The De-script-ion of X-skills: a Machiavellic view on ICT innovation and production

This paper aims to elaborate and to focus on a clash in the production and innovation paradigm of Information and Communication Technology (ICT). At a superficial level we can observe that the ‘traditional paradigm’ in ICT production and innovation is challenged by the emergence of new paradigms. In the last couple of decades, the new emerging models have drawn the attention of several socio-economical disciplines such as innovation studies (e.g. Von Hippel, 2005; Leatbeater and Miller, 2004; Benkler, 2006), science and technology studies (e.g. Oudshoorn and Pinch, 2008; Eglash et al. 2004; Nowotny et al. 2001), cultural and media studies (e.g. Lie and Sorensen, 1996; Williams and Steward, 2005), and more design oriented studies (e.g. Haddon et al. 2005). The emerging paradigms display aspects that appear to be radically different from that of the traditional approach. In the ‘traditional paradigm’, production and innovation are the province of large corporations and their engineers, by contrast in the new models production and innovation are decentralized and spread among often large mass of proactive people (often described as prosumer by referencing to Toffler (1980); or desuser as in Bruns, (2008)). In the traditional paradigm, production is basically a top-down process, in which innovation is seen as a linear path that follows certain predetermined stages (Rogers, 1995). In the traditional paradigm the organization of labor is hierarchical and relatively fixed and structured, thus producing separations between