Technology Portfolios: How Individuals Manage Multiple Digital Technologies

摘要

People today access a wide range of digital technologies for communication, information management and entertainment purposes. Academic research lacks a conceptual way to describe and examine individuals' collections of technologies. The concept of a technology portfolio, defined as a purposeful collection of technologies that an individual assembles to meet their needs, is introduced to address this gap. The value of the technology portfolio concept is investigated through a multi-method field study of technically-adept participants. Each participant had assembled a collection of technologies. Comparison of these collections with five characteristics of a traditional portfolio (purposeful, diverse, dynamic, balanced and holistic) showed many similarities and some differences. Using inductive analysis, a technology portfolio lifecycle is developed that captures the ways that portfolios are managed by individuals. The talk concludes with a call to researchers to further develop the technology portfolio concept and to vendors and organisations to consider the ways that technologies are researched, trialled and integrated into a portfolio to increase chances for successful change.