Robert Levey

The Ecology of Information Robert Levey

The Ecology of Information shows how organizations evolve and grow in an information age. In today's world of downsizings and rapid reorganizations, organizational behavior is conditioned less by dramatic leadership than by the information environment that surrounds groups and creates social values. That environment is the information ecosystem that controls data and human behavior. The Ecology of Information explains why information means more than statistics and raw data. It behaves, instead, like living tissue inside of information organisms. The public sees these organisms as formal organizations controlled by people. But underneath the veneer of human control, information biology governs collective behavior and actions. Interacting with each other, all information organisms make up the information ecosystem that we know as culture. The ecosystem balances information biology to keep all information organisms alive and productive. Anyone who wants to understand how organizations work needs to understand the rules of the information ecosystem and its resident species. The book explains those rules and shows why organizations sometimes behave with complete disregard for individual needs and desires. It shows that organizational charts and hierarchies of large organizations present only part of the picture. An organization's character and personality are better understood by looking at how it functions as an information organism within a larger information ecosystem. The information ecosystem describes how cultures evolve and why they institutionalize problems such as welfare and crime by surrounding the problems with large bureaucracies. The process is natural and not confined to government. It happens in business and social groups as well. Anyone who wants to change an organization and make it more responsive should understand this process. Individuals who undertake change efforts without this understanding often suffer frustration and give up. The Ecology of Inform