Meeting 2 Notes

Co-ordinator = Pete Barnsley

PARTICIPANTS

• Could language emerge without a common value?
• My suggestion is to talk about markets. Values are transmitted across markets but it is necessary to be careful with the word "MARKET" because this is really under the influence of stakeholders. Values only exhibit themselves through communication modes. This communication mode could be in the sense of investing or not investing or, regarding customers, in the sense of protesting or not protesting. Through these actions we can appreciate some of the values that are behind. 
• Values mean the things that are motivating us. The essential ones are not negotiable.
• Let us notice that in a more pragmatic way we can talk about the Communication of Values through Choice (CVC). Those CVC are potentially measurable.
• I agree, but values have a greater longevity than choices. So we need to get to the core of defining values. Do we have any other word for choice? We could disentangle it from economic choices.
• One thing about using CVC is that we don't have to get into the obscure nature of what values are. We simply claim that values influence choice and so by observing regular choices that people do with their actions we are indirectly observing the values underpinning these choices.
• Now the discussion is about how the ICT, desirability and values are connected? We could examine, for instance, how new ICTs products are received by stakeholders and inquire in what is driving their choices.
• On the other hand, can we relate desirability with purpose? Then we could make a connection between values and purposes through empirical data.
• However, purpose reflects the way you want to go. It is related to the intention of which direction to go or to value a particular choice. But probably we need to keep the notions of value and intention separated.
• Regarding ICT products, we have lots of them around for different stakeholders. Are these technologies operating desirably to satisfy different stakeholders? Notice that also, some ICT products could be acceptable for a group of people and not for others, especially regarding its use. For example using mobile phones in the trains. 
• But again CVC becomes a way by which these values are externalised. In this case the choice of using an ICT product in some contexts rather that in others. Desirability, in this sense, could be the mapping of the overlap between different value systems. The choice of desirability may change depending on the system we are in. For instance the desire to use mobile phone at home differs form the desire to use it in trains. Therefore desirability changes with context.
• It seems that the introduction of ICTs need to consider desirable and undesirable effects. Desirability being the delta in the values of the participants involved. This may well imply the need of a search for a consensus.
• Can we get to "core" values so that we can influence them beneficially in the future?

CRITICS

• You have said that desirable is whatever gives people stability in their co-evolution with others. Now if you think about that, you will see a contradiction because co-evolution is not something that is stable but it is a process that is ongoing. Notice that, furthermore, what is desirable in the short term may not be desirable in the long term. So stability is other thing than desirability. Stability may be desirable because this is what we are used to and makes us comfortable but if we push the system away form equilibrium we could end up with a better (i.e., more desirable) stable state of affairs or it could go to other stable states that may be undesirable.
• One question that may be interesting to explore is how do values co-evolve? Especially what you are calling the core values. What is it that creates, influences and ultimately changes our values? Are theses aspects different to the so-called core values?
• I would like you to explore values in relation to democracy and citizenship.
• Back in the 90s in the television we see Chinese riding bicycles because they could not afford to buy cars, but nowadays bicycles are in, we have now changed our values from other influences. I would like to see how fashions relate to values. Why some choices are more popular than others in different times? Why some things have become so desirable? 
• I agree with you that we have to put on the table some essential values, like respect. By looking globally we have a long line with a head and a tail. We are in the head talking about cosmopolitan subjects but at the same time we have racism and sexism in the tail. This line is becoming longer and longer, so to whom are we worried about. I think we have to be mainly worrying about the back part the tail; we have to build democracy in Maturana's sense. I am not talking about politics; I am talking about respecting the others. This is the minimum right of women, of black persons, of the poor people. I think we can do this with ICT. ICT can bring in the sensation of a widen society that is transparent and respectful for the others.
• I like the idea of the people using ICT products on a train. It is not just the desirability of ICT itself; it is the desirability of using ICT products in different contexts as well. 
• You may also consider nowadays that the speed of communicating values can be very fast. Here the role of non-verbal communication is important as well as the role of the initiator (e.g. the person who first say the new in mass media) in creating values.

PARTICIPANTS

• Do we relate desirability to mutual expectations? In that case we are also accepting conflicting expectations that have to be resolved. In an organisational context we are also looking at harmony between corporate values and individual values. Here, again, we may have some conflicting expectations. Probably one way to overcome them is through legitimacy.
• We have to consider also in our discussion the frequency of change in values. At what rate are new values created and old ones replaced? In terms of the diagram we used in the last meeting, certain processes will be faster and therefore the feedbacks, whether positive or negative, have a chance to occur several times.
• Going back to desirability, is it mutuality as expressed by symbols? Can we say that symbols also expressed some values? Sometime those symbols and signs could lead to violence. Therefore we come back to the point of respect for the other as in the example of mobile phones in a train.
• In the case of the use of mobile phones, the government may just ban its use in a moving vehicle; it could be a case covered by dangerous driving laws.
• Two different routes, some of us are trying to understand the relationship between the values and the succession laws, and other are wanting to introduce more desirable ICT.
• It seems that we have to make a choice here, whether we will focus on values and the design of ICT or to focus on the procedures that may be developed for maintaining stability in the use of those ICTs. 
• Most of ICT is designed by a group of people; they are designers who share some particular values that could be in conflict with the values of the users of those ICTs. It seems that these two groups (designers and users) need to be related during the designing process. However, we have to bear in mind that we may be reducing the market of an ICT product by restricting its design.

CRITICS

• I would like to hear more about your point of respect. Could respect be a main element of agreement between the individual and society? Respect in a very specific sense is the acceptance of others legitimacy. When racism emerges is because some human being are not respecting others, not accepting them as being human being in their own right. Therefore, respect is an essential value to live on the planet. 
• I t might be worth looking at what conditions would you need to create desirable values?
• Regarding the notion of desirability, we should ask the question of desirable by whom.
• The other thing that is important to notice in this same issue is that stability does not mean lack of movement. In fact, we are talking about a dynamic equilibrium, a situation that is governed by an attractor in chaos theory jargon. If you push the system away from equilibrium it reaches a new order and this new order is different from the earlier one.

PARTICIPANTS

• If we take the idea of CVC as our practical starting point, then we have different ways in which we can understand the stakeholders' choice and related values regarding a particular ICT product. We then have a number of levels of analyses:

• The notion of desirability.
• How do value systems co-evolve?
• How the mapping of the stakeholders is done?

• There are some specific problems that we need to consider like the interaction of actors with conflicting values and the unintended regulatory practices that are imposed via the particular design of an ICT product. Then the question of under what conditions do we create a particular technology that we have observed as desirable is important. 
• It seems that organisational processes play an important role in establishing desirability. The desirability of a product can only be understood in reference to its stakeholders.
• How enduring are values? The notion of value cycles in the long and short term is worth to be explored. For example communication technology has been around for quite a long time now. 
• Values are expressed in the design and use of systems; values are negotiated all the time and expressed through our choices.