Once upon a time, there was a discipline.  Oh it was a little discipline, but it was everywhere.  Every time it looked around, it saw evidence of itself in almost everything people did.  The little discipline was Information Systems.  It knew what it was, but many other people thought they knew what it was.  The problem was one of perception.  You see, IS (its nickname) saw the systems and the information that underlay everything we do.  It watched the communication, the processes and the design of the information, the ways in which people used the information and the embeddedness of information within their current lives.

The problem was that many people only saw the computers.  They couldn’t see what went on inside.  It was like magic, because any computer they sat down at gave them information.  Sometimes the information wasn’t exactly what they wanted, so they cursed the computer.

The little discipline tried to help.  It was all “I’m in ur computrs computin’ ur informations“, but people only heard the word computer.

The little discipline tried so hard to be whatever people wanted (and what they needed, regardless of what they thought they wanted).  It made proposals for ‘Information Management‘ (and just look where that got us).  It hung around TED, and really enjoyed the concept of the sliced bread, but that kinda belonged to another discipline.  It knew it wasn’t a purple cow, because NO-ONE wanted to see it. It was more like the annoying little pipsqueak with the annoying little voice and it looked way too much like a box with buttons.

There were so many things that some really clever people did with it (see Prezi, Youtube, FaceBook, to name just a few).  Some people were concerned that IS was a bit scrugged, because there were bad things being done in its name (see DRM) and even its name was being faffed with.  Although, it really liked that some people had shortened its name to Informatics, it worried when people added things, like Accounting Information Systems.  That just seemed to cut it off from all the interesting bits, like its hands and feet so it felt it couldn’t go anywhere.  Don’t get me wrong, IS knew that accounting was important, but it wasn’t everything.  Accounting Information Systems is not a purple cow, it’s not the stuff of which innovation is made.

At this point in the story, IS doesn’t know what to do.  It wants to show the power of the purple cow, it wants people to enjoy and share the information.  But no-one wants it. It’s just a box with buttons.