A Personal Working Model
www.markrogergregory.net
Mark Gregory
ESC Rennes School of Business, France
mark.gregory@esc-rennes.fr
Dr. Renaud Macgilchrist
ESC Rennes School of Business, France
Director of Studies
Prof. David Weir,
University Campus Suffolk
Supervisor
Dr. Renaud Macgilchrist
ESC Rennes
renaud.macgilchrist@esc-rennes.fr
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Presentation themes
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A model of a Personal Working Model
The context of my research: personal
information management systems
The motivation, justification and
methodology for my research, including
some contributions I hope to make as I
answer my research question
Why a Working Model must exist
Ways in which to model the Working
Model and its components
A Personal
Working Model
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Personal data: a shopping list
Table
structure
Shopping
item
bread
pasta
basic veg
exotic veg
chicken
Harry Potter
DVD
Supplier
Quantity
hard
discount
hard
discount
hard
discount
supermarket
2 loaves
farm shop
online
2.5 kg
2
Rows
Columns:
header
gives
meaning
1 kg
enough for 3
days
enough for
one meal
The phenomenon: people keep and
use data as they get their work done
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The phenomenon I am investigating is the
personal knowledge management of individual
knowledge workers as they carry out their work
This constitutes a personal work system
(Baskerville 2011) in which the primary systemic
element is the worker, who interacts with her
personal data as it is stored on and made available
by means of information and communications
technology
Baskerville calls the computer-specific element of
this an individual information system
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Personal information management
within the personal work system
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(Paul 2010) defines an information system as ICT
in use
In (Gregory 2012) I identify the personal
information management system and suggest
that this is substantially the same thing as
Baskerville’s IIS
There remain unresolved boundary issues here!
Where does the personal work system end and
the personal information management system
begin?
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What do I mean by a PIMS?
Category
Research
Teaching
Personal
Item
When
Hours Hours
needed Plan
Done
UKAIS 2014 conference paper –
DONE
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16
revise paperA personal information management
Set MCQ forsystem
IS444Eis
IBIS
class
Tomorrow
4
1
constituted
when
someone uses
ICT – here a spreadsheet – to store data
Get some shopping
in
Today decisions 1or
0
which subsequently
informs
action. The “systemic” element – the
knowledge-wielding, learning element of
the system – is the person who uses the
information. The information is filtered
data associated with meaning, here
“simple” column headings. But in fact
there is nothing simple about this process
of attributing meaning. How “meaningful”
would this data be if the content and
headings were in a natural language you
didn’t understand?
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My original two-part research question
1.
2.
How do knowledge workers manage their
personal information and knowledge?
How can knowledge workers be helped
to improve their personal knowledge
management (PKM) by means of a
useful and applicable teaching, learning
and evaluation framework?
New insight: Obeying the Laws - 1
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The law of requisite variety put forward by Ross
Ashby can be stated thus:
“Variety absorbs variety, defines the minimum
number of states necessary for a controller to
control a system of a given number of states”
(Ashby 1956)
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New insight: Obeying the Laws - 2
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(Conant & Ashby 1970): Good Regulator theorem,
“Every good regulator of a system must be a
model of that system...
The design of a complex regulator includes the
making or maintenance of a model of the system to
be regulated.
The theorem shows that any regulator that is
maximally both successful and simple must be
isomorphic with the system being regulated.”
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Good Regulator Theory: Significance
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The regulator or control system must be
capable of creating requisite variety
Conant and Ashby claimed great generality
for their theory
See (Scholten, 2010a), (Scholten, 2010b) for
a primer and an exegesis: “Every Good Key
Must Be A Model Of The Lock It Opens”
Major implications for IS theory and practice
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E.g. we have got to be serious about teaching and
practising modelling; and IS has things to teach
hackers! (and much to learn too).
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A revised RQ formulation and how
that has changed my research
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What is the contribution of personal
information management systems PIMS to
the Working Model and personal work system
of knowledge workers?
Necessary precursor: appropriate modelling
mechanisms
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Ideally a direct regulator which is an active
isomorphic model
At least homomorphic
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Personal work systems
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For each knowledge worker (Drucker 1999):
We posit the existence of a Personal Work
System PWS that is individual to each person
That PWS is supported by a Personal
Information Management System PIMS:
(Gregory & Descubes 2011a, b)
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Broadly the same as Individual Information
Systems IIS supporting personal and work-related
Work Systems: (Baskerville 2011)
Very similar to a User Generated Information
System UGIS: (DesAutels 2011)
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Knowledge representation: KR
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We need to model the model…
Existing KR techniques vary in their:
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Expressiveness
Precision
Ease of comprehension
The more abstract, the more precise we can be
in expression and manipulation (potentially
even by machine); but less generally
applicable, and more difficult to learn
Knowledge workers cannot really survive only
with one KR approach
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Especially if that is « just » natural language
Conceprocity:
Concept Process Reciprocity
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Conceprocity – concept ↔ process
reciprocity – is a visual and textual language
and toolset intended for capturing, expressing,
communicating and co-creating models of topic
areas of domain knowledge by domain experts
or learners
Semi-formal semantics – human emphasis, used
when investigating problem situations; but
grammar rules exist and are partially enforced
The first contribution of my PhD
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Main
symbols
Example KR: a Conceprocity map of
planning and doing the shopping
Source:
author
Dictionary for “Do the shopping”
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An abductive insight
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It is a surprising fact that people get things done
despite not having an explicit regulatory model
nor an obvious personal information management
system
Possible abductive explanation: people must
and do have implicit regulators in the form of socalled mental models which are homomorphic
(somewhat isomorphic) with the reality
Model-informed & self-managed action & process
So what are the models and what PIMS have
they de facto constructed?
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“Reality” and models: discovering the PWS
Life and work of individual:
task focus
Analysis
Analysed system:
conceptual model
The Personal
Working Model: a
conceptual model
of a person’s
individual work
system
Assembling tools or creating them:
Synthesis
Data / Presentation /
Integration
[ / Scripting]
Personal Information Management
System supporting Personal Work
System
The work
system and the
information
system used
by the
individual
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Methodology and techniques
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Structured auto-ethnography: telling my
own action-story as I seek to understand
and to prototype better techniques
Re-viewing the literature of personal
information management PIM by means of
fuzzy concept maps (Leximancer),
demonstrating the gap – no systems view
Mentored action research with research
participants leading to designed concept
maps
Research data analysis: fuzzy concept maps
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Semi-automatic semantic analysis using
Leximancer
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This will permit a more objective categorisation
process and may even give rise to emergent
personal ontology
Data to be analysed is text:
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Collected auto-ethnographically by Research
Mentor and Research Partners
Collected also from students
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An analysis of my PhD journal
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A Model of a Personal Working Model
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The Personal Work System PWS of a knowledge worker
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Components of a personal information
management system PIMS
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Research objectives and motivation
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Objective - To discover by mixed research methods:
 How each individual’s Personal (Baskerville 2011)
Work System (Alter 1999, 2010) PWS can better be
supported by her Personal Information Management
System PIMS
 How to help people to improve their PIMS and PWS
via explicit modelling and implicit learning (by both
research volunteer and researcher mentor)
 To understand how to “surface” the Working Model
Motivation
 Desire to be engaged in relevant and even passionate
research and related teaching
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Further research - 1
Experiment and research methodology
Concept mapping approach
Current status
Analyse own auto-ethnography using
Leximancer. We will seed Leximancer with
Largely
Leximancer emergent or fuzzy concept
compound concepts (e.g. information system, complete.
maps. This involves using Leximancer to personal information management, personal
enquire into the author’s autoinformation management system) and thus to
ethnographic research journal (130000
refine and focus the resultant concept map. An
words). The specific auto-ethnographic
early attempt at this analysis is reproduced as
approach is based on systematic selfFigure 3
observation (Rodriguez and Ryave, 2002).
Building various text corpora and then
Leximancer; seeking the emergence of
Underway.
analysing them
significant vocabulary as a fuzzy concept map
 Recognised writing concerning
Seeking evidence of a systems approach in the
personal information management
PIM literature; expecting the null hypothesis
 Key information systems literature
Seeking evidence of a systems approach in the
IS literature; expecting the hypothesis but at a
low level of significance
 Key literature concerning the
Seeking an emergent vocabulary
epistemology and ontology of personal
information management and personal
knowledge management
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Further research - 2
Experiment and research methodology
Concept mapping approach
Current status
Analyse own auto-ethnography
using Conceprocity; the outcome
will be a directed and synthetic
concept map
Conceprocity; the outcome is
expected to be a developed
definition of a Working Model
This presentation; forthcoming
paper.
Observing the usability and
usefulness of Conceprocity
mapping used by postgraduate
students as a means of
understanding and elucidating
research articles
Conceprocity. The outcomes
The first experiment is complete;
expected to be (1) a better
initial analysis indicates a
understanding of the extent to
sometimes very poor level of
which these two usage profiles conceptual understanding by the
are used and useful to students students; however, some
and probably (2) refinements to produce very well structured
the Conceprocity mapping
maps and simultaneously report
approach
considerable satisfaction with the
method. In a second experiment,
students are being more tightly
directed in their use – an
instance of mentored action
learning. Results will be analysed
before the conference.
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Existing and developing contributions
from my Ph.D. research to date
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Initial diffusion
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Twelve conference papers
Website: www.markrogergregory.net, designed to
draw in volunteers
Conceprocity’s two dialects
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CAPRICE: for students
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Empirical investigation in S1 2013/4 as MSc students had to
model the concepts and relationships present in an
academic paper concerning e-commerce – loose guidance
S2: tight guidance to PGE IS Minor students
CAPRILOPE: for practitioners; empirical work with
research volunteers as I and they model their
personal work systems
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Volunteers welcome!
Planned contributions from my Ph.D.
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Conceptualisation and illustration of the individual
working models of certain individuals, starting with
me – see earlier slides. Action research.
Analysis of unschooled and schooled Conceprocity
mapping by students: how useful? Action learning.
An insistence on modelling – not an optional
extra…
All leading to a synthesised statement of
requirements for effective PIM tools and systems based on action research outcomes
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Practically relevant teaching, learning, mentoring and
self-evaluation approach
Recognise shortcomings in this research and set out
a programme for later research – this was the
abduction, now what about other logics of enquiry?
Next steps: five more months to
complete my research
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Intervening minimally (“loose”) and
significantly (“tight”) in concept mapping
carried out by students; S1 & S2 2013/4
Intervening by means of mentoring of
research volunteers; May to September 2014
Federated by a web-based community of
practice, www.teamkim.org (currently under
construction; full availability late spring 2014)
Limited further auto-ethnography
Take home messages
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Models are necessary; we have a duty to
help people understand that
Models exist; we must help to make them
more explicit
Control – management – mandates good
modelling and requisite variety
Each of us should endeavour to build good
regulators – a good Working Model – and
to help others to do so
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Presentation references
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Alter, S., 1999. A general, yet useful theory
of information systems. Communications of
the AIS 1, 3.
Alter, S., 2010. Work system concepts as
the core for teaching Information Systems
and Operations Management. AMCIS 2010
Proceedings 533.
Ashby, W.R., 1956. An introduction to
cybernetics. Chapman & Hall London.
Baskerville, R.L., 2011. Individual
information systems as a research arena.
Eur J Inf Syst 20, 251–254.
doi:10.1057/ejis.2011.8
Conant, R.C., Ashby, W.R., 1970. Every
good regulator of a system must be a model
of that system. International journal of
systems science 1, 89–97.
DesAutels, P., 2011. UGIS: Understanding
the nature of user-generated information
systems. Business Horizons 54, 185–192.
Drucker, P.F., 1999. Knowledge-worker
productivity: The biggest challenge. The
knowledge management yearbook 2000–
2001.
Refs: D:\Q\PhD\A Working Model.docx
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Gregory, M., 2012. A reflection on Personal
Information Management Systems. Presented at
the PIM Workshop 2012, part of CHI 2012,
Seattle, WA.
Gregory, M., Descubes, I., 2011a. Structured
reflection in Information Systems Teaching and
Research. Presented at the UKAIS 2011:
Proceedings of the 2011 conference of the
United Kingdom Academy for Information
Systems, St. Catherine’s College, Oxford, April
2011, Oxford, England.
Gregory, M., Descubes, I., 2011b. Understanding
PIMS: Personal Information Management
Systems. Research Journal of Economics,
Business and ICT 2011, 31–37.
Paul, R.J., 2010. Motivation for Writing the Paper
What an Information System Is, and Why Is It
Important to Know This: Why I Give Lectures and
Seminars. Journal of Computing and Information
Technology 18.
Rodriguez, N., Ryave, A., 2002. Systematic selfobservation. Sage Publications, Inc.
Scholten, D.P., 2010a. A Primer For Conant &
Ashby’s “Good-Regulator Theorem.”
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http://www.goodregulatorproject.org/images/A_Primer_For_Co
nant_And_Ashby_s_Good-Regulator_Theorem.pdf
Scholten, D.P., 2010b. Every Good Key Must Be
A Model Of The Lock It Opens (The Conant &
Ashby Theorem Revisited).