I don’t believe in netîcracy!

Y. V. I know some good designers, several outstanding managers, a lot of hardworking and consistent people, and also two or three people who combine these qualities harmoniously. All of them have succeeded, but none of them can say about themselves “I became the most successful designer in Russia”. To what degree is your success caused by your ability to be “attractive”, to unite people around your ideas and goals, the ability to build your personal network?

A. L. It is difficult to answer this question. I am not sure that I am ready to speculate that we have such a good team because my ideas are so great. On the one hand, I have some rather good ideas (if I like them, it means they are good, there can be no other way), and, on the other hand, I am able to find and hire those people who work hard. My colleagues may like my ideas, but they do not have to. Sometimes it is necessary to ignore your work-mates’ feelings and make them work, because I am sure about the result. I do not spend much time proving to my employees that I am right. It is necessary to convince people on the outside.

So, it is difficult to understand whether the people are joining together in this way and whether my personal network is being built in this way.

Y. V. You were the first in Russia to start projecting and designing graphical interfaces, you began working out internet sites professionally and succeeded in it. You were the first, this is important. But why did you choose working with informational structures and working in a network?

A. L. I started designing sites and interfaces because these directions are easy and clear for me. I do not design clothes or concert stages because I do not understand these areas. And my present level of personal development does not let me undertake creating shoes, for example.

I do not agree that being the first is important. That might be important for journalists, but not for me. More than that, I cannot give any example when someone was the first to begin a new business and continued to remain significant in this area for a long time.

Being the first one to start a new business is an inessential success factor. I was the first one who created sites and interfaces, the first one who worked out industrial design as a commercial product. But I was the millionth one to think of corporate identities or books, and anyway, I am successful in it.

I know how to make five more studios like mine. But I will need to work in them. I do not understand why people do not use some of my ways to run their businesses. If I were them I would be nervous in a week, I would enter the market and start going wild. But, since my schizophrenia is limited, I do not do it, so my business develops within one company.

Y. V. You have built the industry from your marginal creative hobby and made it serve high ideals of Russian design. A large number of first-rate international professionals work for you and they probably have high salaries, but, perhaps, it is not the only reason for them to work in your company. Do they share your values and is it important for your success?

À. L. It is not important to me that people share all my values but they should understand my approaches and principles. In our company you do not have to always be on time at your work place but you do need to have some brain in your head and a lot of people are afraid of that, because it is easier to come to work on time for many of them, they got used to it being the only criteria to gauge their work. I never ask why someone came in at 3 p. m. (we usually start at12 a. m.), because it is more important for me to hear new bright ideas than formalities. I am also ready to listen to them at 2 in the morning.

Those who accept these rules work in our company. And one more thing, I never call my colleagues ‘personnel’.

Y. V. You claim that you do not believe in ‘netocracy’. Can you offer any alternative concept to explain a phenomenon called ‘netocracy’ by Bard? What is hiding behind the ‘disinformational smoke screen’ in Bard’s book and in your outlook?

À. L. As I do not believe in ‘netocracy’, I do not have any alternative versions. You can take any phenomenon and give it any explanation. For example, I can prove that some big companies’ heads’ want to keep huge ugly desks in their offices like a sign of membership in a secret lodge. As soon as a top manager develops a certain rank he is consecrated into a secret order of certain rank managers, and during the consecration ceremony he is entrusted a massive, marble desk set with gold rods. The indispensable condition is to keep it on the desk in his study. The head, being a person of a refine aesthetic education, is jarred but he cannot oppose, so he has to keep it on the desk for everyone to see, and he cannot tell anybody why he is keeping such vulgar stuff.Next time, if you happen to be in a big office ask the owner about the set and watch him say cunningly that his colleagues presented it for his anniversary, and notice how uncomfortable he would feel because of your curiosity.So ‘netocracy’ is the same.

Interviewed by Yury Voskresensky

The interview with Alexander Bard see in U-Journal, ¹1, or at www.u-journal.com

The preface by Artemy Lebedev to the book by Alexander Bard and Jan Soderkvist Netocracy see in the same book and at www.u-journal.com