The greater number of government efforts to stimulate participative governance in communities using Information and Communication Technology (ICT) often fall short of expectations. In South Africa extending e-government to communities has been in the form of more and/or better equipped ICT-enabled community centres, called Thusong Service C e n t r e s . I n t h i s p a p e r , b a s e d o n a c t i o n r e s e a r c h e x p e r i e n c e s , w e r e p o r t o u t c o m e s o f interpretive research into ICT-enabled approaches to participative governance in communities. Using the Diffusion of Innovations theory as an analytic lens, the findings reveal a subtlety that is not often mentioned in the call for participative e-governance; people from communities prefer to work in groups rather than individually. The collectiveness inclination is a common denominator of many developing countries where people choose to come together to leverage the few available resources. Individuals become apprehensive when made to work on their own using the ICT. The research reveals the necessity to redesign ICT to suit small groups as part of participative e-governance rather than the normative ICT design that suit individual work styles. Additionally, the research reveals thatThe small group subtlety of ICT for participatory e-governance 2 by working in groups, communities are more willing to accept the government initiatives that are being energised with the use of ICT. Methodologically, the research revealed the ethical issue that arises from action research in its raising of unrealistic expectations in a community.

For 40 years, the academics and business executives who have attended the Human Choice and Computers international conference series have discussed human choices and social responsibility in relation to information and communication technology (ICT). At this 2012 conference, the focus is on ICT critical infrastructures, and the challenges they pose to governments, businesses and people. Several topics have emerged as relevant in this conference: ICT developments at international and national levels; sustainable and responsible innovation; dilemmas involving ICT, peace and war; and the implications of ICT and social media for citizens' involvement and citizens' rights. What should national computing associations be doing to explore these serious issues? How should the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) itself respond? Responses are needed that are flexible and durable enough to face the challenges of the coming four decades.

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South African communities are constantly being developed through new ICT projects which are initiated by individuals, government and private organisations. The problem with these developments is that they are implemented in isolation. This isolation causes limited sharing of resources, duplication, poor-governance of the resources and in worse-case scenarios, failure of project initiatives. This paper proposes a model that could be used to address these problems by focusing on the SEIDET community centre using it as an example. The model follows a descriptive analysis of ICT related work spanning over two decades performed within the SEIDET context, including the ongoing SEIDET Digital Village. The benefits of the proposed smart community centre model include community and rural development through sharing of scarce ICT resources. It could further provide support for entrepreneurs through training interventions, action-based research for policy development as well as spawn local innovation and free-sharing of resources and services.

The Repertory Grid (RepGrid) technique has been used extensively in Management Sciences research, including Information Systems research, in order to reveal the personal views of individual research subjects regarding the issue being studied. These individual constructs are then used to propose criteria for success amongst other things. This paper uses a distinctly different form of RepGrid, renamed a Reflection Grid, as a collaboration tool. Members of a research team use this new technique to probe their individual understanding of what happened and what was achieved during a research event and then to share these insights. Hence, not only is the application new (reflection and construction of shared meaning rather than the analysis and synthesis of personal constructs) but the original grid technique has evolved.