Brenda Atkinson
MIXED MEDIA
There is something unnervingly seamless about the public face of Andersen Consulting’s high-profile investigation into electronic commerce in South Africa.
Called “dotcoza”, the project was launched on March 6 this year and goes like this: a volunteer – a kind of Consumer Zero – is installed in a Johannesburg house, empty but for a PC, a landline, an ISDN line, and a sleeping bag.
The intrepid dotcoza (for that is one of his names) must manage all his requirements online for three months on the virtual equivalent of a survival course. He will forage for food, furniture, and underwear; amuse himself, manage and grow his finances, and ultimately start a business, all without leaving the house.
The beauty of this scenario, of course, is that at the end of three months, Andersen will be in possession of highly valuable information regarding gaps in the wide open market that is online commerce in South Africa.
Thrilled at so simple but powerful a plan – and kicking myself along with thousands for not having thought of it first – I typed dotcoza.co.za into my browser and prepared for my first encounter with Andersen’s international man of mystery.
The dotcoza site is not much to look at, but that, I suppose, is beside the point. It’s well structured and offers useful information, such as the results of weekly research reports conducted by dotcoza himself (and his little elves), which are posted immediately to the site upon completion. Visitors can also e-mail dotcoza, chew the fat with him on IRC, monitor his activities through one of the 24-hour Webcams installed on the premises, and read his diary in text or picture form.
Impressed by such transparency and eager to hear about the physical, intellectual, and emotional impact of an experiment like this on its anonymised guinea pig, I clicked through to his daily diary for fascinating anecdotes. The entry for day one was a list of important people dotcoza had met on that day. The list goes on in this vein for most subsequent days, except for those on which dotcoza had no time to write because he was meeting so many important people he didn’t have time to make another list.
I went to the photo-gallery, and found small grainy photographs populated with people I couldn’t really see, but who were also very important: lots of group shots of the Andersen Consulting crew, as well as pics of various camera crews from illustrious international networks (and, of course, Carte Blanche).
When I tried out the webcam view, I managed to discern, fuzzily, a chair and a desk.
Disappointed but undeterred, I called up Alan Quinn, Andersen’s Irish-born, Cambridge-educated and utterly charming senior manager, and within minutes had a meeting set up with dotcoza, whose number I called to confirm.
“Can I help you?” asked a crisp voice at the end of the line. “Hi, who am I speaking to?” I asked politely. “Who’s calling?” parried the voice, so I told it who I was. “Hi, Brenda, it’s dotcoza,” said the voice, before muttering cryptically about pseudonyms and such devious tools of the e-trade.
The plot thickened as Ruth Motau and I drove up the impressive driveway of a fading Bryanston mansion, all terraced gardens and fountains and ghosts of Martinis on the lawn. We felt we were being watched, a suspicion confirmed by the sight of the 24-hour security guard at the top of the drive, and then by the brief view – surely intended – of dotcoza watching us watching him from a glassed surveillance tower on the second floor of the house (alright, it was his office, but you get my meaning).
Within seconds – I swear he was beamed down – dotcoza, aka Chris Botha, Mr Ordinary, was at the car extending a crushingly confident hand, before slipping into guided tour mode. Via a brief kitchen detour to make tea – and no doubt to flaunt the cornucopia of fruits and wholesome breads residing there – we got the skinny on the house set-up (huge), acquisitions (TV with DStv, kitchen appliances, books, two CDs), frustrations (a leading retailer can’t deliver a pair of pants), webcam activation (via a gadget he wears on his wrist), and so on.
While the house may be bare of furniture, it doesn’t lack for advertising: you can hardly move without bumping into some or other giant logo announcing the generous sponsorship of UUNet, Sun Microsystems, Aucor, Incredible Connection – and, of course, Andersen.
I comment on the complete absence of interesting personal detail on the site, but Botha, while friendly, is as hermetically sealed as a recorded telephone operating service. A dressed- down 007, he has clearly been briefed to handle any interrogation: yes, he’s working hard, no, he hasn’t been lonely, it’s all very stimulating, he’s learned a lot about media by scrutinising the techniques of those who interview him, please excuse him for a second the radio battery has gone flat, he won’t be a moment.
Oh. I hadn’t even noticed.
In his absence I dream up a little conspiracy theory: Andersen has put this man through rigorous pre-launch training. In a lab for a month, he has been fired a barrage of potentially sticky questions, and has been shocked or slapped whenever he supplies the wrong answer.
When he returns I throw him a curveball about sex, which he smoothly catches and hands back to me: “What about it?” he asks coolly, and refers me to research at the site on online dating.
What he tells me about his online experience is hardly news: Megashopper and Amazon have saved the day, and while you can drool at the Spur menu online, you’ll have to call Mr Delivery to place your order.
Undoubtedly, the next few months will reveal substantially more than this, and Andersen will have positioned itself as the leader of the pack heading for e- commerce pay-time.
But it’s a pity that the packaging of this brilliant concept is through a giant PR machine that falls between affable and guarded, explicit and covert, and ultimately settles on bland.