Good-Enoughing: Software Work Cultures at a Middle Tech Company
Contrary to much of the popular discourse, not all technology is seamless and awesome; some of it is simply “good enough.” In this lecture, Prof. Paula Bialski (University of St. Galen) offers an ethnographic study of software developers at a non-flashy, non-start-up corporate tech company. Their stories reveal why software isn’t perfect and how developers communicate, care, and compromise to make software work—or at least work until the next update. Exploring the culture of good enoughness at a technology firm she calls “MiddleTech,” Bialski shows how doing good-enough work is a collectively negotiated resistance to the organizational ideology found in corporate software settings.
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Good-Enoughing: Software Work Cultures at a Middle Tech Company
Contrary to much of the popular discourse, not all technology is seamless and awesome; some of it is simply “good enough.” In this lecture, Prof. Paula Bialski (University of St. Galen) offers an ethnographic study of software developers at a non-flashy, non-start-up corporate tech company. Their stories reveal why software isn’t perfect and how developers communicate, care, and compromise to make software work—or at least work until the next update. Exploring the culture of good enoughness at a technology firm she calls “MiddleTech,” Bialski shows how doing good-enough work is a collectively negotiated resistance to the organizational ideology found in corporate software settings.
Data Materiality Episode 3: Paula Bialski on Slow Software, Labour and Ethnographies of Technology
Vasari Research Centre for Art and Technology
29 minutes 53 seconds
5 years ago
Data Materiality Episode 3: Paula Bialski on Slow Software, Labour and Ethnographies of Technology
In this episode we speak with Paula Bialski, Associated Professor of Digital Sociology at University of St. Gallen in Switzerland. Paula’s research focuses on the impact of digital media on working cultures, communication and the concept of intimacy. In this podcast we discuss her current book project entitled Slow Software which is based on a two-year ethnographic study examining the operating modes and workplace cultures of software companies in Berlin. Paula’s ethnographic methods bring the human body and concepts like exhaustion or friendship into the mix as sometimes overlooked elements of digital materiality.
The interview for this episode was recorded in November 2018.
Music from filmmusic.io "Clean Soul" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) License: CC BY (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
About the podcast: Data Materiality is a podcast series about the ways in which digital data depends on physical forms and infrastructures, and comes to matter in practice and imagination. The impetus for this podcast is a three-year research project by the same name – Data Materiality – co-sponsored by Birkbeck’s Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Media and Culture and the Vasari Centre for Art and Technology. The series is co-hosted by Joel McKim and Scott Rodgers.
For more information: www.bbk.ac.uk/vasari
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Vasari Research Centre for Art and Technology
Good-Enoughing: Software Work Cultures at a Middle Tech Company
Contrary to much of the popular discourse, not all technology is seamless and awesome; some of it is simply “good enough.” In this lecture, Prof. Paula Bialski (University of St. Galen) offers an ethnographic study of software developers at a non-flashy, non-start-up corporate tech company. Their stories reveal why software isn’t perfect and how developers communicate, care, and compromise to make software work—or at least work until the next update. Exploring the culture of good enoughness at a technology firm she calls “MiddleTech,” Bialski shows how doing good-enough work is a collectively negotiated resistance to the organizational ideology found in corporate software settings.
