Utopian Entrepreneur. - book review

Afterimage, Jan-Feb, 2002 by Marcell Hackbardt

Brenda Laurel

Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001

Don't let the word "entrepreneur" in the title scare you off--this book is for utopian dreamers of all kinds. Sure, we all want to change the world. But Brenda Laurel's tale of trying to research her impossible dream and fund it in a Silicon Valley devoted to feeding a boyish basic instinct proves we can try harder and even suggests ways to re-conceptualize our culture's lame business plan for social progress.

Laurel founded the girls' software company Purple Moon, and movingly retells the story of its success and eventual financial failure. In order to invent a game for girls, Laurel first set out to decipher the eternal mystery "what do girls want?" for their PCs, besides Barbie Cams and the capabilities to participate in digital make-overs at age eight and up. Laurel and others who developed and marketed Purple Moon's digital heroine Rockett obviously have a great deal of respect for girls and girl culture, Rockett emerged as an individual who struggled with issues of loyalty, courage, materialism, racism, gossip and much more, and who touched the lives of millions of girls.

Laurel herself was an early convert to all things digital after winning a computer (of sorts) at age 12. Her interest in the field grew into a career that has included games, multimedia, virtual reality, dot-coms and teaching in media design. She describes her vocation as culture work, and much like artists and teachers who are socially and politically informed, hopes to influence "the future of the medium"--which in this case is arguably, the future. Laurel's insider narrative integrates philosophy and personal memoir. It revamps a list of the fundamentals of business systems, and questions and analyzes diverse subjects such as advertising, ritual and VR.

Her business advice runs counter to prevalent strategies of designing products for the presumed interests of the widest consumer base--products that appeal to the lowest common denominator. Do the software glitterati have a re-configurable cell in their collective Grinch-like atrophied heart? Or is Laurel one-of-a-kind? Not only has the industry insisted on the non-existence of geek girls, avenues of expression for boys are homogenized into the thrills of coloring with Barney or the thrills of running the matrix and sidestepping doom with the speed of one's reflexes. Entertaining as both may be, Laurel calls upon mindful cyborgs everywhere to intervene at the level of popular culture and make the computer a "character worthy of myth."

Denise Gonzales Crisp's artful design makes Utopian entrepreneur an attractive portable biblette for e-businesspeople, e-artists and media workers. Inside is a range of font styles and weights to help these visual people stay focused, and glossy black and white computer screen close-ups. The paperback cover Is imprinted with a just-palpable plastic ribbed texture. First in a series of "theoretical fetish objects," this small book achieves consciousness and pleasure through design and word with an added appeal to touch.

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