| Index | John Seely Brown |

Some recent papers written by John Seely Brown, with:

Paul Duguid
Allan Collins

 

 

Organizational Learning:
Organizational studies tend to take a "top down" approach. In this paper published in Organization Science, we suggest that by looking away from the "canonical," management-approved practices and by investigating instead the informal, improvisational work that holds organizations together, it's possible to develop a better understanding of the relationship between work, learning, and innovation.[© 1991, The Institute of Management Sciences (now INFORMS). This paper first appeared in Organization Science, February 1991 and is posted here with permission.]

 

 

The Social Life of Documents:
The remarkable appeal of new browsers for the World Wide Web suggests that the document may have a significant future in cyberspace. Documents, however, are not mere delivery mechanisms. They are both a powerful means for structuring and navigating information space and a powerful resource for constructing and negotiating social space. A broader understanding of documents and their uses will open new directions for developing document media and allow new social practices and social groups to emerge.[© Xerox Corporation. This paper first appeared in Release 1.0, Esther Dyson's Monthly Report (10/11/95). It was also published (May 1996) in First Monday an on-line journal.] A Review from Current Cites, Volume 7 No. 6, University of California, Berkeley,

 

 

The University in the Digital Age:
Changes contemplated in either the institutional structure or technological infrastructure of the university need to recognize the complex relationship a university establishes between knowledge, communities, and credentials. We explore some hypothetical institutional arrangements that might enable the university of the future to honor this relationship while taking the fullest advantage of emerging technological possibilities. [© Heldref Publications. An abbreviated version of this paper first appeared in the Times Higher Education Supplement (London) in May 1996. This version appeared in Change: The Journal of the American Academy of Higher Education and is posted here with permission.]

  

 

Stolen Knowledge:
"Stolen Knowledge" was written in response to the tendency of educational theorists to take the view that learners should take what they are offered. We suggest that, in fact, learners tend to take what they want. Borrowing a phrase from the great Indian poet and Nobel laureate, we describe what learners do as "stealing" knowledge. [Stolen knowledge. J.S. Brown and P. Duguid. © 1992 Educational Technology Publications. Posted here in accordance with the authors' contractual right. First published in Educational Technology, 1992. Republished in Situated Learning Perspectives, ed. Hilary McLellan, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Educational Technology Publications, 1996.] See http://tech-head.com/learning.htm.

  

 

Keeping it Simple:
Keeping it Simple was written for the book "Bringing Design to Software", edited by Terry Winograd, and featuring articles by Mitch Kapor, Don Norman, Paul Saffo, Laura de Young and Donald Schön. In the article, we argued that good designers "keep things simple" by relying on resources that are provided by context. Conversely, people who use designs act rather like detectives, reading context like a set of clues that can provide useful background information. Designers who try to work free of context are, from this point of view, working against simplicity and unnecessarily adding to "information overload." For us, software design intriguingly straddles conventional divisions between form and content and so is in the ideal position to work on the interplay between the two.

  

 

Situated Cognition and the Culture of Learning

Written with Allan Collins of Bolt Beranek and Newman and published in Education Researcher this paper explored the idea that learning is not a process of delivering information to individuals. Rather, the paper proposed, all learning has apprentice-like properties. Understood this way, both learning and teaching look significantly different.

This article first appeared in Educational Researcher, January-February, 1989 18(1): 32-42.

  

 

Organizing Knowledge

Transaction cost economics suggest that the firm is held together by transaction costs-the costs of using the marketplace-and that as costs are driven down by improvements in communications technology, firms will shrink. In this paper, we argued that, while conventional transaction costs may contribute significantly to the bulk and shape of firms, the demands of organizing knowledge are a critical but easily overlooked factor in explaining why firms exist, what they do, and how innovation occurs.

It was republished in December, 1999 in Reflections "The Society for Organizational Learning Journal" with commentaries by Wanda J. Orlikowski and Etienne Wenger.

This paper appeared in California Management Review 1998 40(1): 90-111.

Mysteries of the Region

For more than a century, commentators have predicted that industrial "clusters" would disappear with improvements in communications technology. Yet still clusters form, most noticeably in Silicon Valley, at the heart of the latest revolution in information technology, the Internet. How can such clusters be explained? To answer this question, we suggest the importance of understanding how knowledge flows, both within firms and between them. To understand regions, we argue, you have to look beyond information to the social networks that can both support and inhibit the flow of knowledge.

This paper will appear in The Silicon Valley Edge; A Habitat for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, eds., William F. Millar, Chong-Moon lee, Marguerite Gong Hancock, and Henry S. Rowen. It will be published by Stanford University Press in 2000.

Storytelling: Passport to Success inthe 21st Century

Humans have told stories since the cave, and there is a resurgence of interest in the art among today's business leaders. What is new is the purposeful use of narrative to achieve a practical outcome. In a seminar held at the Smithsonian Institution on April 20 -21, 2001, four leading thinkers on knowledge management explained why storytelling will become a key ingredient in managing communications, education, training and innovation in the 21st Century.

JSB gives the scientist's perspective on knowledge and storytelling.

  
Last edited on February 22 , 2000.