From shaman to IT guru

• Published in: ACM SIGCAS Computers and Society
• Main Author: Barbour, R. H.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) 2005
• Subjects: First Nations
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/1111646.1111647; https://dl.acm.org/ft_gateway.cfm?id=1111647%26ftid=344486%26dwn=1

IT people are involved in creating order out of chaos and communicating new knowledge. IT academics and practitioners find themselves confronted on a daily basis with chaos, un-controlled change and more or less ordered change as new machines, software tools and techniques appear and have to be integrated into existing systems. Dealing with these challenges requires people who are knowledge seekers and problem solvers by inclination, endlessly curious on behalf of other people. This paper addresses the issue of where the role of knowledge seeker and problem solver developed in human history. Parallels are drawn between knowledge seekers in academic cultures and those in First Nation people's cultures. Three aspects of the experiences of past and present knowledge seekers are identified and examined. The first aspect is the initiation of new entrants, the second is the confirmation of acceptance by the group and the third is the vocation of being a knowledge seeker and problem seeker in the IT industry. Metaphor is used to identify these experiences linking together the crucial steps in the processes of becoming accepted as a knowledge seeker. The investigation finds close relationships between First Nations' knowledge seeker's roles and Information Technology roles.