An Interview with Janese Swanson

Gemperlein: We've heard that you and your daughter were watching a commercial for the YakBak, (a voice recorder Swanson created for kids) and the boy in the commercial wouldn't let the girl play with it. From what I read, it seems that at that moment, you decided to start developing better things for girls. Did you attempt to work within the company (that licensed the product, YES! Entertainment) to persuade them to change the commercial?
Swanson: Oh, yeah.

Gemperlein: And did they turn you down?

Swanson: Um-hmm.

Gemperlein: They pooh-poohed your ideas?

Swanson: There were many companies that were like that. It's not just one company; there were many companies. That said things like, 'Girls won't play with electronics. Girls don't play video games. Girls don't play software games, and we don't want to exclude the market by offering a girl-specific product because that means the boys won't buy it and, therefore, forget it; we're not doing it.'

"You know, video games are usually the first introduction to technology.... So if we've excluded girls on that whole side, then there's a conflict and a confusion for girls. Whether or not technology is for them."

Which is odd thinking. It's not good logic because if you think of the video game market; it's been dominated by the boys. So, if it's been a billion-dollar market, why not design video games for girls? I know what I found in my research is that if you build it for them, they're going to take on that whole challenge. And if you offer it to them and support them, you're going to have kids that really enjoy technology. And, you know, video games are usually the first introduction to technology.... So if we've excluded girls on that whole side, then there's a conflict and a confusion for girls. Whether or not technology is for them.

We've seen studies that showed girls using computers and competing for the mouse and then they start to step back. So they won't play, necessarily, with boys. Or maybe there's an image based on geekiness. What I want to offer is hip, cool, totally fun things to do for girls. That is global, not just in the United States. Girls soon will be talking to each other in chat rooms.

Would you hire a computer hacker who had committed a crime?
Let me think about that. Well, did he go to jail? Did he get rehab? She/he? I don't know how to answer that.

We have a language that we're going to put out, called Girl Talk, that is icon-based, but its sentences are created in many different languages. It's kind of like a happy-face symbol. Happy and smiling is a universal symbol, and we all know what that means. But we want an opportunity so that a little girl in in Japan could talk to a girl in New York, for instance.

dePeralta: Do you wish that boys would use your web site?

Swanson: You know, it wasn't my focus. My target focus was to encourage girls because there wasn't anything for them.

One of our goals is to bring the genders closer together by talking to each other. It's not about anti-boy and anti-men.

Gemperlein: 'Where in the World Is Carmen San Diego?', which you created, has been a tremendous success. Did you know it would be? Did you always know in your heart that it would be or were you somewhat surprised?

Swanson: As a teacher, I knew. I was really poor when I was growing up, so we never had a vacation. So, I mean, except for summer, was a really cool time to hang out with your friends and stuff. But we never went anywhere. So I was always looking at globes and reading in books about these faraway places that I just imagined in my head, would read and look at pictures. When I was a flight attendant during a summer . . . and I used to collect post cards everywhere I went so that I had this book of post cards that I could share with kids on the plane. Then we made up this, these games based around geography. It was really fun. I knew from teaching school the magic of geography and lands and all the imagination could have from that. I knew from working on the plane, so there were sort of experiences I had around curriculum or design.

Then eventually, when I produced Carmen, it was natural. I didn't even really think, 'This is going to be a mega-hit,' or anything. I just knew that it was the right thing to do, and I stayed true to that.

dePeralta: How do you test your ideas?
Swanson: We prototype products . . .that work like the real thing. And then we go out to schools and we test. We do it also in homes. We may lay out toys on a table and ask girls and boys to come in and play and watch what they do, and we record them. It's called child-observation methods.

Gemperlein: Would you hire a computer hacker who had committed a crime?
Swanson: Let me think about that. Well, did he go to jail? Did he get rehab? She/he? I don't know how to answer that.

Gemperlein: Do you think there should be schools where the enrollment is just girls?
Swanson: Yeah, I think there's a place for all-girls' schools. We know today that many parents are opting for all-girl schools for their girls because there have been some research studies that have shown that there is a bias on how many times a girl raises her hand and gets called upon, or whether she's interrupted in mid-sentence on her opinion.

Which has affected girls, and their self-esteem issues. We know that now after a 20-year research project. We also know that girls who go to all-girls schools... don't have the same kind of esteem issues that girls have in schools that are cross-gender.