Self-Doubt in the Digital Ivory Tower
A review of "Utopian Entrepreneur" by Brenda Laurel
Utopian Entrepreneur is a maxi-essay by Brenda Laurel, author of 'Computer as Theatre' and female computer games pioneer. The booklet is an honest and accessible account of what went wrong with her Purple-Moon startup, a website and CD-ROM games company targeted at teenage girls. (see also: Girl Games)
Sadly enough Laurel's economic analysis does not cut very deep. After having gone through the collapse of computer (games) company Atari, the prestigious Silicon Valley Interval research lab and most recently Purple Moon, one gets the sense that Brenda Laurel, and with many similar good hearted "cultural workers", Laurel is again gearing up for the next round of faulty business. Nervous how-to PowerPointism prevails over firm analysis. As long as there is the promise of politically correct ("humanist") popular computer culture is there, anything seems allowed.
Brenda Laurel is an expert in human computer interface design, usability and the gender of computer games. She is a great advocate of research. 'The Utopian Researcher' could perhaps have been a better, more precise title. Laurel has some pretty insightful things to say about the decline of corporate IT research. The speed religion, pushed by venture capitalists and IPO-obsessed CEOs, has all but destroyed long-term fundamental research.
"Market research, as it is usually practiced, is problematic for a couple of reasons. Asking people to choose their favorites amongst all the things that already exist doesn't necessarily support innovation; it maps the territory but may not help you plot a new trajectory." Laurel's method, like many of her usability colleagues, is to sit down and talk to people, "learning about people with your eyes and mind and heart wide open. Such research does not necessarily require massive resources but it does require a good deal of work and a concerted effort to keep one's assumptions in check."
A "cultural worker" in the corporate world
Laurel declares herself as a "cultural worker", a designer and new media producer, experienced to communicate to large and diverse audiences. However, this does not make her necessarily a utopian entrepreneur. She only hints at her disgust for the investors who pulled the plug so soon. She hides her anger at those who willingly destroyed her promising venture. It has to be said here that Purple Moon's business model predated the dotcom schemes. Revenues mainly came from CD-ROM sales. Despite solid figures, high click rates and a large online community of hundred thousands, investors pulled the plug.
The problem of Utopian Entrepreneur is Laurel's ambivalent attitude towards the existing business culture. Laurel, and with her countless others, keeps on running into very real borders of real existing capitalism. The difficulty to develop a (self) critical analysis is becoming apparent throughout the "cultural" arm of the new media industry. The moral references to America as a culture obsessed with making more money and spend are not very useful ("In today's business climate, the story is not about producing value but about producing money.") The question the booklet therefor is posing is in what language, from a cultural perspective, economics could be described.
Attention! Critizism ahead!
Utopian Entrepreneur describes the chauvinist of 'new economy' gurus-and then abruptly stops. Sadly, the economic knowledge Laurel calls for is not practiced in her own writing. Moralism can't cut all that deep. One of the fundamental problems could be Brenda Laurel's equation of critical analysis with "negativism". Her passion to do "positive work" backfires on the poor level of analysis in which is not possible to investigate deeper power structures behind the ever crashing companies Laurel is involved in.
Theory can be a passionate conceptual toolkit and is not necessarily 'friendly fire '. Criticism, in my view, is the highest form of culture, not 'collateral damage.' Organized optimism, so wide spread in the New Age-dominated business and technology circles, effective blocked thinking. Critique is not a poison but a vital tool for change. Knowledge, which doesn't stop questioning, is sharpening ones ability to look through the pep talk press release phrases, so dominant in the IT-industry.
The danger is that the outcome of a critical investigation of the Purple Moon-case as a boom and bust scheme might be 'negative' (not so much for Laurel but in particular for investors she now protects). In such instance it might not be enough to say that people should learn from their mistakes. Without a critical analysis they may as well run into the same troubles next time. It is out of the fear for her own 'negativism' that Laurel's account has to remain cautious. Her 'positive' armor blocks rather then frees up.
Reasonings of an insider
Laurel's style suffers from the curious fear to be criticized by radicals, thereby creating an unnecessary form of defensive writing. Brenda Laurel writes: "A utopian entrepreneur will likely encounter unexpected criticism-even denunciations-from those whom she might have assumed to be on her side." What Laurel can't distinguish here is tough assessment from insiders' perspective and positive public relations blurb talk. How do coolness and usability relate?
Purple Moon was tremendously successful amongst young girls--and got killed for no reason. Contrary to the Darwinist dotcom philosophy I think such 'failures' should not happen again. There should be other, less volatile business models which are more hype-resistant, providing projects such as Purple Moon with enough resources to grow in its own pace. There is no reason to comply with unreasonable expectations and buy into speculative and unsustainable 'speed economics'.
Brenda Laurel is on a mission to change the nature of the computer games industry, away from its exclusive focus on the shoot-'m-up male adolescent market. She outs herself as a Barbie hater and her aim is to get rid of the "great machine of consumerism." Although Brenda Laurel sums up all the problematic aspects of short-term profit driven technology research, she does not propose alternative forms of research, collaboration and ownership out of a fear to "activate the immune system." Her fear to be excluded from the higher ranks of the virtual class is a real one, not to be easily dismissed.
Laurel carefully avoids mentioning dotcom business gurus such as George Gilder, bionomics types and others, which Europeans, for better or worse, labeled as the 'Californian ideology.' The pillars of the techno-libertarian business agenda do not seem to have existed. Laurel may never have been a true believer, but she remains silent about the once so dominant techno-libertarian agenda, as did Kuo and Malmsten.
Compared to other dotcom crash titles, Laurel remains a secretive one. In Dot.Bomb David Kuo is remarkably honest about his own excitement--and blindness--for the roller coaster ride of America's once most promising e-commerce portal. Laurel's report remains distanced, general and, at times, moralistic ("live healthy, work healthy"). It is as if the reader is only allowed to get a glimpse inside. Laurel is on the defensive, reluctant to name her protagonists. Unlike Kuo, who keeps on rapping about all the ups and downs inside Value America, we never quite understand Laurel's underlying business strategies. Her motivations are crystal clear. Her implicit approach towards the powerful (male) IT moguls and VC Uebermenschen has to be read like a Soviet novel. There is no reason to describe those who destroyed a corporation as (anonymous) "aliens" (as Laurel does). The 'suits ' have name cards and bring with them a particular business culture.
Utopian Entrepreneur brings into debate definitions of 'inside' and 'outside '. Laurel is desperate to position herself as an insider.
"It took me many years to discover that I couldn't effectively influence the construction of pop culture until I stopped describing myself as a. an artist, and b. a political activist. Both of these self-definitions resulted in what I now see as my own self-marginalization. I couldn't label myself as a subversive or a member of the elite. I had to mentally place myself and my values at the center, not at the margin. I had to understand that what I was about was not critiquing but manifesting."
Theory Angst
Laurel is afraid of theory, which she associates with academism, cultural studies, art and activism, thereby replicating the high-low divide. For Laurel theory is elitist while out of touch with the reality of the every life of ordinary people. That might be the case. But what can be done to end the isolationist campus-ghetto life of theory? Instead of calling for massive education programs (in line with her humanist enlightenment approach) to lift the general participation in contemporary critical discourse Laurel blames the theorists. This attitude, widespread inside the IT-industry, puts those with a background in the humanities in a difficult, defensive position.
It also puts a critical analysis of the dotcom chapter of the Internet history in an 'outsiders' position. As soon as you start to reflect on the inner dynamics of the Silicon Valley, you seem to be out. Instead of calling for the development of a rich set of conceptual tools for those working 'inside' Laurel reproduces the classic dichotomy: either you' re in (and play the capitalist game), or you're out (become an academic/artist/activist, complain and criticize as much as you can). The mutual resentment between those involved in technology and business and the ivory tower humanities on the other hand seems higher then ever.
On the other hand, postmodern theory and cultural criticism haven't been very helpful either for Laurel and the study of the Internet economy in general. Doesn't matter if you take Jameson, Zizek, Butler, Habermas, they all lack basic economic and technological knowledge. As long as such 'celebrity' thinkers continue to confuse Internet with some offline cybersex art installation there is not much reason to consult these thinkers. The same can be said of Michael Hardt and Toni Negri's Empire, the presumed bible of the 'anti globalization' movement. Despite the worthy category of 'immaterial labor' critical knowledge of both the Internet and the New Economy is virtually absent in Empire. Todays leading theorists add little to Laurel's conceptual challenges in the field of user interface design or the criticism of the male adolescent geek culture. Cultural studies armies will occupy the new media field only if the IT-products have become part of what traditional broadcasting media define as mass culture. This means a 'delay' of at least another five to ten years.
"Don't shoot me, I am only the programmer."
The fact is, theory is running well behind the facts and has great difficulty to adopt to the real-time media events and the networked condition of todays discourses. The Gutenbergsche baby boom generation, now in charge of publishing houses, mainstream media, in leading university positions, share a secret dream that all these new media disappear in the same pace as they arrived. Lacking substance, neither real nor a commodity, new media failed to produce its Rembrandts, Shakespeares and Hitchcocks. The economic recession followed by the NASDAQ 'tech wreck' only further deepens the gap between the forced 'freshness' of the techno pop workers and the dark skepticism of the high art establishment. Dotcommania is likely to become a forgotten chapter, especially for those on the margins of business such as academics, artists and community activists. Both young geeks and senior technologists have already started to denial their involvement in dotcom startups, hiding behind their 'neutral' role as technicians ("Don't shoot me, I am only the programmer."), forgetting their libertarian passions of days gone by. What remains is the still open question of sustainable models for the Internet economy.
Brenda Laurel, Utopian Entrepreneur, The MIT Press, 2001. Laurel's homepage. A recent interview on Purple Moon matters by Thom Gillespie. One of Laurel's essays on Purple Moon and girls games. URL of the Mediawork series: http://mitpress.mit.edu/mediawork. There you can find Scott McCloud's online comix, his WebTake response to Laurel.
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