Enhance quotes

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Shoshana_Zuboff

Panopticon Coaching

“To be sure, some managers saw the enhanced certainty of their information about subordinates as an opportunity to accelerate learning and improve performance. They found that the data from the Overview System made it possible to survey a wide range of behavior for evidence of irregularities. To the extent that the sources of such irregularities could be discovered, the data could be used to 'coach' subordinates and to help them realign their behavior within acceptable standards... On the other hand, many of Cedar Bluff's managers were more interested in the possibility of obtaining foolproof data than in the opportunity of using such data for coaching. In the context of a conventional technology, managers had to rely on their subordinates for valid information. The quality of the data they received was likely to be a function of the quality of the reciprocal relationship they had established. In contrast, an informating technology could provide valid information under any conditions.”
  • Source: Zuboff, S. (1988). In The Age Of The Smart Machine: The Future Of Work And Power. New York, NY: Basic Books, p. 324. ISBN:0465032125.

Technology Change

“To fully grasp the way in which a major new technology can change the world... it is necessary to consider both the manner in which it creates intrinsically new qualities of experience and the way in which new possibilities are engaged by the often-conflicting demands of social, political, and economic interests in order to produce a 'choice.' To concentrate only on intrinsic change and the texture of an emergent mentality is to ignore the real weight of history and the diversity of interests that pervade collective behavior. However, to narrow all discussion of technological change to the play of these interests overlooks the essential power of technology to reorder the rules of the game and thus our experience as players. Moreover, these two dimensions of technological change, the intrinsic and the contingent, need to be understood, not separately, but in relation to one another. The same innovation that abstracts work and increases its intellectual content, thus enhancing the learning of lower level employees... can also, within the context of the choices by which it is adapted, be experienced as a new source of divisiveness and control.”
  • Source: Zuboff, S. (1988). In The Age Of The Smart Machine: The Future Of Work And Power. New York, NY: Basic Books, p. 389. ISBN:0465032125.

Management Circles Around Data

“As the intellective skill base becomes the organization's most precious resource, managerial roles must function to enhance its quality. Members can be thought of as being arrayed in concentric circles around a central core, which is the electronic data base.”
  • Source: Zuboff, S. (1988). In The Age Of The Smart Machine: The Future Of Work And Power. New York, NY: Basic Books, p. 396. ISBN:0465032125.