Information Systems and Inter-Organizational Space

Abstract

It is currently impractical or uneconomic to maintain an up-to-date picture of who is doing what, where, and when. There is little systematically ordered information on the organizations and social structures active in all fields of human activity. Organizational space may therefore be said to be unmapped. This condition reinforces program isolationism and traditional forms of contact between organizations and disciplines at a time when social problems increasingly cross established jurisdictional boundaries. A worldwide information collection system is required which, to be viable, cannot be dependent on any central or over-all administration but which would facilitate interaction between groups which are currently isolated geographically or by specialization. The creation of such a system needs to be catalyzed rather than organized. The technique discussed in the article could well have important implications for communication across jurisdictional boundaries within governmental organizational structures. It raises no immediate technical problems. Information is not accessible until it has been processed into a form which highlights points of significance as defined by unknown users. A new medium is required to facilitate more intimate interaction between groups and disciplines which use and evaluate the same information in different ways. The technique of computer interactive graphics could be developed to provide the breakthrough needed to contain conceptually the recognized complexity of social processes.