The authors argue that information technology needs to be considered in a broad context that includes the entirety of society and social resources, in contrast to the narrow focus on information that tends to be the framework of such technology – what the authors criticize as "tunnel design".
The text, in part, analyzes examples of the office world's adoption of technology, offering a differentiated rather than an unquestioningly affirmative view of the effects.
The authors use an example of information brokering using the Macintosh program named Sherlock that searched for the word "knobot" via the Internet.
Merchant brokering, now widely practiced, consists of finding the best price for a product.
For example, eBay allows users, not necessarily in the same location, to buy new, used, or refurbished products through an auction, at a fixed price, or through negotiation.