Who, how and where people are invited to discuss (and influence) technological design rests ultimately on varying and competing assumptions about value and values. These assumed values, always-loosely justified leaps to what is valued, prompt various leaps to processes and procedures that will achieve these values, and to human participation. In any case, these values and procedural means also make always-incomplete reference to other ends when asked “why”, through necessarily-thinner elaborations and justifications. In all case, they are both the product of and produce the various semi-material realities of the changing technologies themselves. {need to elaborate – but I think there is a matrix of possibilities here}

We consider these necessarily loose connections across the values of human participation in technological design, in order to consider a range of nascent possibilities toward the future. We consider these connections across changes to underlying nature of information technologies over time {list them out?}. This forging of new rationales for particular approaches to human participation in technological design also raises the more general argument for a future of the future for participation in technological design.

Broadly speaking, “participation as of value” considers participation in technological design as a means to desired ends - e.g. efficient product-service delivery; product-service customization for customers; and harm reduction, to name a few. The desirability of these ends are necessarily associated with other ends to justify their pursuit, for example: efficiency in order to compete with other organizations in order to avoid organizational decline and death; product-service customization as a different means to the same competitive ends through differentiation (not cost); and the reduction of harm in order to steer within legal constraints and to avoid legal sanctions. In every case, the desirability of an end depends on a number of leaps across a set of “why” answers to justify their pursuit.

In term of the “how” to achieve these ends through technological design, a number of possible and never-purely derived methods and means are possible. Within those means, a number of possible rationales and methods for human participation are also possible, but not always. These possibilities revolve around how answers to the who, what, where, when and why of participation are justified in supporting its value to the desired ends.

For example, if improved organizational efficiency is the goal, there is a possible leap to assumptions that technology and business-process experts should in-charge of selecting and implementing new technologies into the organization. Employees would participate in order to learn how to use and adapt these technologies to achieve these organizational-efficient ends.

Very different means to organizational efficiency have also been proposed and evaluated; for example, socio-technical design and the efficiency produced by letting to coal miners figure out the most efficient practices and technologies. Similar conjectures were considered during the so-called end user computing movement in the 1980s, which radiates through in revised form in today's user-lead technology selection and use of software apps.

In both cases, the ultimate values and ends of the project may typically drive the identification of the processes and means to achieve them, in order to simplify search and deployment. For example, the use of technology for organizational efficiency can prompt efficient design processes; for example, the use of technology experts to select “best of breed software; the “involvement” of people early in design to introduce the project and to get “buy-in”; the selection of representatives from identified groups to simplify deliberation; the categorization of individuals into stakeholder groups with more-or-less well defined interests; a focus on early design and requirements “sign-off”; and the identification of users and desirable use (and “resistance” if some oppose this use).

In contrast, the generation of new and novel games for consumers could imply something very different in terms of technological design processes: e.g. the offering of numerous generic software applications to allow users to select and customize the software toward their individual, group and collective needs.

In any of these cases, despite the broad range of ends and process for participation “as of value”, people's influence on design is for what it does to “produce outcomes of value”.

In contrast, and still depending on a loose but different set of connections across other ends and means, is participation “as a value”. To be clear, there are possible cross-overs into the “participation as of value”. But hypothetically, participation as a value can and perhaps must be considered on its own terms, since any other results from it are irrelevant.

In any case, participation as of value is not primarily for achieving external ends, but is an end in itself as a “good”. In whatever form it takes, even through representatives, people's influence on the shaping and deployment of technology is good for its own sake, irrespective of the outcome.

There may be various possible higher ends for participation as a value “for its own sake”: e.g. individual rights to shape the technologies that they use and are affected by; the joy of humans shaping their own tools and work environment through participation; seeing each and every person as offering a unique and important vantage point from experience; seeking diverse perspectives on work and individual experiences, within or outside technological design and use; and the assurance of limited or zero harm to people's quality-of-working life. {some of these are still ends driven, and so will need further work}. Broader assumptions about participation as a value may also argue that all technological and organizational design should be driven by all humans interests, and not just simply the subset assumed in other ends-driven participation (e.g. shareholder value, and consumers). The assumed direct and primary linkages to these particular ends may eventually confront difficulties with counter-realities, such as a lack of consumer demand if work is lost or reduced to minimum work, or the natural environment is made unlivable.

and values fall around assumed goals and goods for particula

We conclude that