The Odyssey Group

exploring the potential of the internet and web for promoting social inclusion and widening participation in economic development and the management of public service provision

about | previous events | future events | other activities | participants | publications | links | sharing our practice


 

About the Odyssey Group

The Odyssey Group is a network of academics who are, in various ways, seeking to explore the emerging social potential of new modes of electronically-mediated communication, particularly in respect of alternative forms of organising and managing and the promotion of greater social inclusion.

Members of the group collaborate to

  • organise seminars and workshops
  • convene streams at relevant academic conferences
  • work with partner groups and agencies to develop their own websites
  • publish contributions to the development of understanding of the potential and affordance of new ICTs for promoting social inclusion

(see more about the Odyssey Group).  

 

2008 Activities:


archive of activities
August - November 2008

Members of the Odyssey Group participated in a series of events during 2008.

These took place in Scotland, the Netherlands and Denmark.

 

For details of these activities CLICK HERE

 

 

 

Den Haag, Netherlands



Previous Events

 
 


accessibility/tourism/development

For 2007 the Group explored the relationship between the accessibility of locations and tourism and other forms of economic activity in both developed and developing economies and regions.

The event was a combined virtual and physical meeting hosted by the Centre for Innovation Knowledge and Development Open University, UK and supported by Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, Netherlands and the College of Tourism, Rikkyo University Tokyo, Japan

Go to workshop website
 

Western Highlands, Scotland

 

 

 

Union Hall, Lower Manhattan

 

Odyssey 2006: New York, Lancaster, Ljubljana

The Odyssey Group participated in a series of events during 2006.
These activities were linked by the themes of global unionism, social movements and the internet.

For details of these activities CLICK HERE.

 

 

 

Accessibility, Mobility and Connectivity.

The Odyssey Group provided a session in the stream Accessibility, Mobility and Connectivity: Changing Frontiers of Daily Routine at "Frontiers of Sociology", the 37th World Congress of the International Institute of Sociology, held in Stockholm on July 5-9, 2005.

Go to workshop website.

   

 

   

Migration, Identity and New Information Technology

workshop held at University of Ulster, Jordanstown, Northern Ireland, 23rd-27th August 2004, in collaboration with Management Research Centre, London Metropolitan University

hosted by Professor Julian Hine, Translink Chair of Transport, University of Ulster, Jordanstown

This workshop examined the implications of new information and communications technologies for the social and economic dynamics of identity and community, in the context of migration and diaspora.

Go to workshop website

 
 

 

 

Online Symposium, Ageing in the Community
15th-17th July 2003

held in conjunction with the 18th UK-Japan High Technology Industry Forum,

hosted by Moor Park Community Centre

in collaboration with:

The UK-Japan High Technology Forum 2003 had a particular focus on ageing and the elderly. The choice of Newcastle was influenced by the world class research into aging carried out in the city and region.

This site hosted activities linking the technical advances and innovations which were the subject of the forum with the issue of delivery to and monitoring by local government, health providers and communities.

Odyssey Group members have been working with Moor Park, and NEAT, on user-based monitoring of public transport provision, since 2001.

   
   

 

Global Earth Watch and Local Housekeeping
workshop held at London Metropolitan University, 29th & 30th August 2002

 
  Technology and environment: reflections on IT working practices in Africa, 21st November 2001, at the Management Research Centre, University of North London  

Elizabeth Abena Prempeh, Heyward Reserve Library

 

 

 

University of Ghana, Legon  

 

Information Access for Africa, workshop 2001, held at Centre for Social Policy Studies, University of Ghana, Legon
23rd August - 7th September

  e-collectivism - a reformation: Odyssey Group workshop, held at Ely, Cambridgeshire, August 2000   Ely Cathedral  
  University of  North London  

 

Cyberontology workshop, held at The Business School, University of North London, October 1999

 
  Relational Skill and Electronic Communication:
Odyssey Group workshop held at Ithaca, New York, August 1999
  Odyssey Group in Ithaca  

  Other activities

 

 
  Moor Park Explore Club   Moor Park Explore Club: Odyssey Group members participated in a community-led project to monitor public transport provision in North Tyneside


 

 

 

 

Members of the Odyssey Group are active participants in the ESRC-funded Mobile Network Seminar Series (see report by participants from Moor Park Explore Club of seminar held 1st February 2002, at Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge)

   
   

Odyssey Group members Len Holmes and Stephen Little convened the stream on 'Distributed technology, distributed leadership, distributed identity' at APROS 2001 colloquium, Baptist University, Hong Kong

 
 

 

 

'Electronic Ontologies' stream at APROS, Sydney, Dec 2000

Odyssey Group members Len Holmes, Stephen Little and Margaret Grieco convened this stream at APROS 2000. Papers from the stream were subsequently revised and are now published in 'Organising in the Information Age' (ed Len Holmes, Dian Marie Hosking and Margaret Grieco), published by Ashgate Press, 2002
Further information

 

 

   
 

Learning Centre, University of North London

  The Odyssey Group developed from work for, and experience of running, the UK 'harbour' for Global Learn Day II, October 1998  
     
 

 

Participants:

The Odyssey Group has a 'core' group of participants who collaborate on events and publications. In addition, we invite others 'virtual voyagers' to join in key events online. Names of participant present at each event and of virtual voyagers are shown on the webpages for those events.

The convenors for the Odyssey Group are
Leonard Holmes
, Reader in Management,
Roehampton University,
and
Stephen Little, Centre for Innovation, Knowledge and Enterprise, Open University Business School
Milton Keynes, U.K.

 


  Sharing Our Practice

A key aim of the work of the Odyssey Group is to assist other groups to develop their own websites and use of the internet technology. We therefore try to share what we have learnt and are learning from our own experience. We do this by one-to-one coaching at workshops, and also through an online toolkit.

 


 
 

Publications by Odyssey Group members

Amongst the outputs of the work of the Odyssey Group are a number of publications and conference papers on topics explored by the Group. Published works include:

  • Special Issue: European Spatial Research and Policy 13(1), 2006 Edited by Grieco, M.,
    with the following contributions from the 2005 Odyssey Group meeting:
    " The Skill of Travel: Networks into Neighbourhoods ", Steve Little, Len Holmes and Frank Go
    "Gender-sensitive Governance in the Field of Transport: Evidence from Female focus Groups", Katja Hartl and Daniela Jauk
    "Space, Communication and the Daily Exercise of Solidarity: An Exploration of Distributed Discourse in the Cyber Campaigns of Firefighters in the UK", John Hogan and Andreja Zivkovic;
    "Mobility, Identity and Connectivity", Julian Hine
    "Rural Transport Disadvantage: A Case Study of School children in Northern Ireland", Scott Mackey
    "Hagerstrand, Hegemony and Distributed discourse: The Use of the World Wide Web in Tracking Contemporary Migration Paths", Margaret Grieco
    "The Role of Mobile Networks in the Practice of Space: The Museum as a Space of Flows", Sara Monaci
    "Reconstructing the Meaning of Travel Among Young People in Modern Russia: The Use of the Photo Interview" Denis Zuev
    "The Internet: Connectivity to Local People and for Local People" Fiona Raje

  • Special issue: Critical Perspectives on International Business Vol 1 No 2/3, 2005 The Globalisation of Labour: Counter-coordination and Unionism on the Internet. Edited by Grieco, M., Hogan, J. and Martinez Lucio, M.
    with following contributions from Odyssey Group Members:
    Editorial introduction: "New communications technology and the globalisation of labour", John Hogan and Peter Nolan
    "Recovering experience, confirming identity, voicing resistance: the Braceros, the internet and counter-coordination", Stephen Little and Stewart Clegg;
    "ICTs, distributed discourse and the territorialisation of labour: the case of Balkan trade unionism", John Hogan and Andreja Zivkovic;
    "Globalisation, collective action and counter-co-ordination: the use of the new information communication technology by the Malaysian labour movement", Margaret Grieco and Mhinder Bhopal

  • "Electronic Stepping Stones: a mosaic metaphor for the production and re-distribution of communicative skill in an electronic mode" Steve Little and Margaret Grieco, in Stewart Clegg and Martin Kornberger (eds) Space, Organization and Management, Advances in Organization Studies, Liber, Stockholm, in press.
  • Design and Determination: the role of information technology in redressing regional inequities in the development processStephen E. Little,
    published 2004 in 'Voices in Development Management' series, Ashgate Press.

  • Special issue: European Spatial Research and Policy Vol 10 No 2 2003. Metadata and metagovernance: distributed data and expanded governance. Edited by Grieco, M., S.E.Little and K.I.Macdonald
    with contributions from Odyssey Group Members:
    "The Silent Revolution:Electronic Data Interchange, Metadata and Metagovernance", Margaret Grieco, Stephen Little and Kenneth Macdonald
    "Globalisation, Europeanisation and Metagovernance: Society, Space and Capital Development", Stephen Little
    "Reaching in, Reaching out: Metadata, Popular Planning and Social Capital development", Len Holmes
    "Metagovernance, Metadata and Community Information Systems: Developments in the Transport Sector", Julian Hine, Marcus Wigan and Margaret Grieco

  • Organising in the Information Age: Distributed technology, distributed leadership, distributed identity, distributed discourse edited by Len Holmes, Dian Marie Hosking and Margaret Grieco
    published 2002 in 'Voices in Development Management' series, Ashgate Press.
  • "Local Economic Trading Schemes and their implications for marketing assumptions, concepts, and practices: Let's consider LETS", David Crowther, Dian-Marie Hosking, and Anne-marie Greene, in Management Decision, 2002 Vol 40 No 4 pp354-362
  • "Virtual Networking Pre- and Post-Cyberspace: An Assessment of the Implications for Social Cohesion", Steve Conway and David Crowther, in Journal of Management Research, 2002 Vol 1 No 1 pp 1-12
  • "The power of transparency: the Internet, e-mail, and the Malaysian political crisis", Margaret Grieco and Len Holmes, Asia-Pacific Business Review, vol 8, no 2, winter 2001
  • "Calling up culture: information spaces and information flows as the virtual dynamics of inclusion and exclusion", Margaret Grieco, Len Holmes and Stephen Little, in Information Technology and People, vol 14 no. 4, 2001
  • Voices from the Shopfloor: Dramas of the Employment Relationship, Anne-marie Greene,
    published 2001, in 'Voices in Development Management' series, Ashgate Press
  • Special Issue: Urban Studies (Sept 2000), Intelligent Urban Development: the Emergence of 'Wired' Administration and Management, guest editors Margaret Grieco, Len Holmes and Stephen Little, view contents page for details of articles by Odyssey Group members
  • "Island histories, open cultures?: the electronic transformation of adjacency", Stephen Little, Len Holmes and Margaret Grieco, in Southern African Business Review, 4 (2) (December 2000)

 

ESRP


 

Links

Websites managed by Odyssey Group members

 Other Links


 

Site managed by:

Leonard Holmes, Reader in Management
School of Business and Social Sciences
Roehampton University
Roehampton Lane
London, SW15 5UP

United Kingdom

e-mail: leonard.holmes@roehampton.ac.uk or l.holmes@re-skill.org.uk
website: http://www.re-skill.org.uk/

and

Stephen Little
Centre for Innovation, Knowledge and Enterprise

Open University Business School
Milton Keynes, U.K.

email: s.e.little@open.ac.uk
website: http://www.design-and-determination.com/

last updated: 1st December 2009