Intertwingled:
Information Changes Everything by Peter Morville
http://www.amazon.com/Intertwingled-Information-Everything-Peter-Morville/dp/0692225587/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1418860220&sr=8-1&keywords=intertwingled
Intertwingled is a 198 page non-fiction book describing
the problems, benefits, and relationships which we experience in our information
society. The book was released August 13, 2014. Morville looks at our society
from never before analyzed angles. Critics have referred to the book by saying,
“Mind blown open, rearranged, and reshaped. It’s like stepping through a door
to a shifted universe that’s richer, deeper, more connected.” This review
really describes the books goal of forcing readers to think deeper into how the
information around them is sent and received. Morville analyzes many topics
from LIS 201 such as Web 2.0, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), web search, algorithms,
and other information systems.
Peter Morville, the author, is originally from
Manchester, England. In his book he informs the readers that he is 44 years old
and has an eleven year old daughter. After graduating from college in 1991 Morville
speaks of his “mind numbing” data entry job. He just happened to stumble upon a
book in a library about the potential careers in the field of library sciences.
This made Morville think deeply about networks and how hard it was to find information
in current library systems. This is the thinking that led Morville down the
path of graduate school. Morville voyaged to the United States to attend
graduate school at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor. This is where he first
dove into the subjects of information systems. He deeply studied the rise of
the internet. He immediately fell madly in love with it. He says, "A global
network of networks that provides universal access to ideas and information:
how could anyone who loves knowledge resist that? I was hooked. I dedicated
myself to the design of information systems." When Morville graduated from
Michigan he started a freelance career in his self-invented field of “information
architecture.” Morville and his partners’ definition of this field was, “The
structural design of shared information environments.” As the internet evolved,
their field also evolved. Morville continually studied and reevaluated the way
information was received in order to create more effective ways to access
information. Morville is an active blogger. His blog can be found here. This information as well as more on Peter Morville can be found on
his personal web site or on his
Wikipedia page.
Throughout his career, Morville has helped many different
companies and organizations with their information systems. Some of these
companies include AT&T, Dow Chemical, Ford, the IMF,
the Library of Congress, and Microsoft. This all started when Morville founded
his company Semantic Studios. He
spends a good amount of time in Intertwingled talking about how he came to be
where he is today. He speaks of the thought processes that got him to
re-evaluate the World Wide Web and other information systems. Wikipedia refers
to him as the “founding father” of information architecture.
The way Morville and his team approached technology issue
can be summarized by the quote from Intertwingled, “It’s the information age, a
time when learning how to learn (and unlearn) is critical to success.” This summarizes
one of Morville’s main messages that the world of technology and learning is
always changing. In this changing environment we must forget ways that we used
to do and learn things because there are better ways available now. Morville
uses pictures and diagrams in his book. The one pictured here is “The User
Experience Honeycomb.”
In this honeycomb,
there are all the key parts which need to be present in an information source.
Without all these features, the information is almost useless. Morville calls
out to the reader to look deeper and believe in what Aristotle says that “The whole
is greater than the sum of its parts.” Morville points out that, “It’s not
easy. Our society is organized around the opposing principle that the whole is
equal to the sum of the parts.” Moville uses the picture below to show the
reader that this is in fact is not true. Morville solves this problem by introducing
the reader to the concept of systems thinking.
Morville defines this as "Systems thinking looks at relationships (rather than
unrelated objects), connectedness, process (Rather than structure), the whole
(rather than just its parts), the patterns (rather than the contents) of a
system, and context."
Intertwingled
has a four star rating on Amazon.com. The book or the kindle version can be
purchased on amazon’s website. The kindle version costs $9.99 and the paperback
version is $22.50. The book can be purchased by following this link.
Intertwingled has become increasingly popular since its release. It is
currently ranked #337,479 in books. Intertwingled has received many very
positive editorial reviews.
From
Amazon’s site,
"Intertwingled is
exactly the book you'd expect from a volume with that fanciful title.
Delightful. Full of unexpected connections. Panoramic. Practical. Wise. Anyone
who makes the case that the Buddha was an information architect, as Peter
Morville artfully does, is worth your attention. You won't find a better guide
to surviving and succeeding in a world of hyper-abundant information."
Lee Rainie, Director, Pew Research
Center's Internet Project
In LIS
201 we read Henry Jenkin’s article, “Where Web 2.0 went wrong.” Jenkins
explains many problems with the modern internet such as the moral economy. This
article fits very well with Morville’s book, Intertwingled. Morville speaks at
depth into the idea of Web 2.0. However, Morville takes an approach more appropriate of the name, “Why Web 2.0 Went Wrong.” Morville doesn’t speak, like
Jennings did, on the problems of the internet. Instead he speaks of why things
are not done correctly. The answer, things are always changing. Morville says, “All
inventions have unintended consequences, and the system always kicks back.” An example that Morville bring up is the insane amount of advertisements we have been
exposed to in recent years. You can visit almost any webpage and see
advertisements. In Jenkin’s chapter, ‘Taking the “You” out of YouTube’ he
speaks of how YouTube has been purchased by Google and turned into a money
making machine thanks to the advertisements. This was likely not an intended consequence of YouTube but instead just a latter though of idea to make more
money. These two writing go very well together. Both would be excellent choices
for LIS 2012 course reading.
There
are also very clear ties between Intertwingled and Jonathan Sterne’s article “Out
with the Trash: On the Future of New Media” Sterne writes about how technology
is always being improved and updated. As a result of this, new things are
always being produced and old things are always being thrown away. Sterne
speaks of Moors law which states that the numbers of transistors in a circuit
doubles approximately every two years. This is an example of the rate of
production of new goods in the technology industry. This changing climate is
something that Morville writes about in great depth. This is the changing
environment that is the foundation of all of Morville's field of information
architecture.
In ‘“The
Damning Mark of False Prosperities”: The Deindustrialization of Detroit’ Thomas
Sugrue writes about how new technology forever changed the auto industry in Detroit
and everywhere else nationwide. The auto industry was changed by the assembly
line. This change is similar to the other changes in our information society
which Morville addresses. One of these changes is what is happening to the
taxi-cab industry. Morville discusses the new app Uber. This is a smartphone
app which users can use to summon an Uber driver. The driver knows who the
passenger will be and knows their score on an out of 5 rating system. The
passengers also know in advance who their driver will be and know his rating.
This level of transparency is changing the taxi-cab industry. Typical Taxi
services will need to change to keep up with the new technology in the industry.
More information on Uber can be found here.
Peter
Morville’s new book Intertwingled is an excellent, eye opening book about our
changing information rich culture. Morville provides many examples of ways
which we need to cope with the change and introduces new ways to look at
information systems. He says, “Information systems aren’t just code. They are
also about content and culture. We must select our frame of reference very
carefully, because the solution is shaped by how we define the problem.” This
means, to really understand the information in the systems around us we must
think carefully to how we approach the subject. Things are always changing.
There are always new ways of getting information. The information we look for
is always changing. We must frequently change ourselves in order to really
appreciate our information society we live in and gather all the information we
need.
Sources
Sources
Thomas J. Sugrue, "'The damning mark of
false prosperities': The deindustrialization of Detroit," in The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and
Inequality in Postwar Detroit (1996).
Henry Jenkins et al., “Where Web 2.0 went
wrong,” Spreadable Media (2013).
Jonathan Sterne, “Out with the trash: On
the future of new media,” in Charles R. Acland, ed., Residual Media (2007).
Other sources are hyperlinked into the text
