http://www.desk.nl/~nettime/zkp/global.txt

From: kitblake@gig.nl (kitblake/in SF)
Subject: global
Date: Sat, 18 Nov 1995


California. The last land of the pioneers. When they hit the  sea they had 
to stop colonizing, so they began pioneering  society itself. California is 
the source of new America. It is  where social innovation begins. 
Advances made there spread to  the rest of the country, hopping to the 
East Coast first, then  infecting the heartland in between. California 
leads in  enacting "empowering" legislation. Expanding the rights of the  
people into new realms. Raising the level of social  consciousness, 
asserting the power and value of the individual.

There is a cult of the individual here. Everybody is concerned  with 
themselves, with their rights, their entitlements, their  personal space. 
It is the ultimate evolution of democracy, an  extrapolation which 
completes the circle, linking with fascism.  Peer fascism. The center 
decrees the fate of the sphere. Peer  pressure turns into written law. 
New rules are enforced by  personal space rangers, fanatical zealots 
ever watchful of the  slightest trespass. They have supreme confidence 
in the  knowledge that they inarguably, legally right. Government is  
everywhere.

It's not Big Brother you have to worry about. It's little  Sister. And 
little Brother. How about little dog? No, little  dog is not a problem, 
because any time little dog is, say, on a  train, little dog must have a 
muzzle on, a metal face cage  which insures that little dog could not 
possibly bite anyone or  anything. Or even yawn. That might scare a 
child.

The system works. Do a test. Light a cigarette in a public  space. Within 
seconds, a personal space ranger is hustling  towards you, arms 
flapping, finger wagging, "Excuse me! Excuse  me! This is a No Smoking 
area! Didn't you see the sign? It's  over there! See? It says No Smoking! 
You can't smoke here!"   Life returns to normal. The social terrorist has 
been  neutralized.

The same pioneering spirit operates in the mental sphere.  California 
spawned various social movements, the most recent of  which is the 
New Age trend. On the one hand, you might think  that Americans could 
learn a lot by studying Eastern religions  and ways, but it inevitably 
becomes a shallow interpretation,  an empty shell with just the 
trappings of exploration. Like  crystals. "Harness the power of natural 
crystals! Healing  energy radiates from these mystical stones!" Yeah. 
Guess  they're reinventing science too.

There's a saying: San Francisco - or LA - is like granola. Full  of fruits, 
nuts and flakes.

Just add milk. Nonfat milk. On the table there's a milk carton,  and on its 
side, in that valuable advertising space, it reads,  "INDULGE YOURSELF..." 
And then something about Peanut Butter  Cups. Backed by the social 
endowment of majority decree,  California has become the most self 
indulgent society ever  created.

California is the source of all self help programs. One recent  trend is 
people are, thru various means, "getting in touch with  their inner 
selves." A guy who works in the company - his name  is Tony, he's from 
New York - has a friend, also from New York,  and she has this great T-
shirt. It reads: "I'm getting in touch  with my inner bitch."  Which is 
gender specific, but works  equally well for me if I say: "I'm getting in 
touch with my  inner creep."  While on the subject of T-shirts, here's  
another: "I can go from zero to bitch in .5 seconds."  I  suppose that's in 
response to an oncoming creep.

The blending of politics and daily life shows up especially  strong in the 
corporate environment. Working in an American  corporation is akin to 
being a member of the UN - it's an  agglomeration of personal space 
nations. Diplomacy is a requisite skill, with espionage, rumor and  
innuendo providing the [nonfat] social grease.

The three of us developing Online now comprise a separate  section 
within the company, not exactly official, like a  department, but 
somewhat of an established entity. We call  ourselves the Online Group. 
During the first week we got set  up, scavenged Macs and SGI's, desks 
and telephones, and took  over an office. All that stuff was supposed to 
be ready for us,  but you know how that goes.

The second week we gave demos to upper and middle management,  so 
everyone knows what we're developing and what connections we  want 
to make. The chairman, Leen, gave us the authority to do  what research 
we feel is required, which includes going to  conventions, renting cars 
to visit companies, and the like.  Settled in, the team came together. 
This was the first time we  had ever worked in the same room, and we 
really enjoyed the  concentration and nonstop creative development. 
Then the  corporate power game kicked in.

We're paranoid. Totally, completely paranoid. Part of the cause  is no 
one really knows what is going on with the company. In  August around a 
third of the people got sacked. Then in  September Leen fired Raymond, 
the founder, the source of all  the groundbreaking concepts the company 
has developed. Following the Apple/Sculley model, where the 
professional  businessman takes over to make the company profitable, 
and  eventually pushes the founder out. Rumors trickle in that the Hong 
Kong office might be closed.  The VP of Asia, a Brit named Peter, has 
been spending most of  his time here. His wife shows up. Taking a look 
at San  Francisco? Suddenly everybody is very interested in Online,  
because it looks like Online is the one part of the company  slated to 
grow. The new Europe Development Manager, an American  named Derek, 
starts sending emails talking about how the WWW  server will be 
developed. The Support Manager here begins  talking to everybody except 
us about how Online has great  support potential. And so on. We're not 
exactly surprised.

We have a meeting with Peter, who tells us Leen has put him in  charge 
of the Online Group. Informally. On the one hand, we  know we need 
someone like that, because we are not business  people. We're a bunch of 
artists. We can't paint a business  plan. In the past, we had talked about 
who might fill that  position, and Peter was the one we hoped for. But 
on the other  hand, the company is in such precarious shape that many 
people  are preparing exit strategies, or at least safety nets, and we  
had heard from a Dutch associate of Peter that he was working  on 
setting up Internet services in Hong Kong. So we weren't  sure what we 
should do. In a corporation, ideas become company  property as soon as 
they are put on paper, and we weren't  pleased with the situation. These 
ideas could be taken  elsewhere, and if the company rolls over, we'd like 
to take  them with us. The demo we did for everybody utilizes  
technologies and ideas that already exist, but we have plans  for the 
next track. Some of those ideas may constitute core  technologies, 
which is what every venture capitalist is looking  for. It's those 
concepts we're worried about, because Peter  could take those ideas 
away with him.

To compound the paranoia, Peter brings one of his Hong Kong  people 
over, a market researcher named Wilson, to work with us.  Well, the 
group needs someone to do that kind of research, but  we know Wilson. 
He's a real Hong Kong entrepreneur, always  looking for new ways to 
make money. And not necessarily for the  company. We start speaking a 
lot of Dutch in the office. Which  is both a pleasure and a headache for 
me.

Peter also mentions that for Online to be successful, it must  be located 
here, in San Francisco, and inquires how we feel  about moving here. We 
duck the issue, saying that would have to  be thought about and 
discussed with our girlfriends. Leen had  agreed that the company would 
pay for them to come visit. Now  it starts to make sense, as I was a bit 
surprised that we  pulled that one off. Fortunately, my friend is meeting 
me in  New York, so I feel a notch or two higher on the stupid scale.

Then some intelligence comes in from Amsterdam. All of the  
programmers are going to be asked to come to the States. There  will be 
no more development team in Holland. The European  office is moving to 
a new space, and there is only room for six  people. We figure four 
marketing/sales and two support.

At the time this info came in, Leen was over there, and shortly  he made 
an announcement, maar het was tussen neus en lippen -  but it was 
between nose and lips - which means that it wasn't  exactly said, just 
indicated. But if one of the programmers  didn't want to come, that 
answer was indicated too. We also hear that when people in the 
Amsterdam office asked,  they were told the Online project is located 
in the States now.  Oh really. Echt waar?

Odd things began to click into place. Leen had gone to Holland  to present 
a report to the investors about the condition and  direction of the 
company. To illustrate the plans, a sketch had been made on a  
whiteboard, and Peter asked me to turn the scribbles into a  presentable 
chart. It was so confidential that he said I should  move my computer 
into Leen's office, where the whiteboard was,  and do the work there. If 
anybody walked in I was to tell them  to leave.

Of course, I shared the diagram with my Online colleagues, and  by 
analyzing it we could see a number of things. One was that  European 
development - and Online - were going to be minimized  in Europe and 
maximized in the States. We didn't realize that it would be absolute. 
After hearing  about the new office, that became clear. Something else 
that  became apparent was that the company was in deep financial  shit. 
The diagram indicated a number of possible paths, sell  this part to that 
company, sell everything to another, make a  strategic alliance with 
this one, merge with that one.  Obviously, the company needed money, 
fast, and would accept any  solution to get it.

 The investors have showed up here. Leen has gone away on  vacation. 
Middle management looks tense and meets often behind  closed doors. 
More intelligence has come in, and we now know  what is going down, 
but since I'm still a good corporate cog, I  can't say more. It's company 
confidential.  

---
# distributed via nettime-l : no commercial use without permission
# <nettime> is a closed moderated mailinglist for net criticism,
# collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
# more info: majordomo@is.in-berlin.de and "info nettime" in the msg body
# URL: http://www.desk.nl/nettime/ contact: nettime-owner@is.in-berlin.de