Paula Bialski
@bialski.bsky.social
digital sociologist, ethnographer, STS scholar, musician. New book out now http://tinyurl.com/4f29px33
“ Middle Tech, proves indispensable for demonstrating how the mundane but nevertheless consequential choices inside AI companies, indeed in all software companies, are made by engineers…” much love and thanks for putting my work among these wonderful reads.
New from me in @publicbooks.bsky.social ' Technology section: "Toward a Realpolitik of AI" reviews three excellent books by @bialski.bsky.social , @randomwalker.bsky.social and @sayash.bsky.social , and @garymarcus.bsky.social .
Toward a Realpolitik for AI - Public Books
Today’s AI arms race demands a healthy dose of realism.
www.publicbooks.org
June 10, 2025 at 8:52 PM
“ Middle Tech, proves indispensable for demonstrating how the mundane but nevertheless consequential choices inside AI companies, indeed in all software companies, are made by engineers…” much love and thanks for putting my work among these wonderful reads.
Ciao Bologna! I am thrilled to have arrived at my 1-week fellowship at the Università di Bologna courtesy of the wonderful Prof. Claudio Coletta. I'll be giving a book presentation around Middle Tech on April 1st. Join us here (and no its not an April fools joke I swear!):
Book Presentation: "Middle Tech. Software Work and the Culture of Good Enough", By Paula Bialski
None
magazine.unibo.it
March 26, 2025 at 8:26 AM
Ciao Bologna! I am thrilled to have arrived at my 1-week fellowship at the Università di Bologna courtesy of the wonderful Prof. Claudio Coletta. I'll be giving a book presentation around Middle Tech on April 1st. Join us here (and no its not an April fools joke I swear!):
Woot! My article “Computer says ‘no’ : On the materiality of software in organising tech work” has just been published in “Tech Work and its Discontents” - a special issue of Work, Organisation, Labour & Globalisation! 🙏👇🏻 www.scienceopen.com/hosted-docum...
Computer says ‘no’ : On the materiality of software in organising tech work
<p xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" dir="auto" id="d1373949e88">This article examines the materiality of software in shaping the organisation of software
work, with a ...
www.scienceopen.com
March 24, 2025 at 6:37 AM
Woot! My article “Computer says ‘no’ : On the materiality of software in organising tech work” has just been published in “Tech Work and its Discontents” - a special issue of Work, Organisation, Labour & Globalisation! 🙏👇🏻 www.scienceopen.com/hosted-docum...
Hello TU Chemnitz and German Sociologists of Work and Labour! I am joining you today for my keynote at the Automatisierung der/als Arbeit conference to talk about "Good Enough: Rethinking (Programming) Work in the Age of Automation." Thank you to @andreasbischof.bsky.social for the invite! ⛑️ More:
www.tu-chemnitz.de
February 27, 2025 at 10:47 AM
Hello TU Chemnitz and German Sociologists of Work and Labour! I am joining you today for my keynote at the Automatisierung der/als Arbeit conference to talk about "Good Enough: Rethinking (Programming) Work in the Age of Automation." Thank you to @andreasbischof.bsky.social for the invite! ⛑️ More:
Loved co-hosting this episode of Peoples & Things with my buddy @leev.bsky.social ... thank you Lee for the invite and to @biella.bsky.social for coming over to St. Gallen to chat.
ICYMI: Thinking a lot about this Peoples & Things episode on hacker cultures (plural!) with guest @biella.bsky.social and guest host @bialski.bsky.social . Sadly, our conversation about the "Dark Enlightenment" and other strands has become even more relevant.
newbooksnetwork.com/hacker-hoaxe...
newbooksnetwork.com/hacker-hoaxe...
February 25, 2025 at 6:49 PM
Loved co-hosting this episode of Peoples & Things with my buddy @leev.bsky.social ... thank you Lee for the invite and to @biella.bsky.social for coming over to St. Gallen to chat.
Paris salut! I’m here! Happy to visit the Catala research seminar as part of the Inria today at 17:00 to chat about Middle Tech! Join us! More info: lnkd.in/dhRhRi57
February 17, 2025 at 12:29 PM
Paris salut! I’m here! Happy to visit the Catala research seminar as part of the Inria today at 17:00 to chat about Middle Tech! Join us! More info: lnkd.in/dhRhRi57
Thanks London! It was lovely to speak about the book for Joel Mckim’s colleagues at the Vasari center @ucl-bbk-cps.bsky.social Birkbeck — and had to book The Goodenough hotel just for the laughs and photo op :)
February 13, 2025 at 3:12 PM
Thanks London! It was lovely to speak about the book for Joel Mckim’s colleagues at the Vasari center @ucl-bbk-cps.bsky.social Birkbeck — and had to book The Goodenough hotel just for the laughs and photo op :)
And for my big UK tour finale, I'll be Birkbeck, University of London's wonderful VASARI Research Center with Joel McKim this eve to present my book. Join us at 18:00... there are still a few spots left :) www.bbk.ac.uk/events/event... 👍
Paula Bialski Lecture Good-Enoughing: Software Work Cultures at a Middle Tech Company
Digital ethnographer Paula Bialski discusses her new book studying the culture of work in a "Middle-Tech" software company.
www.bbk.ac.uk
February 12, 2025 at 12:59 PM
And for my big UK tour finale, I'll be Birkbeck, University of London's wonderful VASARI Research Center with Joel McKim this eve to present my book. Join us at 18:00... there are still a few spots left :) www.bbk.ac.uk/events/event... 👍
Heading up to Lancaster now! The discussion starts at 13:00 :) I’ll have a few books to sell at my talks this week… Please buy them as pregnant shouldn’t carry heavy packages 👌 wp.lancs.ac.uk/sciencestudi...
February 11, 2025 at 9:27 AM
Heading up to Lancaster now! The discussion starts at 13:00 :) I’ll have a few books to sell at my talks this week… Please buy them as pregnant shouldn’t carry heavy packages 👌 wp.lancs.ac.uk/sciencestudi...
Back in the UK after 15 years!? First stop: the Oxford Internet Institute— see you in a few hours folks! If anybody wants to join us online click below or just ping me ⏰🙏🚎
OII | Good-Enough Software: an ethnography a Middle Tech company
In this book talk, Paula Bialski drawn on her newly published ethnographic study of software developers at a non-flashy, non-start-up corporate tech company.
www.oii.ox.ac.uk
February 10, 2025 at 12:27 PM
Back in the UK after 15 years!? First stop: the Oxford Internet Institute— see you in a few hours folks! If anybody wants to join us online click below or just ping me ⏰🙏🚎
See you soon RUSTLAB folks at the Ruhr Uni Bochum! Just enturing the DeutscheBahn infrastructural lags, but despite my delay I'll be there for 14:00 :) If anybody wants to join online today link below: rustlab.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/lecture-by-p...
Lecture by Paula Bialski on “Good Enoughing at Middle Tech: An Ethnography of Corporate Software Culture”
Join us on Thursday, January 30th , from 14-16 hrs (German time) for the last RUSTLab lecture of this winter term. Paula Bialski will present her work on “
rustlab.ruhr-uni-bochum.de
January 30, 2025 at 10:22 AM
See you soon RUSTLAB folks at the Ruhr Uni Bochum! Just enturing the DeutscheBahn infrastructural lags, but despite my delay I'll be there for 14:00 :) If anybody wants to join online today link below: rustlab.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/lecture-by-p...
Dev interns at the company I'm doing research at are sad ChatGPT went down this afternoon: "How do we code now?" they joke. Yep, even artificial general intelligence is just good enough.
January 23, 2025 at 1:57 PM
Dev interns at the company I'm doing research at are sad ChatGPT went down this afternoon: "How do we code now?" they joke. Yep, even artificial general intelligence is just good enough.
What makes me cringe is broligarchs like Satya Nadella who seemingly roast Altman, turning the focus on AI’s power for “building useful things for the real world” — makes me think what “real world”? Define “useful”? Lack of foresight and care for how the Frankensteins they build will impact humanity
If you are confused by what’s going on here, let me just give you a simple explanation: Cockfighting but without the cocks.
January 23, 2025 at 9:19 AM
What makes me cringe is broligarchs like Satya Nadella who seemingly roast Altman, turning the focus on AI’s power for “building useful things for the real world” — makes me think what “real world”? Define “useful”? Lack of foresight and care for how the Frankensteins they build will impact humanity
My 15+ years of being a musician taught me that there is no such thing as too much touring when an album comes out. Thus let the the Middle Tech book tour continue in 2025! See you somewhere during the following dates and ping me for more info (link to the list here)😍 : paulabialski.com#page-3
January 6, 2025 at 3:42 PM
My 15+ years of being a musician taught me that there is no such thing as too much touring when an album comes out. Thus let the the Middle Tech book tour continue in 2025! See you somewhere during the following dates and ping me for more info (link to the list here)😍 : paulabialski.com#page-3
A little holiday cheer for you all - we are happy to bring to you the THIRD season of the Hacker Cultures podcast! These discussion were recorded at EASST/4S 2024, episodes are available at www.buzzsprout.com/1323889 and of course via all podcast platforms. Happy listening!
Hacker Cultures: The Conference Podcast
As Covid-19 turned most conferences virtual, so to combat Zoom-fatigue, at 4S/EASST 2020 we decided to try another format and turn a conference session into a podcast. Among hundreds of panels, papers...
www.buzzsprout.com
December 20, 2024 at 8:40 AM
A little holiday cheer for you all - we are happy to bring to you the THIRD season of the Hacker Cultures podcast! These discussion were recorded at EASST/4S 2024, episodes are available at www.buzzsprout.com/1323889 and of course via all podcast platforms. Happy listening!
A warm 'thank you' to Prof. Adam Storer at EmLyon for this lovely review of MiddleTech. In his words the book "paints a clear picture for readers not only of workplace relationships, but the myriad ways in which technology shapes workplace culture."Check it out here! academic.oup.com/sf/advance-a...
Review of “Middle Tech: Software Work and the Culture of Good Enough”
As tech firms become increasingly integrated into every aspect of daily life, their failures become more prominent. A buggy software update from CrowdStrik
academic.oup.com
December 16, 2024 at 8:00 PM
A warm 'thank you' to Prof. Adam Storer at EmLyon for this lovely review of MiddleTech. In his words the book "paints a clear picture for readers not only of workplace relationships, but the myriad ways in which technology shapes workplace culture."Check it out here! academic.oup.com/sf/advance-a...
Thanks for sharing dear @princetonupress.bsky.social !
Check out this episode of BBC Radio 4's Thinking Allowed & listen to @bialski.bsky.social, author of Middle Tech, discuss her research on software developers at a tech company & how they were often engaged in patch up & repair, rather than dreaming up the next app: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...
November 26, 2024 at 9:02 AM
Thanks for sharing dear @princetonupress.bsky.social !
See you soon Konstanz friends! If anybody is in the area come drop by.
ZKF Public Talk: Good Enoughing. Care and Compromise in Corporate Software Work
www.literature.uni-konstanz.de
November 20, 2024 at 9:35 AM
See you soon Konstanz friends! If anybody is in the area come drop by.
My new book Middle Tech: Software Work and the culture of 'good enough' is out today! Thanks to @princetonupress.bsky.social for all your support. And in my dreams I am surrounded cakes printed with my book on it. At least Chatgpt will give me some good-enough versions. Mmmm, tasty. Enjoy!
May 21, 2024 at 10:47 AM
My new book Middle Tech: Software Work and the culture of 'good enough' is out today! Thanks to @princetonupress.bsky.social for all your support. And in my dreams I am surrounded cakes printed with my book on it. At least Chatgpt will give me some good-enough versions. Mmmm, tasty. Enjoy!
If anyone is up for discounting and pre-ordering, my book is almost here!
March 5, 2024 at 2:57 PM
If anyone is up for discounting and pre-ordering, my book is almost here!