Now, look at Figure 2 and please try to see the analogy I'm trying to make.  The behavioral subsystem of researchers – the research culture – is on the left, and the technology subsystem of researchers – the research technology – is on the right.

A picture is worth a thousand words, and Figure 2 shows how the golden rule applies to us: if we do research on other people and their technology, then we ourselves and our own technology are just as suitable for undergoing the same research scrutiny.  Instead of looking at a behavioral subsystem of people in a company, this involves looking at the behavioral subsystem of ourselves as researchers – namely, our research culture.  And instead of looking at a technological subsystem dealing with computer hardware and software, this involves looking at the technological subsystem dealing with our expertise – namely, our research technology.

We know, from true systems thinking, that we cannot just deal with the behavioral and the technological separately.  So, to truly enact a paradigm, we have to do more than just develop theories, which are in the box on the right.  We also have to conscientiously cultivate ourselves as a community (the box on the left), so as to provide a context to give our theories meaning, and to provide a context where new generations of IS researchers can be developed and socialized into our research community.  And this involves all three constituent elements of a paradigm: a formal language, theories, and exemplars.