Networking : The future of information systems

How will the role of the information systems (IS) professional develop during the first half of the 21st Century? What will be the kinds of skills required for them to make a useful contribution in the provision of information systems? This paper reflects on these issues, drawing on the IS and innovation diffusion literatures. Following a review of electronic vis a vis social networks, the paper foresees the latter as crucial in the construction and diffusion of new knowledge in an IS community. A main contribution of the paper is that it utilizes a variety of disciplinary perspectives in order better to understand and improve use of information in organizations. This approach is in line with the view that in the future transdisciplinary forms of knowledge production will make traditional, disciplinary-based knowledge domains largely obsolete (Gibbons, 1995) and that knowledge relevant to IS professionals will be no different in this respect. Given this, the future role of the IS professional is portrayed here as that of a key change agent in the development, diffusion, and implementation of new ideas. A primary activity is foreseen as being one of bringing together and synthesising information, ideas, and practices from a range of disciplines with the focus being on information leading to the development of knowledge leading to the development of knowledge and expertise within organizations, not systems per se. The paper concludes by identifying implications of this analysis for IS curriculum development