What We Do
Intersticia works with individuals to help them to more effectively understand the evolving interplay between analogue and digital information technologies, and the social systems which support them. In particular we facilitate this through the design and delivery of leadership, education and governance programmes aimed at increasing digital literacy, enhancing personal leadership skills and improving transparency and customer/stakeholder response. Our focus is on the need for analogue leadership in the digital world and we offer:
- Coaching and mentoring
- Leadership development
- Governance strategy development
- Educational seminars
- Digital Literacy workshops
- Public speaking and facilitation
Digital interaction technologies are changing the way that humans interact both in the physical and digital worlds. Whilst humans are still humans, the fundamental characteristics of digital systems mean that these interactions are different – they are instantaneous, they are global and they are ubiquitous. We have systems and processes built for the physical world, and, whilst many of these principles still hold a new way of thinking is needed. We believe that this can only be achieved by going back to basics, by examining humans as humans and then placing them within the digital context. This is what Web Science is doing by bringing together the academic fields of the social sciences – anthropology, ethnography, psychology and sociology – with those of the computer and information sciences. To this end, Intersticia leverages our networks and connections in the academic world t0 bring their insights and expertise to practice on a day to day basis. Key aspects of this are to:
- Describe & articulate the challenges arising from emerging digital interaction technologies
- Design & develop strategies to manage the risks, challenges and opportunities arising from emerging technologies and optimise internal processes as required
- Design & develop the capabilities required for digital literacy and online interaction
- Educate stakeholders around the issues surrounding the implementation of digitally transparent communications
Above: Technology, Culture and Society are intimately connected. Whilst technology and culture will always evolve and progress, society will act as a restraint, in order to guard against behaviours and activities which threaten the group’s survival. By necessity society is cautious, risk averse and traditional, but eventually technology and culture will shift it in the direction they are headed, and thus the polity must continually reinvent itself.
Individuals within organisations of all kinds are struggling with the challenge of managing their businesses within a rapidly changing and increasing complex socio-technical environment. Intersticia works with them to:
- Describe and articulate the emerging business challenges that they face as digital interaction technologies become ever more pervasive and ingrained in our everyday activities
- Develop strategies to manage emerging technologies and from there to align their internal organisational processes and systems to best leverage the opportunities whilst also managing the risks and challenges
- Understand the emerging capabilities which are required in digital literacy and online interaction, which is much more than merely employing a social media manager
- Explore governance issues around their activities and operations within a digitally transparent communications landscape, and prepare materials which can educate people about the demands of the digital society which relate to them and their industries
Intersticia works with individuals to help navigate through the process of change as they seek to understand, embrace and effectively operate in the online world. One way that we do this is through the design, facilitation and delivery of bespoke workshop and training activities that:
- empower stakeholders of all kinds – employees, boards, leadership teams, and where appropriate, customers
- facilitate robust and authentic conversations through healthy discussion and the exploration of key issues, and
- provide a framework within which scenarios relating to emerging issues can be explored, understood and planned for
Leadership, an often misunderstood, but hugely important word. Leadership in the digital world is a very different thing to what it used to be. The concept of “managing by walking around” has a different feel online, but online technologies provide huge advantages, and disadvantages, to how leaders and managers interact with their people. We work with individuals, leadership teams and boards to:
- Describe and articulate the emerging business challenges that they face as digital interaction technologies become ever more pervasive and ingrained in our everyday activities
- Develop strategies to manage emerging technologies and from there to align their internal organisational processes and systems to best leverage the opportunities whilst also managing the risks and challenges
- Understand the emerging capabilities which are required in digital literacy and online interaction, which is much more than merely employing a social media manager
- Provide coaching around issues relating to board and governance issues which specifically relate to digital information and online communications systems and practices
- Web Science Institute at the University of Southampton
- Web Science Trust
- Luciano Floridi
- Nick Bostrom
- Genevieve Bell
- dana boyd
- Daniel Miller
- Douglas Rushkoff
- Clay Shirky
- Lucy Suchmann
The act of wrenching away an object or concept from its habitual associative context and seeing it in a new context is… an essential part of the creative process… Every creative act — in science, art or religion — involves a regression to a more primitive level, a new innocence of perception liberated from the cataract of accepted beliefs. It is a process of reculer pour mieux sauter, of disintegration preceding the new synthesis, comparable to the dark night of the soul through which the mystic must pass. (Arthur Koestler, “The Sleepwalkers”)