Interaktiva medier i komplex försäljning : en kunskapsresa som tog en annan väg

Sammanfattning: This investigation was carried out at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm. The main goals were to investigate the professional skills of sales personnel working with complex selling in technology- based companies and to inquire into the potential and limitations of supporting their day-to-day work through the use of interactive media and media services. The starting points of the investigation were the hermeneutic-pragmatic methodology and the practice-related knowledge theory that constitute the basis of the dialogue seminar method. This method has been developed - and is continually being developed - within the research at INDEK/Professional Skill and Technology, following the philosophical tradition of Wittgenstein (his late philosophy). Building on this foundation, and also using metaphors and analogies between science and art, it has been possible to investigate the skills of sales personnel and find a way to describe and classify these skills in practice-related terms of knowledge and experience. Through this, different aspects of the skills have been identified, a few of which have not been previously discussed. By contemplating these aspects and reflecting them in different aspects of media, a set of the general potential and limitations of interactive media and media services in supporting the daily work of sales personnel has been identified. However, the specific potential and limitations of the cases in question, e.g. the sales force of a certain industrial company, remain to be investigated, preferably by fully applying the dialogue seminar method, which was only partly within the scope of this investigation. Finally, a weak point in the mainstream science of Human Computer Interaction was identified in its lack of anchorage in a knowledge theory applicable to practical working life.