Venture Labour for the social media era: Entrepreneurship as an employment strategy – Panel discussion

About the speakers

• Dr Isis Hjorth

  Affiliation: Oxford Internet Institute

  Dr Isis Hjorth is a Researcher at the Oxford Internet Institute investigating implications of online freelancing in global economic peripheries. She has recently returned from three months’ fieldwork in Southeast Asia where she interviewed online contractors performing digital work, and interacted with policy makers and platform owners promoting online freelancing as a means of rapid social and economic development. Trained in the social sciences as well as the humanities, Isis holds a BA and MA in Rhetoric from the Department of Media, Cognition and Communication, University of Copenhagen. At the University of Oxford, she has completed a MSc in Technology and Learning at the Department of Education, and a DPhil at the Oxford Internet Institute.

• Professor Gina Neff

  Affiliation: University of Washington

  Professor Gina Neff is an associate professor of communication at the University of Washington. She studies the contemporary economics of media production and the political economy of communication by examining the relationship between work and technology in both high-tech and media industries. Her book ‘Venture Labor: Work and the Burden of Risk in Innovative Industries’ (MIT 2012) examines the risk and uncertainties borne by New York City’s new media pioneers during the first internet boom. She also co-edited Surviving the New Economy (Paradigm 2007). With Carrie Sturts Dossick, she runs the Project on Communication Technology and Organizational Practices, a research group studying the roles of communication technology in the innovation of complex building design and construction. Her work has been funded by the National Science Foundation, and she is currently at work on a three-year project funded by Intel studying the impact of social media and consumer health technologies on the organization of primary care. She has a Ph.D. in sociology from Columbia University, where she remains an external faculty affiliate of the Center on Organizational Innovation. From 2012-13 she was a fellow at Princeton’s Center for Information Technology Policy and a visiting scholar at NYU’s Media, Culture and Communication department. She has held appointments at UC San Diego, UCLA, and Stanford University. In addition to academic outlets, her research and writing have been featured in The New York Times, Christian Science Monitor, Fortune, The American Prospect, and The Nation.

• Dr Marc Ventresca

  Affiliation: University of Oxford

  Dr. Marc Ventresca is an economic sociologist in the Strategy, Innovation and Marketing Faculty at Said Business School, University of Oxford and a Governing Body Fellow of Wolfsan College. His research and teaching focus on the intersection of institutions, infrastructure, and innovation, with current focus on new market formation and transformation. His work highlights the critical role of social networks in early market formation. Trained in sociology and political philosophy, Marc has developed a distinctive view of the work of ‘system builders’, the social actors who imagine and build capacity across existing technologies, markets, and organization capabilities. He uses strategy, economic sociology, and organizational analysis to develop these insights and for implementation. Marc has contributed to several innovation and entrepreneurship initiatives within Oxford, including co-founder, ‘Ideas to Impact’ (I2I), academic lead, Science Innovation Plus, the Goldman Sachs 10K women entrepreneurs programme in China, and current efforts on purpose-led transformation and on innovation policy. He has held research affiliations at the Oxford Institute for Science, Innovation and Society; the Global Public Policy Academic Group at the Naval Postgraduate School; the Center for Organizational Research at the University of California; the School of Engineering, Stanford University; the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University; the Stanford Center for Innovation and Communication; and the Oxford Centre for Technology and Management for Development. He is a Fellow of the Beacon Institute at EY, and on the scientific advisory board for the CNGL consortium in Dublin, Ireland and the Social Innovation Laboratory in Lisbon, Portugal. He earned his BA in political science/political philosophy and two MAs in education policy and sociology, then earned his Ph.D. in political and organizational sociology, all from Stanford University. He served on faculty previously at Northwestern University and the University of California.