How is IS research relevant to the future?

In this talk, I will consider how various types of IS research could inform the future of IS. In particular, I consider three strategies used in IS research to inform the future, prediction, explanation and transformation. I consider combinations of one or more of these strategies a fulcrum to the future. I illustrate various fulcra through an analysis of 3 broad epistemological approaches to IS knowledge for illustrative purposes only: positivism (capture the past in order to predict the future); interpretivism (understand the past to appreciate the infinite variety of the future but through similar social processes); and critical theory (critique the present in order to have a future). I will attempt to illustrate these ideas through my own work, and consider other rarely used possibilities for IS researchers to shape the future of IS. This work is being jointly authored with Elizabeth Davidson at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.