15 August 2011

Reisebericht: European Conference on Information Systems 2011

Nach langer Zeit kommt nun ein laengerer Bericht, der leider auf Englisch ist. Ich war in Helsinki um auf einer Konferenz mein Paper in Form eines Posters zu praesentieren. Da ich dafuer von einer externen Organisation gesponsert wurde, durfte ich einen Bericht ueber die Reise verfassen. Anbei also der eingereichte Bericht.



Report about the attendance at the European Conference on Information Systems 2011 in Helsinki, Finland

Valeri Wiegel
Edinburgh Napier University
Funded by a conference/travel bursary from
The John Campbell Trust



The European Conference on Information Systems is an annual conference attracting researchers working in various disciplines. Their common interests are the research in and development of information and communication technologies. This year’s theme was ‘ICT and Sustainable Service Development’. It took place in the time 9-11 June 2011 and it was hosted by the Aalto University in Helsinki, Finland.
I successfully submitted a research in progress paper and was invited to present a poster. This document is a report about experiences I made during my stay in Helsinki and the attendance at the conference. I am thankful to the John Campbell Trust for awarding me a travel and conference bursary which covered a huge part of the expenses and, therefore, made it possible for me to attend the event.

Attending the conference was the main reason to travel to Helsinki. However, there was another reason which made Helsinki a very attractive destination. As I am applying activity theory in research I am particularly interested in getting to know researchers with the same interest. Fortunately, Helsinki is home of the CRADLE (Center for Research on Activity, Development and Learning) institute at Aalto University. The research undertaken in this institute is world class in the field of activity theory. Therefore I was keen on meeting researchers working at CRADLE. For his reason I contacted two of them and asked for an appointment far in advance. Among them was a professor I cited in my paper who agrred on meeting me. Prior to the start of the conference on 9 June I had the time to meet three researchers in their institute’s building. They introduced me to their research and, on the other hand, I reported about mine. During the meeting received great feedback and information about their current activities. At the end I was given some papers which fall into my area of interest. One researcher was kind enough to give my a short tour through the building and to introduce me to other researchers of that institute.

Before the actual conference started there was another event taking place. The CIO-Symposium is a kind of an event I have not known about before until attending the one prior to the ECIS2011 on 8 June. It consisted of four sessions with breaks in between. The format of a session is simple. Up to three researchers introduce their current research and up to three practitioners give feedback about it. The four general themes were ‘enterprise architecture and business value’, ‘outsourcing’, ‘innovation’ and ‘IT governance and risk’ (see http://www.ecis2011.fi/cio-symposium/). As my interest is set on innovation I liked the most the following presentation. Professor Ephraim R. Mclean from the Georgia State University, USA, spoke about the changing role of a CIO. In particular I found his matrix interesting which depicts how a CIO evolves from a technologist to an enabler to an innovator and, eventually, to a strategist (not necessarily in that order, however. See http://www.ecis2011.fi/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/EphMcLean.pdf)

What makes such an event interesting is the level of the practitioners which actually is indicated by its name. All practitioners were CIOs of the respective company they represented. The feedback given was directly drawn from experiences in their businesses. Their reflections provided valuable insights into their everyday difficulties in regards of the research undertakings presented. It was a good opportunity to observe how CIOs think and interact with research. The quote of the day was made by a CIO of a public organisation: “There are no IT projects, there are only projects”. He pointed out that at the end of the day it does not matter what technology your project is about, eventually you have to deal with similar problems over and over again.

The next day on 9 June the conference started with its first sessions of presentations. However, it was not until the afternoon when the first highlight occured.

Well-known key note speakers are crucial for a conference as they pull registrations. At the ECIS2011 it was Judy Wajcman from the London School of Economics who was invited to give the first key note. Her focus was interruptions in the workplace of knowledge workers and how they deal with communication media by negotiating their work strategies. The second keynote on the second day of the conference was given by Christian Grönroos. He spoke about value creation and the role of service providers and customers. In his work he distinguished that the service provider is a value facilitator, that value creation occurs only at the customer and that the service provider can co-create value only with his customer. It was a convincing appeal to focus on your customer.

The conference sessions were subdivided into 19 tracks ranging from ‘Behavioral, Social and Organizational Aspects of IS’ to ‘WEB2.0 – Business Value of Social Networks’. Of course one can only attend a limited selection of all the presentations available. So I selected in advance the ones interesting to me. Here is a short description of the presentation I liked the most.
A very interesting presentation was given by Dick Stenmark from Göteborg University, Gothenburg, Sweden. He reported about the development of an information system in the Swedish railroad industry. The research applied path creation theory to investigate the case. The theory basicaly explains that when a new structure, like a new information system, is introduced to replace a previously dominating structure, like an existing information system, then the outcome is that a new dominating structure emerges while a small rest of the old structure survives called residual structure. I noticed a similarity to my research and, therefore, was attracted by the way how this was described and depicted applying creation path theory. We had a short discussion afterwards about the way how I try to address similar problems in my research and how it is similar to his work. Another research that caught my attention was about the way how industrial research is funded in general. Afterwars, the presenter and I had a short discussion about unexpected outcomes of alternative funding models.
These were examples of presentations which somehow correlated with my research. Other presentation were valuable in terms of their methodological approach. Some presentation, on the other hand were fascinating due to their talented presenters. One certain presenter was by far the most impressive presenter at that event. Right at the beginning he obviously had a problem with stuttering. However, he managed to keep calm and continue speaking fluently. I noticed clearly how he applied breathing techniques to control his voice and the flow of his speech. I was not aware that one can learn so many diverse aspects about research and what is involved in doing research at such an event.

Every conference includes a dinner. The ECIS dinner took place in the evening of the first day. The ECIS organising team solved this, from my point of view, usually boring undertaking by choosing a pub-like venue with a buffet, finger food and some free drink vouchers. This setting resulted in a laid-back and fun atmosphere which encouraged getting to know each other and having conversations. At this occasion I got to know a number of doctoral students and other young researchers.

The poster session took place on Friday 10 June during lunch time in the lobby of the main building. All researchers who submitted a research in progress paper and who got accepted were asked to bring along a poster to present their work. My poster was one of approximately 30 posters which were put up for display. Over the next one and a half hour I talked to four people who really were interested in the content of my poster. We talked about research, discussed our interests and exchanged business cards to stay in touch. One person recommended a book which discusses a certain aspect of methodology I apply in my research. It turned out to be a valuable piece of resource which is now lying on my desk. Overall the poster session was an interesting part of the conference. However, I had the impression that only a little part of all attendees paid attention to the posters.

Although I am quite experienced with travelling by air (PhD in UK, case study in Germany) I learnt a lot about travelling at this trip. The most important lesson was not to save too much money for travel expenses. When I booked flights and accommodation I was eager to keep the costs as low as possible. Therefore, the airline I chose to travel with was Ryanair. Unfortunately the airport in Finland was about 2 hours away from Helsinki so I had to book tickets for the train as well. My accommodation was a hostel on a little island (Suomenlinna, a former prison island) off the coast of Helsinki. On paper everything seemed to be alright. Due to a change of the itinerary a week before the event I departed from Berlin instead of Edinburgh. Although this increased the expenses at the end I was happy to land close to Helsinki avoiding the long trip from the Ryanair airport in Tampere. The accommodation was great. A cheap and short ride with a ferry connected the island to the mainland. My stay in general was fantastic. Helsinki has an ideal size for a capital and I felt comfortable walking around in the city which offers beautiful buildings and places to visit. The stress set in on the day of the departure. During the train ride I was told that the student tariff is only valid for students studying in Finland. This was the first charge (15 Euro) I had to pay. In Tampere I took a bus to get to the airport. Surprisingly, the passengers did not have to pay anything as the door of the bus was open and the driver did not say anything when everybody sat down. At the airport we found out that we had to pay at getting out of the bus (6 Euro). Eventually I went to the check in. There the next surprise was waiting for me. The staff was weighing all hand luggage. Mine had an overweight of 4 kilos. After struggling with the content I decided to check it in as separate piece of luggage (40 Euro). In the end I faced extra costs of 61 Euro. Including all the stress of that day it was not worth it trying to safe money by travelling as cheap as possible.

To sum up, the conference was an informative and valuable experience. Going through the entire process of writing up a paper, submitting it to a conference, rewritting it after getting accepted and attending the conference is a lesson particularly important for researchers-in-training. I learnt many things and got to know many people. I want to thank the John Campbell Trust once again for their support.