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Three future conferences
by Petri Paju 20 Jan '09

20 Jan '09

Hi all, Here are three conferences that may be relevant for some of us. 1. Call for Papers – Workshop Announcement Telecommunication and Globalization: Information Flows in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century 24-25 September 2009, Heidelberg, Germany (Proposals dead line 30 April 2009.) - For more, see below. 2. Annual Meeting of the Society for Social Studies of Science October 28 – November 1, 2009, Washington, DC Submit Abstract and Session Proposals by March 1 - For more, see below. 3. 21st Annual Conference on Accounting, Business & Financial History at Cardiff University, 14-15 September 2009 Announcement of Conference and Call for Papers Those wishing to offer papers to be considered for presentation at the conference should send an abstract of their paper (not exceeding one page) by 1 June 2009 to:...google for more. ** Best wishes, Petri Paju 1. Call for Papers – Workshop Announcement Telecommunication and Globalization: Information Flows in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century 24-25 September 2009, Heidelberg, Germany Organized by the Junior Research Group “Asymmetries in Cultural Information Flows: Europe and South Asia in the Global Information Network since the Nineteenth Century” (headed by Dr Roland Wenzlhuemer) at the Cluster of Excellence “Asia and Europe in a Global Context”, University of Heidelberg (http://www.asia-europe.uniheidelberg.de/Plone/research/areas/b/projects/b9-…) Globalization challenges the established relationship between time and space and detaches human interaction from co-locality or proximity. By bringing geographically distant and socioculturally diverse places in touch, it creates a placeless global sphere. When its constituting transregional connections and transfers become numerous and significant enough, this sphere develops a rationale of its own and starts to interact with the local. Globalization becomes a historically relevant process that has a formative impact on local life and culture. By enabling ever-increasing flows of information and knowledge which connect people over great geographic and cultural distances, telecommunication technologies have played and continue to play a key role in processes of globalization. The emergence during the nineteenth and early twentieth century of a global telecommunication network significantly altered the nature of human communication and represented a vital phase in the history of global connections. For the first time in history, long-distance communication became “dematerialized”, i.e. it became detached from the physical medium which enabled its transmission. This workshop invites scholars and students in the humanities and social sciences to explore the complex interrelations between telecommunication technologies and globalization in a historical and socio-cultural perspective. The focus of the workshop rests on the emergence of a global network of telegraph and telephone lines during the nineteenth and early twentieth century and its impact on various domains of human activity, such as government, administration, trade, transport, commerce, labour, news, language, and knowledge production. The workshop organizers seek to provide an interdisciplinary forum for debating how this significant historical development impacted on the rationale of the global sphere and translated into economic, political, social and cultural changes at the local level. It is hoped that this forum will allow for new and fascinating perspectives on the interplay of telecommunication technologies and globalization. Potential questions to be explored include: ‐ Which socio-economic and cultural factors contributed to the emergence of particular global network patterns? ‐ What was the role of telecommunication in linking the global and the local? How did it change the rationale of the global sphere? ‐ How did new telecommunication technologies transform existing perceptions of time and space? ‐ How were the global and the local negotiated through telecommunication technologies? In what ways did agents in non-information societies adopt and adapt foreign (i.e. European/North American) information technologies to their own ends? How did such developments in the field of technology and colonial enterprise impact upon European societies? ‐ Did technologies shape their own networks? And how did emerging communication patterns impact upon the development of the technology itself? ‐ Can we find asymmetries in global network patterns and information flows? Did lessconnected regions automatically find themselves at the receiving end of information flows? ‐ Can we find evidence for processes of political and cultural centralization? If so, have there been counterstrategies in order to preserve the influence and leeway of agents in the periphery? ‐ How did these new technologies impact upon news collection and distribution? How did they change pre-existing ideas and practices of networking? ‐ What was the impact of these new communication technologies on language and cultural perceptions of language? How did they contribute to processes of language standardization and language globalization? Proposals of not more than 500 words may be submitted electronically (Word or PDF) to the organizing committee (Amelia Bonea, bonea(a)asia-europe.uni-heidelberg.de and Paul Fletcher, fletcher(a)asia-europe.uni-heidelberg.de) by 30 April 2009. For further inquiries, please contact the organizing committee. -- Dr Roland Wenzlhuemer Junior Research Group Leader Cluster of Excellence 'Asia and Europe in a Global Context' University of Heidelberg Karl Jaspers Centre Voßstraße 2, Gebäude 4400 69115 Heidelberg Germany Phone +49 (0) 6221 54 4095 Fax +49 (0) 6221 54 4012 Web http://www.asia-europe.uni-heidelberg.de Email wenzlhuemer(a)asia-europe.uni-heidelberg.de 2. Annual Meeting of the Society for Social Studies of Science October 28 – November 1, 2009, Washington, DC Submit Abstract and Session Proposals by March 1 Dear Colleague: 4S conference welcomes contributions on topics from the range of fields found within science and technology studies. This year’s conference will not have a predetermined theme. Consequently, proposals for sessions and papers should emphasize how they will make innovative and timely contributions to any theme relevant to science and technology studies (STS). Our new abstract submission system is now online. All submitters and authors will need to create a new user account in this system. Aside from this small inconvenience, we are confident the new system will enable more efficient conference management and improved communication with participants. Submit abstracts and session proposals here. Deadline is March 1. Program practices Given the growing size of the 4S conferences and the desire to be as inclusive as possible, the program committee will need to make full use of the available time slots. Therefore, individuals may be listed for a paper presentation and one other role (such as session chair or discussant but not a second paper) for a maximum of two appearances. Paper abstracts may be submitted individually or by a session organizer. Submissions are in the form of abstracts of 500 words or less, and must include a summary of the paper’s main arguments and methodology, as well as a brief statement on the contribution to the STS literature. Session proposals should be limited to 500 words total, and should contain a summary and rationale for the session, as well as a brief discussion of its contribution to STS. Session proposals should list names of all session organizers and panelists, including institutional affiliations and (electronic) addresses. Session proposals should be based on the assumption of two-hour time slots with twenty minutes per presentation. A typical session may have five papers, one discussant, and a ten-minute open discussion slot. You must have a minimum of three complete paper abstracts in order to submit a session proposal. The program committee may assign additional papers to proposed sessions. Proposals for double and triple sessions on a single topic may receive a request to consolidate the topic into one panel or to break the multiple sessions into different topics. The meeting welcomes papers, sessions and events that are innovative in their delivery, organization, range of topics, type of public and which bring new resources to the STS community to explore these new relations and themes. Apart from traditional research papers, the conference will also welcome proposals for sessions and papers using ‘new media’ or other forms of innovative presentation. New session format This year, for the first time, the 4S is including a new “workshop” format. This is an opportunity for informal presentations, with presenters and other attendees seated around tables. This format is ideal for a more interactive presentation of preliminary ideas and work in progress. Authors and session organizers should indicate if they would like to be part of a workshop table. Submissions for “workshop” presentations are included under the one first-authored submission limit, stated above. It is also possible for sessions to be proposed as workshop tables. For more information, visit the 4S website at http://www.4sonline.org/meeting.htm . Sincerely, Barbara Allen and Daniel Breslau, Program co-chairs, meeting(a)4sonline.org -- Petri Paju, FT, tutkija, Turun yliopisto -- Ph.D. Researcher, Univ. of Turku http://users.utu.fi/petpaju/

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Yates, _Structuring the Information Age_ now available in paperback
by JoAnne Yates 09 Jan '09

09 Jan '09

Hi, all-- With apologies for dual posting and for the advertisement, I wanted to let you know that Johns Hopkins Univ. Press just issued _Structuring the Information Age: Life Insurance and Technology in the Twentieth Century_ in paperback form, considerably reducing its price. Happy New Year to all! JoAnne Yates -- JoAnne Yates Deputy Dean Sloan Distinguished Professor of Management MIT Sloan School of Management MIT E52-475 50 Memorial Drive Cambridge, MA 02472-1347 617-253-7157 Administrative Assistant Kathleen Doyle PH: 617-253-5555 email: kdoyle(a)mit.edu

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Historic chip???
by Deborah Douglas 23 Dec '08

23 Dec '08

Recently the MIT Museum was offered a unique artwork based on an integrated circuit designed by NMS and currently sold by Agere Systems (formerly Lucent Microelectronics) as their Ambassador Series T8100. The original circuit was created by Jonathan Pollack and Chuck Linton in 1996-97. The company commissioned an artist to create an enlarged and stylized version of this chip. The 48" x 44" piece is a glass plate sandwich that includes many but not all of the layers of the circuit. The piece is sufficiently interesting visually that I've been thinking about making the acquisition but am appealing to the thought collective for suggestions on how to assess the historic significance of circuits such as this. The company claim is that this HMIC microchip helped NMS become one of the leading providers of communication technology. I would certainly welcome your thoughts and can provide more information (including a photograph) if interested. Many thanks, Debbie Douglas Deborah G. Douglas, Ph.D. Curator of Science and Technology MIT Museum, N51-209 265 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02139-4307 ddouglas(a)mit.edu • 617-253-1766 phone • 617-253-8994 fax http://web.mit.edu/museum • http://webmuseum.mit.edu

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SIGCIS Mahoney Fund launch - donate today and get 100% match
by Thomas Haigh 05 Dec '08

05 Dec '08

Hello SIGCIS members, Today we launch the SIGCIS Mahoney Fund. Please read on for a chance to help our graduate student members, honor a great historian and have your tax free donations matched 100%. At the 2007 lunch meeting SIGCIS held its first auction of donated books as a fundraising tool to support our initiatives and bring some fun to the event. Mike Mahoney served as the auctioneer, doing great job in driving up prices and generating a relaxed and festive atmosphere. As you all know, Mike died unexpectedly over the summer. (See https://blogs.princeton.edu/mahoney/ for the official tribute page). So this year when we met in Lisbon last month David Anderson took up Mike's (virtual) gavel and did an equally fine job auctioning the impressive volume of books donated by our members. This included an entire suitcase of in-demand books personally transported to Lisbon by Marguerite Avery, the MIT press editor responsible for its history of computing series. Between the auction and an appeal for donations in Mike's memory we raised more than $700 at the Lisbon meeting, even as the global financial system collapsed around us. We made the first presentation of our new graduate student travel award to Honghong Tinn of Cornell University, as the Michael S. Mahoney/MIT Press Graduate Student Travel Award. After the meeting I was relaxing and enjoying the prospect of making two partial awards for student travel costs for the 2009 Pittsburgh meeting when Ann Johnson, one of Mike's former Ph.D. students, did something that challenged me to shift my ambitions for the program into a higher gear. Ann made an annual giving pledge of up to $500 to match 100% of online and postal contributions received by SIGCIS. The money will be used to establish a capital pool for SIGCIS known as the Mahoney Fund. This is intended primarily to provide ongoing support for the new Michael S. Mahoney/MIT Press Graduate Student Travel Awards. Money held in the fund will grow proportionally with SHOT's own endowment. Mike's name sits very well on this award. He gave his time generously to SIGCIS, chairing our session on "50 Years of Computer Use" at last year's meeting and presenting his paper on "The Many Histories of Computing" in another session on "50 Years of Computing Historiography." When the graduate-student dominated SIGCIS panel proposal that included Mike as a commentator was rejected for the 2008 meeting he sent to the participants a message that "It was an interesting set of papers, and I would have enjoyed the opportunity to comment on them, and indeed to meet the authors. There'll be another opportunity, I'm sure." Sadly this was not to be, but just before his death he did perform one final act of service to the SIG as a member of the ad-hoc committee set up to establish policies and procedures for our forthcoming book prize (more on this soon). Mike was an important influence on the development of our field and on my own growth as a scholar. While a graduate student at Penn I was lucky enough to be able to enroll as a visiting student at Princeton solely for the purpose of making the journey up to Princeton once a week to take the "Computers and Organisms" course taught by Mike and his newly arrived colleague Angela Creager. (Princeton's alumni mail has followed me over five moves since then). In the years that followed I served with Mike on the IEEE Annals board and the ACM History committee. About three times a year we would see each other at one event or another and I always learned something from Mike's presentations or contributions to the discussion. While his training and instincts differed from my own in almost every respect he was always curious about the latest work in the history of computing. He sometimes shocked me by praising work or calling attention to topics far outside the boundaries of his personal interest in the intellectual history of computer science. This is because Mike was one of very few senior historians with prestigious academic appointments deeply committed to the evolution of the history of computing as a field with its own scholarly agenda and identity. He grappled with the scholarly shape and challenges of the field, ultimately producing what I think will be an influential call for its reconstitution not as "THE History of Computing" but as "The Histories of Computing(s)." http://www.princeton.edu/~mike/articles/histories/kingscch.htm We hope to celebrate Mike's intellectual legacy with a special day of supplementary programming at the next SHOT meeting. In the meantime this is your opportunity to recognize and honor his exemplary contribution to the SIG and his inspiring commitment to the discovery of new scholarship in our field by matching part of Ann's challenge. Donations can be made online at https://associations.press.jhu.edu/cgi-bin/shot/shot_donation.cgi. Online donations will receive an online confirmation for your tax records - as a non profit organization donations to SHOT are tax deductible for US tax payers (subject to the usual disclaimers). On the online form please select "Other" in the section "Designate a Priority" and enter "SIGCIS Mahoney Fund" in the adjacent box marked "Please Specify". SHOT's treasurer has confirmed that all donations marked in this way will be placed in our account. If you are able to follow Ann in making this an annual pledge rather than a one-off donation then please check the "Make this an annual contribution for X years" box. I am starting the ball rolling with a $100 annual pledge for each of the next five years. So that leaves at least $400 we need to find from other SIGCIS members to ensure that we rise collectively to Ann's challenge. In this time of academic cutbacks and rising travel costs, making it possible for graduate students to present at our annual meeting is a highly effective investment in the future of the field. In the meantime all of us could profit from another look at the articles and syllabi on Mike's own web page: http://www.princeton.edu/~mike/ and particularly http://www.princeton.edu/~mike/computing.html. Best wishes, Tom Haigh www.tomandmaria.com/tom

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5th European Symposium on Gender & ICT
by Timo Leimbach 27 Nov '08

27 Nov '08

5th European Symposium on Gender & ICT "Digital Cultures: Participation -- Empowerment -- Diversity" *Early Bird Registration ends Januar 5, 2009* Registration is now open for the 5th European Symposium on Gender & ICT: March 5 - 7 2009, University of Bremen, Germany. To register for the conference please consult: http://www.conftool.com/gict2009 Preliminary program The preliminary program has been posted. The conference includes 13 paper sessions in 3 parallel streams, a poster session, a research exhibit, and a pre-conference workshop. For more information please consult: http://gict2009.de Keynotes Lucy Suchman: Lancaster University, UK, and MIT, Boston, US Tanja Paulitz: University of Graz, Austria Chat Garcia Ramilo: APC, Manila, Philippines Pre-conference workshop IT Expertise in Industry - Building a Better Model Integrating Women's Potentials Claudia Morrell: Executive Director Maryland Women in Technology, Baltimore, MD, USA About the European Symposium on Gender & ICT Information Society with its variety of new information and communication media offers many new options to participate in today's social, cultural, political and economic activities. However, chances are still distributed unequally, e.g. by class, ethnicity, age -- and by gender. Access to and the ability to use information and communication technology (ICT) are necessary prerequisites for participation. On top of this, involvement in ICT design is a highly prestigious activity. On the 5th European Gender and ICT Symposium we will take a closer look at the complex interdependence between gender and ICT. We will explore ways to increase appreciation of diversity in design and use and to strengthen empowerment and participation by means of ICT. This Conference, the fifth in a row of symposia held in Europe since 2003, traditionally provides a meeting point for researchers from various disciplines and research schools dealing with gender and ICT. Contact gict(a)informatik.uni-bremen.de - http://gict2009.de Program chairs Prof. Dr. Susanne Maass, Prof. Dr. Heidi Schelhowe Conference organisation Maike Hecht, Carola Schirmer, Bettina Rabe, Marlott Hederich, Susanne Maass, Heidi Schelhowe University of Bremen Department of Computer Science Postbox 330 440 28334 Bremen, Germany Phone (49) 421 -- 218 64390

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AHJ Award - congratulations!
by Bernardo Batiz-Lazo 25 Nov '08

25 Nov '08

Dear all, I am pleased to announced that Bill Wootton and Barbara Kemmerer won the best paper award in the Accounting Historians Journal vol 34 (2007) for their piece entitled "The Emergence of Mechanical Accounting in the U.S., 1880-1930" Saludos / best wishes, Bernardo _______________________________________ see History of ATM Homepage: http://atm.sigcis.org __________________ Contact details Dr Bernardo Batiz-Lazo Senior Lecturer in Business and Accounting History School of Management Ken Edwards Building University of Leicester Leicester LE1 7RH (England) Tel +44(0) 116 252 5647 Fax +44(0) 116 252 5515 Email: b.batiz-lazo [AT] leicester.ac.uk Skype: bbatiz ********* If you want to keep updated with working papers follow this link: http://nep.repec.org * ********* Personal page http://www.le.ac.uk/ulmc/academics/bbatizlazo.html * ********* Copies of research papers available at http://ideas.repec.org/e/pba14.html _______________________________________________ Comban mailing list Comban(a)sigcis.org http://sigcis.org/mailman/listinfo/comban

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cfp: Business History, Special Edition on not-for-profit financial institutions
by Bernardo Batiz-Lazo 19 Nov '08

19 Nov '08

* Apologies for multiple postings * CALL FOR PAPERS Business History, Special Edition on not-for-profit financial institutions This special issue of Business History will address financial institutions established and operated on a not-for-profit basis. The term ‘not-for-profit financial institution’ (NFPFI) covers a wide range of organisations, for example: building societies; friendly societies; mutual or co-operative banks; savings banks; community banks; mutual insurers; buildings and loan associations; savings and loan associations; and credit unions. Many NFPFIs sprung from philanthropic or charitable origins, reflecting particular economic or social aims; others adopted the form for commercial reasons later in their history. Yet others emerged from moves for self regulation, as well as the creation of jointly-owned technology platforms such as Link, Cirrus and Tarjeta 6000 in retail payments and Swift in wholesale, cross-border payments. NFPFIs might be thought to be in tune with current times in which the interests of a broad range of stakeholder groups have been given more explicit recognition by many organisations. On the other hand, although NFPFIs continue to be important in many countries, their significance has diminished in others in which they were previously more prominent. Many NFPFIs have merged together, mirroring consolidation among other financial institutions. Some NFPFIs have converted to proprietary corporate form (for example, through the demutualisation of building societies and insurers in Australia and Britain), while some have failed (for example savings and loan associations in the US and the Equitable Life Assurance Company in the UK). Papers are sought that offer theoretical innovations, and/or original empirical analysis relating to the long term development of NFPFIs. We encourage contributions from a range of perspectives, to reflect the organisational and geographical diversity of NFPFIs. Papers may be stand-alone or comparative. The following themes are suggested to indicate the breadth of possible topics: • the historical origins of NFPFIs; • their regulation/self-regulation, including the role of industry bodies/trade associations; • the long-term decline of NFPFIs in many countries and its impact - economic, social, competitive, etc.; • the governance of NFPFIs - failures and successes; • crisis/failure in NFPFIs; • commercial strategy of NFPFIs; • the relative performance of NFPFIs; • the adoption of, and problems, constraints and limitations arising from not-for-profit organisational form/structure; • NFPFIs and the ‘managerial revolution’; • innovation by NFPFIs in services, technology, marketing, organisation etc.; • the role of significant individuals in NFPFIs. The special issue will be edited by Bernardo Bátiz-Lazo (University of Leicester) and Mark Billings (Nottingham University Business School) as guest editors, and John Wilson and Steve Toms as executive editors of the journal. All articles will be between 6,000 and a maximum of 8,000 words, including notes. Proposals of between 1,500 and 3,000 words are invited and should be in the following format: Title Author(s), institution(s), contact details Topic Argument Sources Contribution Notes: use single space, 6 pt after paragraph, New Times Roman, size 11. Please add any references as endnotes and keep them to a minimum. Proposals should be sent to the following e-mail address: specialed_bh(a)lists.le.ac.uk The timetable for the special issue is as follows: November 2008 Issue Call for Papers 31 March 2009 Deadline for receipt of proposals 15 May 2009 Papers are commissioned 15 December 2009 Deadline for receipt of first draft manuscripts and sent to first round external refereeing 30 April 2010 Distribution of referees’ and editorial reports June/July 2010 One-day workshop – date and venue to be confirmed 01 September 2010 Deadline for submission of second draft manuscripts 15 November 2010 Distribution of referees’ and editorial reports 31 January 2011 Deadline for submission of final revised manuscripts early 2011 Publication (volume 52) Guidance Notes 1. Articles should be based upon original research and/or innovative analysis. 2. The main findings of the research and analysis should not have been published elsewhere. 3. Proposals will be welcome from individuals or teams whose empirical research is already at an advanced stage. 4. The editors expect articles to be theoretically informed and explicitly address novel interpretations of history. 5. Authors who wish to implement social science or managerial instruments of analysis should consider how to adapt them to historical interpretation, explaining change over time rather than the description of static conditions. Authors are strongly encouraged to attend the workshop. It is seen by the editors as a way to create greater cohesion. It will be attended by both guest and executive editors.

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About "Chris Bissell"
by Chris Bissell 14 Nov '08

14 Nov '08

I'm a prof at the UK Open University with research interests in the history of control, telecommuncations, signal processing and related areas. Particularly in Germany and the former USSR, as this has been under-researched. So not quite history of computing but in the same ball park. I believe in keeping things short. More info at: http://technology.open.ac.uk/tel/people/bissell/ Chris

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A new PhD on nationalism and information technology in the 1950s Finland
by Petri Paju 14 Nov '08

14 Nov '08

Hi all, For your information, here's a new book that deals with history of information technology and nationalism in the 1950s Finland, with a title: "Building 'Ilmarinen's Finland': The Committee for Mathematical Machines and computer construction as a national project in the 1950s" (540 pages, in Finnish). - Ilmarinen is a character, a blacksmith, in the Finnish national epic, the Kalevala, and later used as a symbol of technical skills. I also deal and continue with the scientist's international interactions that were a major part of making this 'national project' in the forthcoming article in IEEE Annals of the history of computing (4/2008). The thesis can be found electronically (a PDF file) in: https://oa.doria.fi/handle/10024/37737 And here's the abstract for it (there's an almost ten page Summary in the end of the PDF file): The dissertation “Building ‘Ilmarinen’s Finland’: The Committee for Mathematical Machines and computer construction as a national project in the 1950s” examines the history of information technology and nationalism in the 1950’s Finland. The study focuses on the Committee for Mathematical Machines (1954-1960), which was designated to acquire the country’s first computer, and its associates and asks, how was the Committee justified, especially from the perspective of the national good, and what kind of motives did the actions of the Committee manifest. The motives studied are the Committee’s goals in the field of computing, in developing science and technology in society, and in imagining Finland anew. The materials for the study consist of a multifaceted collection of sources from Finland, Sweden and Germany. The Committee chose to duplicate a G1a computer from Göttingen, Western Germany. In Finland the computer was named ESKO. However, the copying was delayed several times and eventually produced an old-fashioned computer. In addition to building the ESKO, the Committee early on intended to create a national computing center in Helsinki. This master plan can be regarded as a scientific and technological policy prior to state involvement in such matters in Finland. The projects of the Committee greatly benefitted the field, particularly the companies of IBM Finland and the Finnish Cable Works, which started a computing center similar to that planned by the Committee. This business unit later evolved into a part of the Nokia Corporation. The term ‘Ilmarinen’s Finland’ is used to argue that technology did not just become a ‘national project’ in postwar Finland, but was explicitly made so. -- Petri Paju, FT, tutkija, Turun yliopisto -- Ph.D. Researcher, Univ. of Turku http://users.utu.fi/petpaju/

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Athens: Computers in banking workshop
by Bernardo Batiz-Lazo 11 Nov '08

11 Nov '08

Dear all, Alexandros-Andreas Kyrtsis from the University of Athens has organised a very interesting workshop, thanks to the support of the National Bank of Greece. Abstracts below. Saludos / best wishes, Bernardo _______________________________________ see History of ATM Homepage: http://atm.sigcis.org __________________ Contact details Dr Bernardo Batiz-Lazo Senior Lecturer in Business and Accounting History School of Management Ken Edwards Building University of Leicester Leicester LE1 7RH (England) Tel +44(0) 116 252 5647 Fax +44(0) 116 252 5515 Email: b.batiz-lazo [AT] leicester.ac.uk Skype: bbatiz ********* If you want to keep updated with working papers follow this link: http://nep.repec.org * ********* Personal page http://www.le.ac.uk/ulmc/academics/bbatizlazo.html * ********* Copies of research papers available at http://ideas.repec.org/e/pba14.html ----------------------- ABSTRACTS OF PAPERS to be presented at the One-Day Conference on “Global Change and Information Technology for Financial Institutions: The turn of the seventies” Athens, Historical Archives of the National Bank of Greece, November 29, 2008 Bernardo Bátiz-Lazo and Claudia Reese (University of Leicester) Is the future of the ATM past? Just over 40 years ago the first cash dispensers became operational in the UK. From its modest beginnings this industry specific application evolved into the backbone of self service technology. In this article we consider their past and present to reflect on their future with the assistance of the so called ‘social construction of technology’ and ‘path dependence’ theories while supported by archival research and interviews with ‘actors’ in the UK. We tell how machine, functionality and shared networks will continue to interact in shaping the future of the cash dispensing market. Stefano Battilossi (Universidad Carlos III Madrid) The 1970s Revolution in Financial Technology: The role of regulation, deregulation and IT Modern financial theories based on the economics of information suggest that banks arise as a response to existing frictions in the process of acquiring information and making transactions. Financial intermediaries ameliorate frictions by performing two basic functions: a) brokerage, by which they enhance the matching of borrowers and lenders by overcoming information asymmetries (adverse selection, moral hazard, costly state verification) and extracting, processing and circulating information; b) portfolio transformation, by which they act as delegated monitors and provides of liquidity insurance. Given the information-intensive nature of financial intermediation, the wave in innovations in IT that started in the 1960s and 70s had a major impact on banking industry. At the same time, market forces began successfully to press in favor of a withdrawal of the state as financial regulator. Financial restriction (or repression), that is, “a set of policies, laws, regulation, taxes, distortions, qualitative and quantitative restrictions, which do not allow financial intermediaries to operate at their full technological potential” (Roubini and Sala-i-Martin 1995). As a consequence, the 1970s witnessed a twofold process of liberation of existing financial technology and, at one time, a rapid shift forward of the frontier of financial technology. The understanding of the causal connections between financial deregulation, financial innovations and technological change calls for a systematic approach. We can define financial technology as a body of knowledge that specifies all activities creating economic value in financial intermediation; this includes product, process and organizational technologies. Financial innovations can occur in each of these areas and affect the efficiency with which intermediaries perform their basic functions: (a) mobilize savings; (b) facilitate the exchange of goods; (c) allow risk amelioration; (d) acquire information about investments and allocate resources; (e) monitor managers and exert corporate control (Levine 1997). In order properly to understand the causes of financial innovations in each of these functions, we need to explore the incentives to innovate that were generated both at micro- and macro level. We can finally assess to what extent changes in IT technologies, originating mainly outside the financial sector, plaid a role in the process of financial innovation. We explore some of these issues by focusing on possibly the most important and far-reaching change in financial technology that took place around the 1970s: the rise of liability management (aka ‘marketization’ of banking), a process innovation based on the development of wholesale interbank markets, both domestic and international. This innovation dramatically changed the concept of liquidity in banking, forced banks to implement totally new strategies of active liability marketing, and required a new interactive banking management of the structure of assets and liabilities. We will analyze how it emerged as a response to existing regulation, how it set in motion an epoch-making process of deregulation, and how these forces interacted with the ongoing process of IT change. David Gugerli (ETH Zurich) Data Banking in the Age of Flexibility Both the opening of the Chicago Securities Exchange and the adoption of floating exchange rates on global currency markets are institutionally feasible expressions of a new economic era: The Age of Flexibility. Of course, the almost perfect coincidence in time of these two events should not be overestimated. There is probably no causal connection between the end of the Bretton Woods System and the institutionalized trading of futures. There is, however, a common denominator of both innovations: Since the last third of the 20th century we can observe (in nearly all fields of social practice) a shift to a more flexible allocation of resources which leads from hierarchical organization to temporary projects, from centralized control to distributed networks, from serial fabrication to lean production, from a modern agenda of homogeneity to a postmodern program of heterogeneity. Working hours and family structures, professional education and the allocation of military forces, innovative procedures in the political system and new patterns of management in the corporate world – they all experience a programmatic change towards an increased flexibility, towards a modus operandi which counts on creative patchwork and powerful recombination. As we all know, economic changes do not occur independently from social, political, and cultural change. I will argue that the newly developed architecture of relational databank systems in the 1970s is (1) deeply rooted in the culture of flexibility and (2) served as a means for transforming both the operations and the structures of financial institutions. In order to do so, I will sketch the principal issues of competing databank concepts in the 1970s, and I will try to illustrate their importance for what I would like to call “Data Banking in the Age of Flexibility”. Alexandros-Andreas Kyrtsis (University of Athens) Financial Deregulation and Technological Change: The impact of the turn of the 1970s Banks and other organisations of the financial sector have played a significant role in one of the most important chapters in the history of technological change in the 20th century. However, although the interdependence between financial and technological evolution seems to be obvious, subtler mechanisms of the emergence of this relationship, especially the ones concerning the impact of financial history on technological history, have not been thoroughly discussed. The aim of this paper is to facilitate the search for missing links which can be found in the discussion of the wider impact of technological processes in the financial sector. The question would be then whether in the case of the financial sector we can solely observe mere processes of adoption of technological innovations emerging in other sectors, or whether the financial sector has brought about its own technological innovations, induced by financial innovations, which have had an impact on the overall development of information and communication technologies during the last quarter of the 20th century and the first decade of the 21st. In particular, the relevant questions in this context are the following: What were the main features of the co-evolution of financial organisations and markets, on the one hand, and technological patters on the other? In what sense have technologies contributed in the shaping of the financial world as the basis of business practices and the dynamics of whole economies? And more importantly: In what sense have the financial processes of the era of deregulation contributed to technological change in the field of information and communication technologies with consequences also for other fields? What are the main features of the resulting technological processes and of the technological landscapes that emerged from the process of financial deregulation? How does this interplay between the dynamics of deregulation and the evolution of technology markets define the way managers of the financial sector decide on technologies and technology-based business practices? What does this co-evolution of the characteristics of financial operations and the characteristics of ICTs mean in terms of technological and operational risk exposure of financial organisations? Hermann-Josef Lamberti (Deutsche Bank) Information technology as a driver of global change In the last 50 years, we have been witness of a technological revolution: Following Moore’s Law computational power as well as storage capacity has doubled every 18-24 months – with no limit to be reached until now. In contrast to traditional manufacturing industries, banking in general and transaction banking in particular handles with information and data instead of physical goods. Not astonishing, information technology had a significant influenced on banking business. This technological development together with deregulation allowed establishing a global financial market, asset securitization and sales of receivables. New products were established, allowing clients to invest according to their personal strategy. Despite the current crises, this global financial market is a necessary pendant of the globalization in real economy. We are now in a phase of reconstruction. In this situation, technology may help to increase transparency and therefore stabilize the whole system. Donald MacKenzie (University of Edinburgh) $100 for Every Human Being on Earth: Models and the Growth of Financial Derivatives Markets In January 1970, there was no organized financial-derivatives exchange anywhere in the world. Derivatives were often regarded (including by market regulators) as little better than bets on price movements, and indeed many of today’s derivatives contracts would have been regarded legally as wagers, and hence prohibited in the US and unenforceable in the UK. At the end of December 2007, the total notional amount of financial derivatives outstanding worldwide was $677 trillion, the equivalent of around $100,000 for every human being on Earth. While the figure exaggerates the economic significance of financial derivatives, they have become crucial to the functioning of modern financial markets. This talk will discuss the role of economic models in this transformation, and in particular will examine the extent to which the adoption of those models brought into being the ‘world’ (market conditions and price patterns) they posited. The focus will be on the 1970s: the emergence of the Black-Scholes-Merton option pricing model (published in 1973), the development of the Chicago Board Options Exchange (launched in 1973) and the interaction between the two. Jocelyn Pixley (Global Policy Institute, London Metropolitan University) Tensions between economic policies, technology and bankers’ professional perceptions This paper looks at one of the ‘causal directions’ of technical change, in which technologies are created from demands from the financial sector in a particular historical context. Specific demands analysed here focus on banks’ pressing needs (in a changing industry) to cope with newly-created uncertainties from competition and asset-inflation, in waves of deregulation from the 1970s. From Keynesian controls by nation-states (with their uncertainties such as wage-inflation), banks faced re-regulation in favour of market rules. That culminated in 2004 with US Secretary of Treasury Henry Paulson convincing the SEC Commissioners to exempt non-bank investment banks from maintaining reserves to cover losses on investments. A former Reagan administrator describes this ‘greatest mistake’ as one where ‘in place of time-proven standards of prudence, computer models engineered by hot shots determined acceptable risk’. Why did market (self) regulation go so far and what were the effects of demands for computer-generated risk models? The paper outlines the new cognitive and ‘emotional’ rules that evolved to cope with market-driven uncertainties. Former personal trust between central bankers, treasury and top financiers gave way to impersonal distrust about financial products. Increased ‘internalisation’ of cognitive rules (emotional at heart), less of prudence but caveat emptor and ceteris paribus, required technical models to assay every conceivable detail of the past (assuming continuation in future). ‘Distrust’ procedures gave some comfort to investment and bank CEOs but (my studies of professional bankers show), never conclusively. The growth in impersonal distrust agencies to assess future reputations, credit-worthiness, confidence, profits, and through managing pension funds, was matched by ever more competition audits and performance benchmarks. Banks are intermediaries but tensions between data generated from within and without; unintended results of pro-market regulations; and bankers’ professional judgments does not encourage ‘pro-active vision’ (Kyrtsis) by bankers or regulators, but anxiety. Susan V. Scott (London School of Economics and Political Science) Understanding techno-innovation in an era of self-regulated financial services Kyrtsis (2008) calls for us to deepen our understanding of the relationship between financial services, deregulation, and technological innovation. He proposes that the main features characterising the financial services landscape are a blend of ‘sophisticated architectural concepts’ which emerge in the form of international electronic financial networks and tactical “solution technologies”. According to Kyrtsis, solution technologies are developed to overcome relatively short-term issues rather than innovations that grow from strategic vision. In this presentation, the proposition that technical practices in banks and other financial organizations are reactive rather than proactive will be explored further. We trace what Abolafia (1996) calls “cycles of opportunism” against a backdrop of key case studies in order to consider what it means to be a techno-innovator in an era of self-regulated financial services. George I. Stasinopoulos (National Technical University of Athens) Driving ICT Innovation and Growth: Causal Relationships & Analogues ICT (Information & Communication Technologies) offers a ubiquitous infrastructure, is one of the main factors shaping the business environment and plays the role of a catalyst for new goods and services across most domains of modern society. It influences banking and finance in a direct way as well as a common denominator as in all other economic and societal environments. On the reverse direction the growth and globalization of finance and banking drives the development and omnipresence of ICT. However this influence has to be seen in a wider setting as well as in the context of quantitative vs. qualitative requirements posed to and fulfilled by ICT. Particular needs push innovation in particular targeted scientific and technological fields. Examples can be readily drawn from the cold war, the space race, star wars and lastly the consumer society. All lead to quantum advances or significant improvements of devices, systems, integrating infrastructure and application methodologies. Clear, causal relationships are easily visible. The situation is somewhat more abstract with banking and finance. Telecoms are the closest analogue to banking w.r.t. ICT. On a truly global infrastructure many players assume well demarcated roles on largely common resources. At operational level millions of users interact with a giant global machine across well defined rigid interfaces. The case is not clear cut with banking and finance. A distributed ICT infrastructure coexists hand in hand with a multilayered system of staff with different roles and rights. Here ICT works in parallel, assisting operations and decision making at all levels: that of the simple user / client up to high management and consulting. Telecom providers interact with each other in strict real time for service delivery, management, billing and interadministartion accounting. Banks are also faced with strict real time constraints. However their task is not just forwarding information flows. Processing and storage are salient functions of the common, lower layer infrastructure. Horizontal aspects like security, resilience, availability, maintainability and scalability come in the foreground not as particular isolated requirements but as a well balanced whole. Lastly higher level tools in investing and financing have become prime application areas for modeling, system identification, control and decision theory. Conceptual and theoretical advances have long been dormant in these classical domains, always in need of real life applications and everyday use. These have now, thanks to financing and the underlying ICT infrastructure, come out to the test provoking productive exposure and vivid criticism.

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