This document discusses sociotechnical systems and the challenges of collaboration between researchers studying these systems and practitioners. It defines sociotechnical systems as the interrelation between technological and human systems. It argues that truly understanding these systems requires combining the theories and techniques of multiple fields including social science, computer science, and engaging with practitioners. However, bringing these different groups together is difficult due to differences in culture, goals, and incentives between academics and practitioners. It provides some strategies for encouraging collaboration, such as phenomena-based research, workshops, funding incentives, and mixed academic/practitioner events and project partnerships.

1. The Machine in the Ghost: a
Socio-Technical Approach to User-
Generated Content Research
Dr. Cliff Lampe
Dept. of Telecommunication, Information Studies and Media
Michigan State University

2. Overall narrative:
We need to combine the theories, techniques,
and passions of multiple fields to truly
understand (and possibly affect) human
interaction mediated by information and
communication technology. We also need to
engage practitioners.

3. Clifford Arthur Cochise Lampe
Researcher at Michigan
State University
PhD in Information from
U of Michigan
Studies
Online communities, Social
Media, socio-technical
systems, blah, blah blah
Human interaction mediated
by Information and
Communication Technology

4. Cliff’s Biases
One centric jerk
U.S. Centric
Social science centric
Inductive-ish
Practice-oriented research
i.e. Technological
Determinist
MSU as a land grant

5. Sociotechnical systems
Definition, examples, totally sweet diagrams

6. My boiled down definition
Sociotechnical system:
The interrelated social and technical aspects of
mediated interactions
But really:
Don’t get hung up on the definition.

7. Technical Social
socio
technical

8. Hardware Usability Groups
Organizations
Applications Technical socio
Social
technical
Society
Openness
Design Interpersonal

9. Characteristics of
sociotechnical systems
Common characteristics
Direct user-to-user interaction
Mediation
Uncommon characteristics
Size of the social system
Set of ICT tools
Task being supported

10. Some obvious examples of
sociotechnical systems

17. Sociotechnical systems are
the interrelation between
technological and human
systems.

18. The science of
sociotechnical systems
Consistently multidisciplinary
Leads to multiple methods, multiple theories
Consequently dominated by disciplines that “play
ball”
Hard to feed findings/results back into the main
disciplines
Hard to bring in new disciplines fully (i.e. the “sucking
hind tit” problem)

19. Some people who helped
me think about
sociotechnical systems

20. Lawrence Lessig
A Dot’s Life

21. Paul Resnick Mark Ackerman Gary and Judy Olson
Sociotechnical Sociotechnical Distance Matters
capital gap

22. Judith Donath
“Signals in Social Supernets”
Barry Wellman
“Connecting Community: On- and Off-Line”
Jonathan Grudin
“Why groupware applications fail.”
Joe Walther
“Interpersonal effects in computer-
mediated communication”
Communitylab
Bob Kraut, Sara Kiesler, Loren Terveen, John
Riedl, Joe Konstan, Resnick: communitylab.org

23. Popular press discussions

24. A sordid history
of sociotechnical systems
I’ve researched

29. An even more sordid history
of sites I’ve been helping to create

35. The MSU-INgage Collaboration

37. Quick aside to reflect on my shame
The following projects are
built on proprietary
software.
That’s eating me up from
the inside.
My university president
could care less.
University =
bureaucratic organization

40. The Great Places Network
In development
Partners
Michigan State University
Cooperative Extension,
The Land Policy Institute
Economic development in
Grand Rapids and the
Great Lakes Bay region
Goal
Help local leaders and
NGOs create and promote
regional economic plans

41. Michigan Energy Efficiency Network
In development
Partners
Michigan Dept of Energy, Labor and
Economic Growth; Office of the
Governor, MI Depts of Information
Technology, Education,
Transportation, Wildlife and Natural
Resources
Goals
Help anchor institutions in Michigan
consume less energy, and save
money on energy expenditures

42. Recurring questions
How do we get people to go
to this site?
How do we get people to
participate on the site?
How do we get them to do X
because they were on the
site?

43. Defining the success of STS
System-internal metrics
More common in the history of research in this area
Focuses on a rich set of possible interactions in the
system
Still needs much research on the intersection of
social and technical systems
System-external metrics
An effect of the wide scale use of STS?
Crazy hard to measure.

44. Example questions
What has been the wide-scale effect of Wikipedia
been? How much more do people know than they did
before the site came along?
For the Michigan Energy Efficiency Network, how much
energy is saved as a result of the system? How much
money was saved? How many new jobs were created
because of this effort?
New jobs, more education, new grant money, less out-
migration, better schools, more social capital, more
voting, better decisions ETC ETC

45. The vitality of the online
system itself is no longer a
sufficient outcome.

46. In other words:
Can STSs save the world?!
* p.s. Let’s hope so...

47. STS Researchers in Action
Nathan Eagle
Ultimately, our research agenda is to determine how we can use
these insights to actively improve the lives of the billions of people
who generate this data and the societies in which they live.
Keith Hampton
i-Neighbors.org: using ICT to connect
support connections in local systems
Kurt DeMaagd
Solar-powered, Satellite internet workstations in
rural Tanzania, with local copies of Wikipedia
Reid Priedhorsky
Using geo-wikis to create a community of
cyclists in Minneapolis

49. So what’s the hold up?
Challenges to a sociotechnical perspective.

50. Social science vs. Computer science

51. The wisdom of XKCD

52. Social vs. Computer Scientists
Social Scientists... Computer Scientists...
Are distant from Are technological
practice determinists
Don’t understand how Have no theories
tech works
Ignorant of applicable
Can’t code
social science
Overly dependent on
journals Sloppy methods

53. Social scientists are
divorced from practice
i.e. “useless”
This was not always the case
Social scientists of the 30s and 40s were very
interested in changing behavior through social science
Lewin, Lippman, Festinger, Milgram
Render unto the practitioner that which is the
practitioner’s.

54. Computer scientists are
technological determinists.
Technological determinism
The idea that large historical/
sociological changes are caused
by changes in technology
The idea that you can cause
change in social structures with a
technological intervention
Straw man argument
Pretty much everyone agrees it’s
a complex interaction

55. General challenges to
academic collaborations
Mixed incentives
Journals or conferences? Books or patents?
(Un)shared vocabularies
For terms, but also for methods, seminal work,
theories, ground knowledge
Competition for limited resources
Who gets credit for what? Who manages the
budgets? Are we helping them poach our turf?
Few opportunities to interact
Cocktail hours every term don’t cut it

56. But it’s even harder than that...
We also have to get the practitioners on board

57. The ecology of STS in action
Who do we need to get real change from online
interactions?
Social and technology researchers
Practitioners
Site designers
entrepreneurs
policy experts
subject experts
marketers/advertisers
educators
end users

58. Researcher-Practitioner
Collaboration Challenges
Different cultures
Includes different languages, relational norms,
communication styles, etc.
Different goals
Are we doing research, or getting the project
accomplished? What if you have to pick between
the two?
Unmatched incentives
The sweet dangling hook of tenure vs. reputation or
pay. Journal publications vs. active sites.

59. How to encourage this approach
Ways to combine the efforts of researchers in
multiple fields, STS practitioners, and more
general audiences.

60. Phenomena-based research

61. Phenomena-based research
Benefits
Brings multiple perspectives to play
Easier discovery process
Risks
Generalizability
Examples
AoIR, CSCW, F/OSS, Communities and
Technologies, FooCamp etc.

62. Workshops

63. Funding pressure to collaborate
Existing opportunities
Cross-disciplinary requirements in large grants
Computing Innovation Fellows Program
Supported Workshops
e.g. Technology Mediated Social Participation
Potential opportunities
Paid academic internships
But...
Hard to do across borders
Dominated by core disciplines/locations

64. Practitioners and researchers
making sweet STS love
Practitioners
Can help by making data and experience available
Need to articulate their needs and interests
Researchers
Can help by explaining the interactions taking place
in STSs
Need to work harder to show the value of that work
Examples of sort of success
Sourceforge, Wikipedia, Twitter

65. How to make it happen
Mixed events like WikiSym, CHI, other ACM conferences
But how to get the core social sciences involved?
Sabbaticals
Industry sabbaticals need to be rewarded in new ways
Adjunct positions for practitioners
Not just for teaching
Funding for practitioner participation
Need to be included in academic grants
Specific project partnerships between the two
not just talks in corporate settings, but actual
problems to take on

66. These collaborations are
difficult, but they will be
worth it.

67. Final Thoughts
Take-aways
Combine social and
technical approaches
Combine efforts of
researchers and
practitioners
Thanks!
WikiSym, for the invitation, lampecli@msu.edu
Phoebe Ayers for kicking twitter: @clifflampe
ass