Bill Sharpe
My research interests lie at the intersection of science, technology, and society. Most of my career has been spent in the management of research in the computer industry. For fifteen years I worked as a research Lab Director in the Hewlett Packard corporate labs in Bristol where I set up the Personal Systems Lab that explored early ideas in mobile and pervasive computing – using user research to look at everyday uses of digital technology. I left HP to pursue these ideas and set up an innovation consultancy, The Appliance Studio, which worked with a wide range of clients on new pervasive computing products. I collaborated with Phil Stenton of HP Labs to co-found the Mobile Bristol project, and following on from that I helped develop the proposal for the Pervasive Media Studio, and am now on its management board.
Throughout this time my dual interest in exploring how people relate to technology in their everyday lives and the need to find ways to guide long range research strategy, led me to become deeply involved in the field of futures and how we understand socio-technical systems. I now work with a wide range of organisations exploring new futures techniques and applying them to complex problems. I work particularly with the International Futures Forum, and my main research focus is a multi-year project called Economies of Life in which I am exploring how we can create healthy creative eco-systems of art and culture. This work has become a long-term inquiry into the nature of ecosystems and economies and the relationship between the two, and how we can discuss them in terms that retain the first person language of experience. The main foundations for this work come from the growing research field of enactive cognition and philosophy, which I connect to through membership of the EU research network on cognitive systems EUCogII.
Books:
- Economies of Life, B Sharpe, Triarchy, 2010
- Scenarios for Success, B Sharpe, and K van der Heijden, Eds, Wiley 2007.
Reports:
- Producing the Future: understanding Watershed’s role in ecosystems of cultural innovation, G Leicester & B Sharpe, Watershed 2010.
- Sharpe, B. (2008). Third Horizon Innovation: finding ourselves in the future, James Martin Institute for Science and Civilisation, Oxford University.
- Hodgson, A. and B. Sharpe (2007). Deepening Futures with System Structure. In Scenarios for Success.
- Sharpe, B. (2007). Converging Technologies: Scope and Typology. Converging Technologies Project, James Martin Institute for Science and Civilisation, Oxford University.
- Sharpe, B., V. Parry, et al. (2007). Obesity, technology, lifestyle, Foresight Directorate, UK Dept for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform
- Sharpe, B. (2007). Time Horizons. Converging Technologies Project, James Martin Institute for Science and Civilisation, Oxford University.
- Sharpe, B. (2006). Cognitive Systems: Applications and Impact. Cognitive Systems. R. Morris, L. Tarassenko and M. Kenward, Elsevier.
- Sharpe, B. and A. Hodgson (2006). Intelligent Infrastructure Futures: Technology Forward Look, Foresight Directorate, UK Dept of Trade & Industry.
- O'Hara, K., R. Harper, et al. (2005). TxtBoard: from text-to-person to text-to-home, ACM New York, NY, USA.
- Sharpe, B. and S. Zaba (2004). Cybertrust & Crime Prevention Technology Forward Look, Foresight Directorate, UK Dept of Trade & Industry.
- Sharpe, B. (2003). Cognitive Systems: Applications and Impact, Foresight Directorate, UK Dept of Trade & Industry.
- Sharpe, W. P. and S. P. Stenton (2002). "Information appliances." Human Factors And Ergonomics: 731-751.
Sharpe, B. (2007). Axes, Platforms, Ecologies. Converging Technologies Project, James Martin Institute for Science and Civilisation, Oxford University.
