In 1986 Flores published his first book, which he coauthored with Winograd. Understanding Computers and Cognition (1986) married questions about computers to "theories about the nature of biological existence, about language, and about the nature of human action." It was chiefly concerned with understanding what computers could and could not do in the context of human practice.
*Understanding Computers and Cognition* begins by critiquing the rationalist assumption that an objective, external world exists. The critique builds on the ideas of Heidegger, Searle, Maturana, J. L. Austin, and Hans-Georg Gadamer to show that knowledge is the result of interpretation and depends on the past experiences of the interpreter and his or her situatedness in tradition.
Winograd and Flores then argue that because computers lack such experiences and traditions, they cannot replace human beings as knowledge makers. "The ideal of an objectively knowledgeable expert must be replaced with a recognition of the importance of background," Winograd and Flores write. "This can lead to the design of tools that facilitate a dialog of evolving understanding among a knowledgeable community." Building on this observation, the authors propose that computers should not make decisions for us but rather should assist human actions, especially human "communicative acts that create requests and Commitments that serve to link us to others." Moreover, computer designers should not focus on creating an artifact but should view their labors as a form of "ontological design." Computers should reflect who we are and how we interact in the world, as well as shape what we can do and who we will become. The American Society for Information Science named *Understanding Computers and Cognition* the Best Information Science Book of 1987. It is now considered a key text in the field of human-computer interaction.
*Understanding Computers and Cognition* barely references Beer, although it does cite Project Cybersyn as an early example of a computer-based decision-support system. However, the ideas of the British cybernetician are present throughout the text. For example, the book repeats Beer's approach to problem solving, which is "not so much to solve them [problems] as to dissolve them."
Like Beer, the authors view computers as tools that can support decision making and drive action. They call for a holistic view of complexity that positions computer technology as one part of a complex system consisting of organizational, social, and technological practices. And they do not shy away from synthesizing literature and findings from computing, philosophy, biology, and neurophysiology.
> I point to these parallels not to say that Beer was the sole originator of these ideas, for he clearly was not. Nor am I suggesting that Winograd and Flores usurped Beer's ideas without proper credit. Rather, I point to these commonalities to show that Beer and cybernetics had more of a lasting effect on Flores's thinking than is apparent from the citations and bibliography of Understanding Computers and Cognition.
Flores also spent the 1980s reinventing himself as a Silicon Valley entrepreneur. He started Logonet, an educational consulting firm, to teach ontological design to the business community. With Winograd he formed a start-up company, Action Technologies, and developed a software package called the Coordinator Workgroup Productivity System, which they billed as the first work-group system for computer networks. Consisting of a conversation manager and calendar, the system connected users through modems, local area networks, and time-sharing networks. It marked messages with labels such as "request" or "promise" to clarify employee intentions and responsibilities within a company and linked employee calendars through the network. One journalist later described the Coordinator as "one of the world's first social-networking software applications."
However, scholars of computer-supported cooperative work criticized the software for imposing a system of linguistic categories on organizations. Such categories, they argued, could not account for the full complexity and heterogeneity of communications within an organization and might even force these rich exchanges to adhere to new forms of order and institutional control.
In 1989 Flores formed the consulting company Business Design Associates, or BDA. BDA sought to transform businesses in crisis by teaching the principles of speech act theory, such as making explicit requests and explicit promises. Such teachings, Flores claimed, improved company coordination, encouraged honesty, and helped employees become powerful by using words forcefully.
At its peak BDA had 150 employees on three continents and annual billings of $50 million. According to the magazine Fast Company, BDA charged $1 million for Flores's services. By 2007 Flores's net worth was an estimated $40 million.
As his wealth grew, so did his reputation. To some he was brusque, intimidating, direct to the point of rudeness, and off-putting. Yet his message and his success in both the academic and business communities transformed him into a cult figure for others.
In 1997 Flores coauthored a second book, Disclosing New Worlds, with his former mentor Hubert Dreyfus and fellow Berkeley Ph.D. and BDA executive Charles Spinosa. In this book, Flores returned to central themes in his writings, such as the configuration of reality and the relationship of knowledge and praxis. The book centers on the idea […]
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Eden Medina (2011/2014). Cybernetic Revolutionaries, p. 231–232