CS 400k Tech Ecoystems

The reach of Facebook as a social network is online any other. The ability to form groups, communicate with others, as well as share, like and repost was truly revolutionary. Zuckerberg associate’s "connection" with his intentions for Facebook, which can be correlated with Flichy's concept of "ideology, myth and utopia."  The goal of Facebook was to be a platform that would connect people everywhere through one digital space. This free service provides a user-friendly opportunity to explore connections and share updates and information with people around the world. Recognizing that Flichy's idea of ideology and myth, is the distortion of the real experience, exposing people to an unrealizable world, Facebook is a perfect exemplification of this concept. Facebook creates a theoretical world where people can connect and communicate regardless of traditional barriers, whether physical, mental of geographical.  In terms of Flichy's utopia, Facebook ...

Ottawa, Toronto, and Waterloo have long been the technological-innovation hubs of Ontario. These cities are home to major innovation institutions, Invest Ottawa, MaRS Discovery District in Toronto and Communitech in Waterloo. While these hubs have been an essential element of the growth of technology and entrepreneurship within the province, there is always room for more growth.  Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has recently announced the provincial investment in merging these three institutions into one overarching program. This program launches under the expectation that it will bring in $100 million dollars in revenue to its 30 scale-up companies, as well as providing services to thousands of entrepreneurs and their innovations.  This new program, called the Scale-Up Platform will be receiving an investment of $52.4 million from the Government of Canada in order to facilitate this growth. By combining these programs and affiliating them with the Ontario governmen...

While researching information in regards to tech ecosystems, an article I found interesting was on the emergence of transforming office spaces. This article focused on the company WeWork, which is a New-York based coworking startup that “ provides shared workspaces for startups, small businesses, freelancers and entrepreneurs, managing over 10 million square feet of office space around the world.” (Scipioni, 2017). This article How WeWork Enterprise Is Transforming The Way Large Businesses Rent Office Spaces , provides insight on the transformation companies are doing to their office spaces within a technological world. Companies are now moving to coworking spaces where that are able to connect with people from their business or or companies. Shared offices spaces allow people to not only be within a shared environment but be apart of a community. WeWork sets out to be a space for companies and individuals to be able to work and connect with one another. It sets out to allow for conne...

Reviewing Sheila Jasanoff concept of socio-technical imaginaries introduces “imagined forms of social life and social order that center on the development and fulfillment of innovative scientific and/or technological projects” (Jasanoff & Kim, 2009) therefore, are a product of production within science and technology within our future. Thus, providing us an in depth understanding of social life and order within the foundation of a socio-technical imaginary. Through further understanding these imaginaries are a vision of the desirable future where there is a shared understanding of social life and progress. When referring to Facebook we are able to see an illustration of the socio-technical imaginaries as the platform is a place for facilitating connections and social bonds with one another. As Mark Zuckerberg points out it is “a service people could use to connect and learn about each other” thus, painting imagery of him as a dreamer. His main goal for this platform is to allow f...

Communitech has provided a place within the Waterloo Region for individuals to discuss the present and future of technology. Thus, the reason for them having David Mallon, chief analyst at Bersin - a sister company based within the United States for Deliotte. Here, he touched on the topic of the “Future of Work and Learning,” which appear to be illustrative of Boltanski and Chiapello’s “the projective city.” This metaphorical model sets out to describe the current state of the new technological world, where everything is interconnected. I believe that connections can be made with Mallons view, “ learning the equivalent of a master’s degree every 10 years to keep pace with changing knowledge demands.” This is due to the fact that with the emergence of recent technological forces in the job sphere, people will need to shift their knowledge and skill set to the constantly growing technological market. This means within the workforce, people need to become adaptable to move among differe...

From reading how CEO Mark Zuckerberg defends Facebook’s business practices as being a service that was built in order to afford people with the ability to connect and learn about one another operates as a socio-technical imaginary. To develop an understanding as to what this term entails, one must understand what an imaginary is and how it can be socio-technical. an imaginary can be identified as the vision and feelings one has associated with something. The socio-technical is influential as these imaginaries are “once products of and instruments of the co-production of science, technology, and society in modernity” (Jasanoff, 2015). Therefore, making socio-technical imaginaries explained by Josanaoff as “scientific and technological visions enter into the assemblages of materiality, meaning, and morality that constitutes robust forms of social life” (Jasanoff, 2015). When relating Zuckerberg’s idea of “connection” it operates as a socio-technical imaginary by building Facebook off of ...

The productivity mandates of the 21st century have demonstrated their tendency to prioritize the health of the economy over the happiness of humans. Melissa Gregg’s book Counterproductive  traces the ways in which time management ethos can inspire individuals to reclaim their idle expanses of time. However, in doing so individuals sacrifice these “unused” pockets of time and allocate them to the betterment of the neoliberal system.   An article I recently came across titled “Stuck in Commuter Hell? You Can Still Be Productive” states that “employees should think about work on the way to work by mentally mapping out a plan for their day”(Gerdeman). Otherwise individuals are expected to dedicate themselves further to their labour offerings. Therefore, work and life become a continuum as opposed to disparate spheres. Gregg refers to this spill over as “presence bleed” to articulate the ways in which work escapes its physical confines (Gregg 12).  The articl...

I found an interesting article online the other day regarding the negative effects that Artificial Intelligence (AI) may have on the workforce in the future. As Kirkwood explains, “AI could potentially disrupt every industry. All companies could require AI-related occupations by 2030, and it may become highly competitive to retain talent…” This quote in particular made me reflect upon theoretical concepts that we have analyzed throughout the course – particularly, relating to Boltanski and Chiapello’s concept of the “projective city.” This article seems to take a distinct approach to the effects that advancements in technology will pose for the greater workforce. In the concept of the ‘projective city,’ workers become more flexible to shifting between different projects and teams in order to curate a strong networked portfolio. However, Kirkwood notes that a ‘projective city’ style workforce in which technologies infiltrate and take over multiple industries, could create a...

As Jasanoff states, the concept of sociotechnical imaginaries refers to the way in which “scientific and technological visions enter into the assemblages of materiality, meaning, and morality that constitute robust forms of social life” (2015). The sociotechnical imaginary thus functions as a vision into a desirable future in which there is a shared understanding of social life, encouraging social progress. Facebook acts as an illustration of a sociotechnical imaginary as it has become one of the most popular platforms for people to connect and maintain social bonds with others. This is ultimately the main function of Facebook as Zuckerberg explains that the service was meant to facilitate helping people connect and learn more. Zuckerberg envisioned Facebook as a utopia for its aim to foster ‘connections.’ Further, his idea of “connection” operates as a socio-technical imaginary because it promotes the flourishing of building personal relationships through a technolog...