatignon and Robertson (1985) 7

Opinion leaders • 1950 s Katz, Lazersfeld (1955) • The power of opinion leadership in the kind of face-to-face influence situations which we are concern [with]. . . finds expression in informal persuasion and friendly influence, which probably does not derive from wealth or high position but from casual everyday contact with peers” 8

Innovators as marginals • Innovators may have no one in their network to refer to so they have to look outside. This can be related to the concept of weak ties, and to anthropological concept of the ‘marginal’ – one who transcends cultures and is critical for dissemination of innovations (Barnett, 1953). 9

Opinion leaders and Information brokers • (Burt, 1999). reconciles the idea of the opinion leader at the centre of a social group with the idea of the innovator as someone of the margins of a social network, or with many weak links to other networks. • important role for information and opinion brokers, individuals with strong links to other social networks or other external information sources that brings ideas in, but not necessary someone who has a particular influence within a social group. 10

Local experts and IT • Rogers Silicon valley (1985) • Murdoch et al ZX 81 (1992) • Network and local experts necessary to get through early stages of adoption 11

Study • 4 networks, 4 key informants • 1 year study of adoption of ICTs, and knowledge and attitude evolution • Networks across work, home, school, friends. • Range of ICTs and other products • Coping strategies • Adopters and non-adopters 12

Informal Economy • Great deal of exchange in everyday life • Informal Economy to obtain goods, service, skills, advice etc • To avoid obtaining, learning, using new ICTs 13

Coping with adoption and use • Many people obliged to adopt ICTs • Much innovation and technical knowledge appears obscure and difficult to understand • Adoption, Use and Upgrading etc is not easy. • Mix of formal and informal learning • Everyone knows others using and adopting • Everyone knows a ‘local expert’ 14

• A LOCAL EXPERT: MAURICE (Group 3) • Maurice is an IT professional. He works as a commercial teacher He reads lots of computer magazines, and uses the Internet for research. He does not have close contacts with others doing similar work to himself. He is a local expert in computers, and is confident with technology. In his immediate family Maurice is the computer expert, and is responsible for the machines. His wife and children turn to him for help with IT, as does his father in law. His wife’s friends know him as a computer guy, a definition that seems to set him in a class apart. His wife Ruth has long resisted using computers herself, and living with him, she is able to off-load any responsibility: he does the typing for her, he organises the children’s computer, he runs the family e-mail system etc. He is thus a great resource of knowledge, service, organisation, and enthusiasm. He also helps his father in law with his computer, his mother in law thinks he must think they are a bit stupid, and praises his patience with her husband. He has some contact with others with similar interest though his work and local trade groups, but much of his knowledge comes from the media, books and handson experience 15

Local Experts • Relative experts • Key knowledge is of others, not technical knowledge • Equipment and skills as well as knowledge • Mediate knowledge, translate ideas, support practice. • Act as bridges • Take on responsibility for ICTs in division of labour and knowledge 16

The gadget freak • He's one of these sort of people who gets everything when it comes out. He's got a huge long like screen and three video recorders and got cable and he's got all the surround sound and everything. [Amanda 2 G 1 : 124 - 124 ] 17

School children • Valerie: if they have the basic skills and can come and ask for help if they need it or they go and ask other children in the class who they know more than they do and that's quite acceptable. • James: Sort of class experts? • Valerie: Yes • James: Is that people who've got them at home or? • Valerie: Usually it is, or some who are just a bit more confidant is usually the case. [Valerie 2 G 1 : 433 - 440 ] 18

Not always who you think – You see I’ve got a colleague who’s a whiz on the computer. As she says she wasn’t that bright school so she got to do typing, so she types at a phenomenal speed and therefore she does all the time tabling on the computer. She and I are both doing this management training together. I think I’m going to learn so much from her. She took me the whole way through, you know, sending emails and stuff and this new course [Ruth, Group 3 interview 1] 19

Becoming a Local expert • Just having the knowledge is not enough, it becomes salient to the group when others start wanting to know, and needing to know about new ICTs • Their expertise is activated by others in the network when they start to show an interest in the technology for other reasons, such as problems with adoption and use or the desire to form an opinion. This activation can include asking advice, help, asking for services, equipment etc 20

Relative Expert • I mean I know more than him so I'm the closest contact, … I'm no expert, but I know enough to get over some of the problems that he has but not all obviously. . . I built his computer. I gave, when I bought my own one I said that I'd sell him my old one. . Andy 1 G 2 : 715 – 715 21

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What’s so special about ICT experts • The rapid change in the field, which means their expertise has to develop continuously, and its increasing relevance to many people in different areas of life, • Easy to become an expert • Wide spread demand • Slow development of formal channels 23

What do they do? • To inform and demonstrate to others in their networks • Translate and explain ‘public’ demonstrations, and ‘new’ ideas • To provide ICT services and take on responsibility • To support the adoption process • To support the learning process • To solve problems 24

Inform and demonstrate • • Casual conversation Specific questions Demonstration of use and of uses A gatekeeper and interpreter of external expertise which they can evaluate in the light of the knowledge they have of those they aid in their local network. 25

Take responsibility • Local division of responsibility, skills, time, labour • NO, I just use it [the computer] for what I need it for. I don't wonder about its workings, or anything else. if I need something, if I am not sure about something, I will ask Ian or one of the girls, and they will keep me right. • Is your husband more into knowing? • He is pretty good on them. So I just forget promptly. [Fiona 1 G 1 : 355 - 365 ] • Voluntary, negotiated, imposed 26

Support for the Adoption Process • Search, decision making, purchase and set-up • Ran out of money, and because I felt confident, Alec gave me a hand to plug in the pieces, I felt that I could do that, before I couldn't, I didn't feel confident enough to buy the pieces, it would have to be the full pack from Dell, so that was part of the decision was made for me, part of it was that I could get it cheap enough to do it that way, and I had the confidence in myself and Alex. . . [Andy 1 G 2 : 363 - 363 ] • The only place you can go for advice is Mac people who are few and far between and you don't ask suppliers of Macs what's the best thing to do because they just want to sell it to you. Trevor group 2 interview 2 • Bridge to professionals 27

Support the Learning Process. • • • On hand for questions Easily approachable complement formal learning Help with advanced functions and uses Help with upgrades 28

Solving Problems • When I'm screaming laugh. When the hair's getting torn out. I don't know, just despair. Well it depends, I mean if it's a problem that, usually the problems I'll think well I'm sure Alex will know, or Noel'll know, 'cos they're pretty, you know, or they'll know where to direct me. But if it's something at home I'll, it'll be a couple of weeks before, you know, trying things out before I sort of ask Alex, please can you come down, this is driving me nuts. Yeah, when it's driving me nuts stage, if that's an answer laugh. . [Andy 1 G 2 : 655 - 655 ] 29

Advantages of Local Experts • Economic benefits, • Type of personalised local knowledge they provide, • flexible, convenient and trusted relationship with the expert. • Everyday expert 30

Easily available • I get on well enough with Maurice, chiefly because I see very little of him. I had problems with the computer a couple of months back and I phoned him up. He said "No, there's no way I can explain over the phone, I'll come down". Which he did do, when it was convenient, not instantly, I didn't want him to do that. But he came down and fixed it. Yes, we get on. But we've never had any paratactic time together, it's not like you sometimes see where father in law and some in law go down to the pub and leave the women to it, we're not in that business at all. [John 1 Gr 3 : 103 - 103 ] • I was having a bit of a problem with the printer picking up messages, so I just telephoned to Andy and he sorted me out in like five minutes. If I need, if I got into any problems I'd just phone him up basically. [Nigel 2 G 2 : 93 - 93 ] 31

Everyday conversations • Terry: Well he will be because we're going round to see them on Saturday and I'll be very interested to find out from Maurice how his business is doing so inevitably talk will be centred roundabout IT and what people's views are about it because it's very crucial to Maurice's business. I would imagine that I'm a potential customer so he, for his own interest he would certainly want to know what our views are about it and until we're linked up onto the Internet he's not going to get any business out of us or any people like us. 32

The trouble with local experts • He's [his brother in Law] an amateur, but he knows a great deal, he's got great pals in Eastbourne. Eddie gets a down-load from him and any problems he just phones him up. I try and do the same thing with Eddie, but the snag is that I am so delayed, retarded and he's so advanced, that half the time he can't understand what the hell I'm talking about. However, he does a percentage of time say, you don't do that, you do this. [John 2 G 3 : 46 - 46 ] 33

Trouble with local experts • • • Not professional Wrong or bad information/advice Make technology more complicated Nerds present ‘bad’ image of technology Strain on a relationship – I don't like to think that I'm getting myself into that state where every second day I'm on the phone worrying somebody about a problem. I do like to solve them myself and only when I'm really pushed will I ask for assistance. ) [Nigel 1 G 2 : 125 - 125 ] 34

What do they know? • Knowledge related to the technology and industry: • They have technical expertise or know how. • They know how to apply technology. They know about products and services. • They have knowledge about the market, standards and new innovations. • Know who and where to go for purchase, advice, learning locally. • Knowledge related to themselves and those they help: • They know about the learning process. • They know about the people they are advising. • They know the experience of those they are helping. • They know from personal experience (They have ‘been there’). • They know the problems of adopting and using. • Experts are more confident with technologies 35

How do they know this? • • • Self -learning Often Struggle as isolated individuals Participating in technology networks Bridging communities Being on the ‘edge’, marginal 36

Being a Local expert • All acknowledge role • Often a surprise and a struggle • Reluctance • I've done my bit of helping people for nothing. If someone asks me to do something I ask what money is involved in it 37

Local expert as identity • The role of local expert can then become a vital part of their identity for others. – When Andy visits his brother in law, or friend Trevor they speak about computers, to the annoyance of the others around them. The same with Maurice and John his father in law: no longer are they only family relations, but their relationship includes computers 38

Gender and age • More Men than women – Men tend to occupy technology positions • More women becoming local experts, especially for other women • Are either ‘better’ local experts? 39

Social influence and structure • Often individualistic, and cosmopolitan common traits of ‘early adopters’ or ‘innovators’ • Rather than being at the centre of a network, opinion leaders are actually on the edge of several networks, and act as a bridge between them. This gives them their ‘social capital’ that also gives them status within the group on matters where expertise on matters outside a network are important. 40

The Bridge v. Opinion Leader • While the computer expert may be the opinion leader when it comes to making choices about buying a computer, for all other activities and opinions they have little power. • Provide expertise in cohesive relationships, but not necessarily ‘equivalence influence (e. g. husband wife). May actually provide contrary demonstration. They can provide evidence of equivalence. 41

• The expert can also act as a demonstrator to other people who share similar values, resources or ‘lifestyle’ (equivalents) in the network, showing that it can be relevant to their lives, that they can learn it and deal with new technology. Contrary to this, some people may see their local expert as being rather different to themselves (e. g. young v. old, rich/ less well off, technical mind/nontechnical person) and therefore not examples to follow. Instead the expert is a source of practical knowledge and information, and maybe of role 42 models outside the network.

Conclusions • Relative expert, • Trusted, everyday, warm experts • Help with local network learning, adopting, coping with or not adopting IT • Knowledge, skills and equipment • Innovators (use, adoption etc) • Not necessarily opinion leader, • just one input into domestication process. • Key to widespread diffusion of ICTs 43

Conclusion 2 • Translate – Technology – Ideas – Practice – Public proofs are incomprehensible and distant – Make them relevant and practical • Spectrum of experts • Network of networks follows and promotes diffusion, and innovation across society. • Could be central to overcoming the problem of ‘exclusion’ from new ICT use. 44

Digital divide. 45