Sociology 149: Business, Technology, and Society
Santa Clara University, Winter, 2006
2:15-3:20, MWF
Bannon 210
 

Instructor Net.gif (23396 bytes)
John Ratliff
Dept. Office: O'Connor 303
Office Hours: MWF 1:10-2:10 PM; or by appointment
Phone: 554-5178
Email: jratliff@scu.edu (Note all email messages should include "BTS" in subject.

THIS QUARTER'S WEBSITES ARE HERE

Course Description and Objective

CALENDAR AND READINGS

Required Text
Robert X. Cringely, Accidental Empires: How the Boys of Silicon Valley Make Their Millions, Battle Foreign Competition and Still Can’t Get a Date, HarperBusiness, 1996.
Recommended Text:
Tapscott, Ticoll and Lowy, Digital Capital: Harnessing the Power of Business Webs, Harvard Business School Press, 2000.
# On Class Website and/or at a specified URL Web location, for downloading, printing out, and/or reading online.

Note: this class schedule is tentative, and may be changed at the discretion of the instructor.


Week One (week of Jan 9th): Introduction to course and overview of syllabus.
Monday: Class Introduction. Discussion of the nature of sociology and pedagogy of this class.  Lecture Notes
Wednesday: Student self-introductions.
Friday: Beginning of discussion. Cringely, Chapters 1, 2 & 3.  Lecture Notes

End of First Week Assignment:  ASSIGNMENT IS DUE Sunday, Jan 15th:

First, spend some time going through the Suggested Web Sites to Get Started:
NY Times page Cybertimes.  Lots of stuff about social and cultural issues relating to the Net here.
San Jose Mercury News  Support the local paper!  
The Washington Post also has a s special tech section called Technews. Check it out.

ILC Glossary of Internet Terms. Excellent online reference for technical terms. For non-techies: you might print this out for future use. Does anybody really know all of these terms?

Also, you can take some time going through PC Magazine's Top 100 Web Sites .  This year the feature is "Top 100 Undiscovered Web Sites."

For the more adventurous:
Hot Wired -- General issues of electronic culture.
SlashDot -- Geek Central: enter at your own risk.

Then, post a general review (about a half-page of text) of the sites you found particularly helpful or interesting or surprising.  As part of your review, focus on one article or item at one of the sites that was of particular interest to you.  Be sure to include BTS in subject line of email.

Note: In addition, add the information about yourself that you presented in your self-introduction in class on Wednesday to the message. If you send this from a computer at school, please include your actual email address in the "from" line.

Week Two (week of Jan 16th): The social foundations and historical origins of the rise of the PC industry in Silicon Valley.
Monday: Holiday
Wednesday: Cringely, Ch. 4-6.  Discussion of the sociological matrix of Info-Communications.  Lecture Notes

Student Web Finds for Today.

# Nicholas Negroponte, Being Digital, Ch. 1 and 5. 

Friday: Cringely, Ch. 7-9.   Timeline on microprocessor history.  Lecture Notes

Wilson Pickett, RIP.  Midnight Hour.

Week Three (week of Jan. 23rd) Development of the PC and rise of Wintelism as portrayed in popular culture: "Pirates of Silicon Valley."
Monday: Cringely, Ch. 10, 11, 12.  Lecture Notes
Wednesday:  Begin watching video
Friday: Video continues. Couple of mystery pictures: who are they?  who is he? Here's Apple 1984 commercial.   Another Gates shot, with more relevant photos: Gates and Allen, Altair, Apple One, Woz and Jobs early on, Woz with Blue Box, Woz and Jobs later.  Finally, a more recent video clip of Steve Baumer's leadership. 

Assignment: email me a brief (a few paragraphs) comment about what you found interesting/confusing/provocative/surprising about the video.  In particular, what did you learn about the social process of innovation?  What about Jobs' comment: "Good artists copy; great artists steal?" (You could also unpack his later statement "Real Artists Ship," and Gates' response to Jobs saying "Our stuff is better," namely "It doesn't make any difference.")  Please have this in to me by noon on Sunday.  Remember: "BTS" in subject line.

Week Four (week of Jan. 30th) The rise of the Internet: the accidental superhighway.
Monday: Discussion of video.  #An article on Wintelism by Charles R. Morris and Charles H. Ferguson: "How Architecture Wins Technology Wars."  Lecture Notes
Wednesday: Discussion of Internet begins. #"The Accidental Superhighway: A Survey of the Internet," The Economist, July 1, 1995, special survey.  Added reading:  National Information Infrastructure Agenda for Action. (just skim).  Discussion of group projects.
Friday: Presentation by Helen LaFrance on WWW search strategies. (Date Tentative).

Week Five (week of Feb 6th) Internet, continued. Web publishing.
Monday:  Choose groups. History of the Internet.  Hobbes Internet Timeline.  Added sites:  Internet Archive  Lecture Notes
Wednesday:   Lecture Notes
Friday: Discussion of e-commerce.  Discussion of World of Ends.  Midterm distributed.  Optional assignment (strictly for fun).

Week Six (week of Feb. 13th): Business Organization in the Digital Age
Monday:  Introduction to DreamWeaver with David Armstrong.   Dreamweaver Quickstart Guide. Here's a demo copy of Dreamweaver MX  CAT
Wednesday: Internet, contd.
Friday: Discussion of Internet, contd. Media: Peanuts Hey Ya  Bush/Blair Endless Love  Sites:  All Music Guide. Tucows, IMDB, TWOP.  Discussion of ecommerce begins.

Week Seven (week of Feb. 20th): Discussion of digitization. More web publishing workshop
Monday: Holiday
Wednesday: Web workshop, part two.   Good web pages from former classes   Dave Armstrong's Creating a Website in One Hour.  Here's a demo copy of Dreamweaver MX   Account information: User Name and Password are both "BTS0x" (no quotes, with "x" being your group number, CASE SENSITIVE).  URL for your group is:  http://itrs.scu.edu/ratliff/btssp06/bts0x with "x" being your group number.  You can also access your group by going to http://itrs.scu.edu/ratliff/btssp06/ and then clicking on your group number.  Remember: homepage must be titled: index.htm.
Friday: Digital Capital, pp. 1-36. Skim pp. 93-165.  Power Point presentation here.  Midterm due.

Week Eight (week of Feb. 27th): Issues of Intellectual Property in the digital age.
Monday: Digital Capital Discussion continues.
Wednesday: #  John Perry Barlow, "Selling Wine Without Bottles: The Economy of Mind on the Global Net."  Barlow is part of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.    Good web pages from former classes  
Friday: Final in-class workshop.  Final distributed.  Brokeback spoofs.

Weeks Nine and Ten: Student presentations. The future of the Information Age.
Monday, March 6th: Discussion reading: Thomas Friedman, "Cyber-Serfdom."  # Mark Helprin, The Acceleration of Tranquility. 

Note: Class is cancelled on Wednesday, March 15th.  Group presentations originally scheduled for that day are moved to Friday, March 17th.

Thursday, March 23rd: Finals due.