Office space | virtual office

Information System Metaphors
Henk W.M. Gazendam1
Abstract
Nowadays, we are confronted with a virtual domain based on information technology artifacts and organize ourselves in virtual organizations. The limitations to the development of virtual organizations are those of the human imagination. Multiple ideas about what virtual organizations should be or should do are possible, and can be studied based on the metaphor concept. Metaphors are useful because they are efficient: they transfer a complex of meaning in a few words. Information systems are social constructs. Therefore, metaphors seem to be especially useful for explaining the space of possible meaning complexes or designs of information systems. Three information system metaphors and the associated meaning complexes are explained: the mill, the cell, and the mind. An information system as a mill is characterized by the efficient processing of large quantities of information. The processing has to be done using fixed, that is, invariant, rules en patterns that may be very complex. An information system as a cell is characterized by its fluent and adequate interaction with people. The information system consists of objects that take care of preserving their own integrity and that react on events. The cell metaphor is characterized by interaction and integrity. The information system as a mind appears as an intelligent assistant embodying that mind. An information system as a mind is characterized by capabilities like knowledge use, autonomy and learning. These three metaphors can be combined, and are combined, in real-life organizations.
1. Virtuality and Metaphors
1.1. Virtuality
What is virtual?
Virtual means in English: essential, real, what you do not see now, but what exists in practice. So there is an essence that you cannot perceive as such. You only can see manifestations of this essence. This definition seems to be inspired by philosophical traditions like essentialism or Platonic realism. On the other hand, virtual means in Dutch and also in physics: existent as image only, not real, what you see now, but what does not exist in practice. This definition is more in line with philosophical approaches like nominalism and Peircean realism (Hausman 1993). So, something virtual seems to be something intangible with a status between real and existing as image only. Let us use the following working definition. Virtual is something perceptible (e.g., visible), intangible and immaterial, that we can imagine based on perceived images or practical experiences, and with which we can interact using special artifacts. Via those artifacts, the virtual something can also influence or normal, nonvirtual world. In terms of Von Uexküll (Von Uexküll and Kriszat, 1936), the virtual something is a species with a very specialized semiotic Umwelt, based on
1 Prof.dr. Henk W.M. Gazendam is professor of Information Systems in the Public Sector at the Faculty of Public Administration at Twente University, The Netherlands, and associate professor of Information Strategy at the Faculty of Management and Organization at Groningen University, The Netherlands (P.O. Box 800, NL-9700-AV Groningen, The Netherlands, tel. +31-50-3637090, Email: h.w.m.gazendam@bdk.rug.nl; Webpage: www.bdk.rug.nl/medewerkers/h.w.m.gazendam ).
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the semiotic capabilities of those specialized artifacts. When people interact with this virtual species, their respective semiotic Umwelts are interconnected in a process of semiosis. In this semiosis process, people perceive images and symbol structures, experience practical effects, and influence or even instantiate the virtual species. Based on this process of semiosis, people imagine or mentally construct their interpretation of the virtual something.
A person talking to me at the other end of the telephone is not virtual, because she is supposed to be tangible and material, as one can find out when being in her vicinity (in this opinion I disagree with Tomas Dorta (1999), who thinks that such a person is virtual). This is a case of distant reality. A computer talking to me on the telephone in a voice response system is virtual because it will never be able to appear for me in tangible and material form. The internet shop of Amazon is virtual because I can see it and can interact with it, while, at the same time, I will never be able to walk physically into that shop. An organization like the university is a more complex case. At this moment, I assume that it is not virtual, because I cannot perceive it, but can only think about it and talk about it. I perceive the effects of the existence of the university in the form of receiving a salary every month. I interact with the university, but not directly, only through other persons or virtual actors that have some sort of mandate from the university to represent them. So the university is some kind of conceptual entity that exists and works based on the existence and work of people. This can be called conceptual reality. Another complex case is the doctor in Star Trek Voyager. Although he can be perceived by all senses, and you can interact with him, he is considered to be immaterial because he can be switched on and off. Material presence assumes permanence, not switchability. This criterion of permanence would be not applicable if the doctor could never be switched off. In this case, the concept of semiotic Umwelt says that you cannot distinguish between a real doctor and a virtual doctor. But there is a second criterion for material presence, namely causation. Material presence causes the phenomena that you perceive. This criterion is, however, disputable and sometimes difficult to apply. Your perception of the doctor in Star Trek Voyager is based on a stored program controlling some kind of emitter and not based on a material presence. Therefore, the doctor is virtual because he is immaterial. The last difficult case is Siegfried wearing the Tarnhelm making him invisible, and let us assume, also imperceptible by the other senses. This makes interaction difficult. You can only perceive the effects of his actions. Here you have someone that is not perceptible but at the same time material. So he is not virtual, but more something like anti-virtual.
The virtual domain
Nowadays, we are confronted with a virtual domain based on information technology artifacts that have a mediating role (Rheingold, 1991; Brooks, 1999). Computer screens and other media give us access to a virtual domain.
“The screen is a window through which one sees a virtual world. The challenge is to make that world look real, act real, sound real, feel real. . . A display connected to a digital computer gives us a chance to gain familiarity with concepts not realizable in the physical world. It is a looking glass into a mathematical wonderland…. There is no reason why the objects displayed by a computer have to follow the ordinary rules of physical reality. . . The ultimate
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display would, of course, be a room within which the computer can control the existence of matter.” (Sutherland, 1965)
According to Castells (1996, p. 327), there exists a culture of real virtuality. People experience intangible, nonmaterial images and symbols as real because they are accustomed to the use of television, computers, money in bank accounts, and organizations. The virtual domain fills a larger and larger part of our existence because of its attractiveness. Virtualization means that in work, leisure and organization, there is a primary role of the virtual domain. For human participants, physical places of exchange become virtual places of exchange. We wander around in this virtual domain when we play games, we buy books and music in the virtual shops at Internet, we meet other people in discussion groups and at game platforms, and so on. The virtual domain controls our nonvirtual, physical world. Information systems, which are entities that only exist in the virtual domain, work for us as virtual actors. For instance, information systems pay salaries and the cost for office space. That is, they perform actions that change our material and conceptual world. National states do not have power over this virtual domain, because they have their roots in physical space. The virtual domain, on the other hand, is mainly composed of virtual actors, virtual objects, and virtual spaces. Virtual objects and virtual spaces are based on active representations that know how to react when interacting with people or virtual actors.
The experience of a virtual domain is not new; only the interpretation of it as virtuality is relatively new. For instance, in mediaeval times, theology studied an intangible, immaterial world that seemed to be more stable and therefore more real. Churches gave access to this world by offering sculptures and pictures2. Thomas Aquinas (1266-1273) invented the concept information for the immaterial mental constructs people use for denoting the likeliness of things. According to Thomas, the ability to know corresponds to the degree of immateriality. The degree of immateriality corresponds to the amount of information stored. The world of knowledge is an immaterial world.
Virtual organizations
In the context of organizations, Vincent Giuliano first used the concept of virtuality in 1982. Describing the office of the information age he stated:
“There is no longer any need to assemble all workers at the same place and time. Computers and facilities for communication create a virtual office.”
The virtual office breaks with the concept of an organization as a collective of people working together at a certain place and within a certain period of time. Of the unity of place, time and action, only coordinated action remains. Related to this concept of virtual office is the concept of a network organization, an organization consisting of persons that work at different places, while communicating and cooperating using computers and computer networks. Many scientific communities can be seen as such network organizations.
2 Because direct perception of, and interaction with, this intangible immaterial world is scarce (in the form of miracles), and at the same time you perceive the effects of its actions, this world does perhaps not qualify for virtuality in the sense as we understand it nowadays. It has more the character of an anti-virtual phenomenon, like Siegfried with the Tarnhelm, or a conceptual reality like the university.

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