Reflections on the "Does STS Mean Business 2?" conference

I gave a talk on "The Futures of STS" at last week's "Does STS Mean Business 2" conference. I've had a little time to turn the event over in my mind. If you're really interested, you can go to the conference Web site and find a PDF of the paper (there are also copies of everyone else's paper there, as well).

The reaction to my talk-- which essentially argued that processes that STS has been interested in but which have been obscured (often on purpose), are going to become easier to see in the future, and that this creates opportunities that we should be aware of-- was pretty interesting. Some people were quite positive about it (generally people who are in business schools), while some of the academic commentators were pretty negative. The other presenter on my panel was dubbed an advocate of "STS classic," which made it inevitable that I would up described as "Diet STS."

So how was the event? And what of the larger project? I come away from the event still convinced that my argument has some merit, and that the future will bring some significant opportunities that the field as a whole could exploit to great benefit (both for the field, and for the world). But there are a few things to be overcome.

[To the tune of Bee Gees, "Nights on Broadway," from the album "The Bee Gees: Their Greatest Hits - The Record".]

Technorati Tags: Oxford University, STS

First, it's clear to me that STS is the Samsung of the social sciences. For decades, it's been fighting for acceptance and legitimacy; it's seen itself as rebellious, trouble-making, crazy brave, and able to see things that the rest of the world can't. Bad, rad, and dangerous to know. However, the big fights that have occupied the field for decades are now over, and for all intents and purposes, we've won. The notion that users aren't mere passive "consumers" of technologies, but help shape and reinvent them, is the Hot New Idea in business. The idea that technologies are shaped as much by politics, culture, work practices, and other "non-technical" as by technical specs or physical laws makes perfect sense to product designers: what they want to do is understand how all those forces work together, with the aim of making more compelling products. Anyone who's competed against Microsoft understands intuitively that standards can be used as weapons to give companies advantages, or that historical contingency can create a world in which the "best" technologies don't naturally rise to the top.

But I think the field needs to deal better with the fact that many of its ideas are, if not common knowledge, ones that don't provoke the kinds of arguments that they would have two decades ago. It also has to accept the reality that there is no natural correlation between STS and the Left, and that some of the most brilliant use of STS rhetoric and ideas (what one might call the STS of error) now comes advocates of intelligent design, and critics of global warming. STS has long attracted people who see their work as politics by other means, and who assume that teaching kids STS is a radical act. Wrong. STS is apolitical. Time to deal with that fact.

Another thing that bothered me was the tendency to describe "business" as a monolithic entity. We tended to agree that STS isn't a single thing, but rather a set of intellectual attitudes and tools (or at least that there was a commonality of sensibility towards science and technology, despite our vast differences in theoretical commitments, intellectual interests, etc.) In contrast, my own sense was that the shorthand term "business" didn't usually mean "a very wide range of organizations, which differ vastly from each other and which can in fact support a very wide range of subcultures and interests," but "that thing [or territory] over there."

Such a view misses the tremendous variety that exists between companies in the same country, same industry, or even the same company. Even companies that come to us who apparently are interested in the same subject have different interests and motives. Take gaming, for example. A cell phone company wants to know about mobile and pervasive gaming opportunities, while a marketing company will want to know how gaming fits into the fragmentation of media, consumer attention, etc.. Further, one division of a company might be interested in gaming as a tool for training, while another will want to know about how gaming is going to change the way new hires react to challenges, think, and work with others. So speaking of "business" in a one-size-fits-all way, and thinking that strategies developed for building bridges between STS and high-tech companies (probably the easier sector to build bridges to) will work with mining companies or food retail, is just wrong.

Another problem is the persistence-- sometimes subtle, sometimes quite overt-- of a sense of "us" versus "them:" of academics and STS practitioners on one side, and corporations on the other. I think that academics tend to see themselves as a world apart, which they generally are. In most circumstances, it's one of the great advantages or pleasures of academic life, but at times it can get in the way of getting things done, and creates a strange sort of highly-educated insularity.

Is the disconnect between the rhetoric of engagement and the reality of academic life too wide to breach? I hope not, but I worry that I'm being too optimistic. Academia is a calling, despite the fact that those who succeed in it are battle-hardened intellectual gladiators. My academic friends exist in a parallel universe with career pressures and cultural norms that require them to maintain a distance from the business world, no matter what their desires. What's required for STS-- the field, not the ideas; the ideas have escaped the academic gravity well-- to succeed is new institutions, and a generation of practitioners who don't see themselves as the academic equivalent of Les Miserables, forever on the barricades.

Comments

[Diego]

"Another thing that bothered me was the tendency to describe "business" as a monolithic entity. We tended to agree that STS isn't a single thing, but rather a set of intellectual attitudes and tools (or at least that there was a commonality of sensibility towards science and technology, despite our vast differences in theoretical commitments, intellectual interests, etc.) In contrast, my own sense was that the shorthand term "business" didn't usually mean "a very wide range of organizations, which differ vastly from each other and which can in fact support a very wide range of subcultures and interests," but "that thing [or territory] over there.""

Very, very good point!

- Diego (a STS person by training, and a business person by training, too)