Micro Information Systems: New Fractals in an Evolving IS Landscape

We are increasingly surrounded by and using small systems, which are equipped with sensors. Mobile phones, temperature sensors, GPS tracking, emerging nano/micro-size sensors, and similar technologies are used by individuals, groups, and organizations. There are valuable applications for industries such as medical and manufacturing. These new sensor applications have implications for information systems (IS) and, the authors visualize this new class of information systems as fractals growing from an established class of systems; namely that of information systems (IS). The identified applications and implications are used as an empirical basis for creating a model for these small new information systems. Such sensor systems are called embedded systems in the technical sciences, and the authors want to couple it with general IS. They call the merger of these two important research areas (IS and embedded systems) for micro information systems (micro-IS). It is intended as a new research field within IS research. An initial framework model is established, which seeks to capture both the possibilities and constraints of this new paradigm, while looking simultaneously at the fundamental IS and ICT aspects. The chapter demonstrates the proposed micro-IS framework with a working (open source) application of open demand response systems that address the engineering aspects of this work.