Business meeting minutes, Seattle, WA, USA, 14 December, 2003

Seattle, WA USA
December 14, 2003

The meeting was called to order at 4:00 p.m. by Chair Julie Kendall (US).

1. Introduction

Julie Kendall thanked Gurpreet Dhillon (US), Ray Hackney (UK), and Erica Wagner (US), the coordinators of the very successful Oasis workshop held prior to the business meeting.

After providing an overview of IFIP Technical Committee (TC) 8, Julie Kendall discussed the focus of Working Group (WG) 8.2 and the strong feeling of community among the group.

2. Past Meetings

In recent years we have had four working conferences and three workshops, including the one held this year. In June, 2003, "IS Perspectives and Challenges in the Context of Globalization" was held in conjunction with IFIP WG 9.4 in Athens, Greece. The conference on "The Global and Organizational Discourse about Information Technology" was held in Barcelona in December 2002. We met in Boise, Idaho in July of 2001 for the conference on "Realigning Research and Practice in IS Development: The Social and Organizational Perspective." And the 2000 working conference, "IS2000: The Social and Organizational Perspective on Research and Practice in Information Technology", was held in Aalborg, Denmark, in June of that year. In addition to this year’s workshop in Seattle, workshops were held in 2001 in New Orleans and 2000 in Brisbane.

3. Forthcoming Working Conferences & Workshops

Duane Truex (US), Trevor Wood-Harper (UK), and Bob Wood (UK), encouraged participation in the 20 year anniversary of the original Manchester conference. "Relevant Theory and Informed Practice: Looking Forward from a 20 Year Perspective on IS Research," will be held 15-17 July, 2004, in Manchester, England. A record 113 submissions were received for the conference.

It was proposed that Isabel Ramos (PT) coordinate the OASIS workshop in Washington, DC, on 12 December 2004, immediately prior to ICIS. The proposal was approved. Norika Hara (US) volunteered to assist Isabel. Frank Land (UK) suggested that one entire session of the workshop be devoted to a single panel to allow more time for discussion. Contact Isabel at iramos@dsi.uminho.pt with questions, and watch the IFIP WG 8.2 website for more information.

Youngin Yoo (US) and Kalle Lyytinen (US) provided information on the 2005 working conference to be held in Cleveland, OH, 1-3 August 2005. The theme of the conference will be "Designing Ubiquitous Information Environments: Socio Technical Issues and Challenges". Deadline for submissions will be in February 2005.

Eileen Trauth (US) discussed the upcoming working conference on "Social Exclusion" to be held in Limerick, Ireland, in December 2006, prior to ICIS in London.

4. Discussion

Julie Kendall presented several items for discussion. The first general area was: Are our working conferences helping us to achieve our mission? Subtopics included: Are the topics relevant? Are the venues appropriate? Should we have joint meetings?

Kevin Crowston (US) offered that the question regarding themes was difficult one: there must be a balance between being too vague (like ICIS) versus too specific which might turn off people. We need to make it clear we are interested in papers on the theme, but interested in other topics as well. Frank Land (UK) suggested that ethical issues should appear more clearly as a theme as part of 8.2; the socio technical area includes explicit ethical issues and therefore ethics should be part of our agenda. Duane Truex (US) added that we should make certain that people are communicating and hearing each others’ literature. When polled, approximately 1/3 of the business meeting attendees said that they had attended a conference sponsored by another working group, and several more indicated that they would like the opportunity to do so. This appeared to imply an overall positive attitude towards future joint conferences sponsored by WG 8.2 in conjunction with another working group.

A second discussion area had to do with the planning time frame/horizon: How far ahead should we plan for the future? Duane Truex (US) mentioned that the chief constraint is our publisher, Kluwer, which needs 3 1/2 months (if the program chairs are assisted by a copy editor such as Jan DeGross), or longer, to prepare the proceedings. This results in at least a 6 month lead time for publication, which requires that the Call for Papers go out well before that. Steve Sawyer (US) noted that our working conferences used to occur approximately every 18 months, but recently have moved to nearly every 12 months. No proposals were made to change the current process.

5. New Business

Kevin Crowston (US) and Eleanor Wynn (US) presented a proposal for a working conference to be held in July or August 2007 in Portland, Oregon. The general theme would be "Working in Virtuality." Intel has agreed to provide sponsorship. Some discussion followed. Karl H. Kautz (DK) questioned the dates because they are within the summer holiday months, and IRIS is the second weekend in August. For the French, according to Frantz Rowe (FR), the conflict with holidays is even worse! David Avison (UK), said that the topic and venue are superb, but suggested that the theme of working in virtuality should stress social and organizational aspects to reflect the focus of the working group.

Chair Julie Kendall asked if there were other groups who would like to propose a working conference for 2007. There were none, so it was moved to put this proposal to a vote of approval. The members voted to approve the proposal for the summer of 2007, with exact dates to be decided.

Those with announcements were asked to make them at this time. Ken Kendall (US), past chair of WG 8.2 noted that there were four past chairs of the group in attendance (possibly a new record!): himself, David Avison (UK), Richard Baskerville (US), and Kalle Lyytinen (US). Ken also provided information on the Decision Sciences Institute annual meeting to be held November 20-23, 2004 in Boston. Duane Truex (US) mentioned the academic workshop on French-speaking IS research at which Paul Gray made an historical announcement: Beginning March 1, 2004, CAIS (Communications of the AIS) will be publishing papers from the French-speaking IS community in French with extended 4-page abstracts in English. Eleanor Wynn (US) shared the Call for Participation for the IFIP WG 8.6 conference on "IT Innovation for Adaptability", to be held May 31-June 2 in Leixlip, Ireland. Youngin Yoo (US) provided details on a special issue of Information & Organization on "Ubiquitous Computing Environments: Learning from First Wave Social and Organizational Impacts." Youngin and Kalle Lyytinen (US) are guest editors of this special issue.

Julie Kendall asked members to contact her with any suggestions for the officers, any improvements, or any new committees or tasks forces that should be formed. Members were also reminded that they can edit their contact information via the WG 8.2 website. Thanks to Kevin Crowston (US) for maintaining this site.

6. Election of New Members

All friends of WG 8.2 meeting the criteria for membership (attendance at two business meetings in the past three years) were asked to stand and introduce themselves. The following individuals were approved for membership, subject to confirmation by the secretary, and welcomed to the group:

* Elisabeth Rossen (US)
* Erica Wagner (US)
* Antonio Cordella (SE)
* Frantz Rowe (FR)
* Federico Rajola (IT)
* Andrea Carugati (FR)
* Chiara Frigerio (IT).

The meeting was adjourned at 5:00 PM.

—Nancy L. Russo (US), Secretary