algorithms
Being on standby: On maintenance work in chronic disease management
Introduction
Since the proliferation of portable meters and insulin pumps in the 1980s, an intimate relation with battery-powered technologies has been a key feature of living with type 1 diabetes, as poignantly described by a patient on Twitter: ‘My pancreas runs on AAA batteries’ (DSC Community, 2016). But over the last decade the technologisation of diabetic care has intensified and daily treatment is now woven into a complex web of digital technologies. New smart devices continuously record glucose levels and automatically transmit them to a monitoring device.
The algorithmic panopticon at Deliveroo: Measurement, precarity, and the illusion of control
Introduction
Deliveroo is a platform for food delivery, using the model of Uber, which has become the archetypal example of this kind of organisation. Platforms have grown rapidly in recent years, something captured in the refrain for new companies that they will be the ‘Uber for X’ (Srnicek, 2017: 37). Like Uber, Deliveroo is pitched as a platform that connects customers with food and the riders to deliver it. Deliveroo can therefore be considered as the ‘Uber for food delivery’, despite the fact it also competes with Uber’s own UberEats offering.
The mediation of business: Organization in the age of algorithmic cultures
Business as usual can no longer proceed without networked media. The work of organization is incessantly enmeshed with media systems and the grammar of code. Digital data has become the new empirical ground upon which reality is verified and acted upon. The governance of data is now a key managerial function in the organization of workplace operations.
