Reframing Information and Communication Technologies to Augment Mind and Organization Bob Travica, University of Manitoba, Canada SEFBIS Journal, No. 8, 2013/4, pp. 6-14. Abstract In North America, information/communication technologies (ICT) have come a long way from high appreciation to being considered everyday commodity. Although ICT has become widely spread and indispensable, it is hard to see them in aggregate productivity statistics or as precious competitive weapons. Challenges of managing ICT have proliferated in organizations and in other contexts. Practical problems are complemented by the difficulties that challenge the disciplines focused on investigating and managing ICT, such as Management Information Systems (MIS). It is argued that deep theoretical problems of these disciplines refer to missing to establish a clear research area and technical vocabulary. Assuming that the academic and practical need for the systems disciplines is still extant, the argument suggests that advancing their theoretical grounding can improve their contribution to investigating and managing ICT. The Informing View of Organization (IVO) is proposed as a venue for such advancing. Interdisciplinary based, IVO modifies some fundamental system concepts and introduces a new perspective for viewing organization. Main IVO aspects and their implications for research and management are presented. Historical Trajectory: Per Aspera Ad Astra… Et Retro Computer-based information and communication technologies (ICT) have come a long way in North America that for the most part has been on the lead in computing trends. From the military and federal government sectors in the 1950s, ICT spread to business (1960s), local governments and universities (1970s), and to schools and homes (1980s). All along the way, ICT have been viewed as the symbol and instrument of progress. Governments promoted paper reduction policies, data processing units emerged in companies, new executive management roles surfaced (Chief Information Officer, Chief Technology Officer), consultants touted ICT as “strategic weapon,” and public discourse embraced ideas of “information age.” Continually, the computer software and hardware industry was releasing new products, covering yet more of functional areas inside and outside organizations. The era of relentless progress and its enthusiastic believers culminated with the global expansion of mobile telephony and the Internet by the end of the last millennium. Technological trends bred electronic metamorphoses across various walks of life—e-commerce, e-government, e-learning, “e-everything”… Electronic markets and supply chains propelled national economies toward the globalization by the end of the 20 th century. Many countries at that time, including Hungary, were engaged in major economic and social transformations. Since beliefs in computer-driven progress had also been globalized, national governments rushed in creating policies on ICT-readiness. But the faith was already undermined at the center. An argument that computers did not contribute to the office work productivity