Paul P. Maglio

Steps toward a science of service systems

The service sector accounts for most of the worlds economic activity, but its the least-studied part of the economy. A service system comprises people and technologies that adaptively compute and adjust to a systems changing value of knowledge. A science of service systems could provide theory and practice around service innovation

On Distinguishing Epistemic from Pragmatic Action

We present data and argument to show that in Tetris-a real-time, interactive video game-certain cognitive and perceptual problems ore more quicktv, easily, and reliably solved by performing actions in the world than by performing computational actions in the head atone. We have found that some of the translations and rotations made by players of this video game are best understood as actions that use the world to improve cognition. These actions are not used to implement a plan, or to implement a reaction; they are used to change the world in order to simplify the problem-solving task. Thus, we distinguish pragmatic octionsactions performed to bring one physically closer to a goal-from epistemic actions -actions performed to uncover informatioan that is hidden or hard to compute mentally. To illustrate the need for epistemic actions, we first develop a standard information-processing model of Tetris cognition and show that it cannot explain performance data from human players of the game-even when we relax the assumption of fully sequential processing. Standard models disregard many actions taken by players because they appear unmotivated or superfluous. However, we show that such actions are actually far from superfluous; they play a valuable role in improving human performance. We argue that traditional accounts are limited because they regard action as having o single function: to change the world. By recognizing a second function of action-an epistemic function-we can explain many of the actions that a traditional model cannot. Although our argument is supported by numerous examples specifically from Tetris, we outline how the new category of epistemic action can be incorporated into theories of action more generally.

The service system is the basic abstraction of service science

Abstraction is a powerful thing. During the nineteenth century, the Industrial Revolution was built on many powerful abstractions, such as mass, energy, work, and power. During the twentieth century, the information revolution was built on many powerful abstractions, such as binary digit or bit, binary coding, and algorithmic complexity. Here, we propose an abstraction for the twenty-first century, in which there is an emerging revolution in thinking about business and economics based on a service-dominant logic. The worldview of service-dominant logic stands in sharp contrast to the worldview of the goods-dominant logic of the past, as it holds service—the application of competences for benefit of others—rather than goods to be the fundamental basis of economic exchange. Within this new worldview, we suggest the basic abstraction is the service system, a configuration of people, technologies, and other resources that interact with other service systems to create mutual value. Many systems can be viewed as service systems, including families, cities, and companies, among many others. In this paper, we show how the service-system abstraction can be used to understand how value is co-created, in the process laying the foundation for an integrated science of service.

Service systems, service scientists, SSME, and innovation

Computer scientists work with formal models of algorithms and computation, and someday service scientists may work with formal models of service systems. The four examples here document some of the early efforts to establish a new academic discipline and new profession.

How to personalize the Web

Agents can personalize otherwise impersonal computational systems. The World Wide Web presents the same appearance to every user regardless of that user’s past activity. Web Browser Intelligence (WBI, pronounced “WEB-ee”) is an implemented system that organizes agents on a user’s workstation to observe user actions, proactively offer assistance, modify web documents, and perform new fi.mctions. WBI can annotate hyperlinks with network speed information, record pages viewed for later access, and provide shortcut links for common paths. In this way, WBI personalizes a user’s web experience by joining personal information with global information to effectively tailor what the user sees.

Service-oriented technology and management: Perspectives on research and practice for the coming decade

Service-oriented technologies and management have gained attention in the past few years, promising a way to create the basis for agility so that companies can deliver new, more flexible business processes that harness the value of the services approach from a customers perspective. Service-oriented approaches are used for developing software applications and software-as-a-service that can be sourced as virtual hardware resources, including on-demand and utility computing. The driving forces come from the software engineering community and the e-business community. Service-oriented architecture promotes the loose coupling of software components so that interoperability across programming languages and platforms, and dynamic choreography of business processes can be achieved. Nevertheless, one of todays most pervasive and perplexing challenges for senior managers deals with how and when to make a commitment to the new practices. The purpose of this article is to shed light on multiple issues associated with service-oriented technologies and management by examining several interrelated questions: why is it appropriate now to study the related business problems from the point of view of services research? What new conceptual frameworks and theoretical perspectives are appropriate for studying service-oriented technologies and management? What value will a service science and business process modeling offer to the firms that adopt them? And, how can these approaches be implemented so as to address the major challenges that organizations face with technology, information and strategy? We contribute new knowledge in this area by tying the economics and information technology strategy perspectives to the semantic and design science perspectives for a broader audience. Usually the more technical perspective is offered on a standalone basis, and confined to the systems space - even when the discussion is about business processes. This article also offers insights on these issues from the multiple perspectives of industry and academic thought leaders.

Handbook of Service Science

As the service sector expands into the global economy, a new science of service is emerging, one that is dedicated to encouraging service innovation by applying scientific understanding, engineering discipline, and management practice to designing, improving, and scaling service systems. Handbook of Service Science takes the first major steps to clarifying the definition, role, and future of this nascent field. Incorporating work by scholars from across the spectrum of service research, the volume presents multidisciplinary perspectives on the nature and theory of service, on current research and practice in design, operations, delivery, and innovation of service, and on future opportunities and potential of service research. Handbook of Service Science provides a comprehensive reference suitable for a wide-reaching audience including researchers, practitioners, managers, and students who aspire to learn about or to create a deeper scientific foundation for service design and engineering, service experience and marketing, and service management and innovation.

The Service System Is the Basic Abstraction of Service Science

Abstraction is a powerful thing. During the 19th century, the industrial revolution was built on many powerful abstractions, such as mass, energy, work, and power. During the 20th century, the information revolution was built on many powerful abstractions, such as binary digit or bit, binary coding, and algorithmic complexity. Here, we propose an abstraction that will be important to the service revolution of the 21st century: the service system, which is a configuration of people, technologies, and other resources that interact with other service systems to create mutual value. Many systems can be viewed as service systems, including families, cities, and companies, among many others. In this paper, we show how the service-system abstraction can be used to understand how value is created, in the process unifying concepts from many disciplines and creating the foundation for an integrated science of service.

Tradeoffs in displaying peripheral information

Peripheral information is information that is not central to a persons current task, but provides the person the opportunity to learn more, to do a better job, or to keep track of less important tasks. Though peripheral information displays are ubiquitous, they have been rarely studied. For computer users, a common peripheral display is a scrolling text display that provides announcements, sports scores, stock prices, or other news. In this paper, we investigate how to design peripheral displays so that they provide the most information while having the least impact on the users performance on the main task. We report a series of experiments on scrolling displays aimed at examining tradeoffs between distraction of scrolling motion and memorability of information displayed. Overall, we found that continuously scrolling displays are more distracting than displays that start and stop, but information in both is remembered equally well. These results are summarized in a set of design recommendations.

Field studies of computer system administrators: analysis of system management tools and practices

Computer system administrators are the unsung heroes of the information age, working behind the scenes to configure, maintain, and troubleshoot the computer infrastructure that underlies much of modern life. However, little can be found in the literature about the practices and problems of these highly specialized computer users. We conducted a series of field studies in large corporate data centers, observing organizations, work practices, tools, and problem-solving strategies of system administrators. We found system administrators operate within large-scale, complex environments that present significant technical, social, cognitive, and business challenges. In this paper, we describe system administrator tool use in critical, high-cost, labor-intensive work through observational, survey, and interview data. We discuss our findings concerning administrator needs for coordinating work, maintaining situation awareness, planning and rehearsing complex procedures, building tools, and supporting complicated interleaved workflows.