Tastemaker Sonya Donaldson Shares Tech and Sensibility

When Sonya Donaldson walks into your classroom, you know that you are about to benefit from more than 18 years of experience in the technology trenches.  She’s the former technology editor of Black Enterprise who now teaches a first year course called, “Technology and Identities” in addition to classes on twentieth- and twenty-first century literature. If you don’t have the pleasure of being one of her students, you can follow her study of how technology is transforming our lives on her blog, Tech & Sensibility.

I had a chance to interview Donaldson and learn about how she got her start in the technology field, her career as a writer, her thoughts on black youth and careers in technology, and what technology trends should be closely watched in 2011.

An Early Start in Technology

Many technologists realize their passion for computers and gadgets at an early age.  Donaldson did as well.

“As a kid, I can remember preferring to play with the boys’ toys—Tonka trucks, racing cars, devices with moving parts—much more so than with dolls and other “girl toys.” I also remember getting in trouble for constantly pulling apart the radio to see what was inside, same thing with remote controls, phones, and other gadgets that were in the house. I was always curious about what made them work,” Donaldson explains.

Technology and the Written Word

Donaldson’s early affinity for gadgets were soon combined with a knack for writing.  During her high school years in Los Angeles, she encountered a computer room full of Macintosh computers while on a school tour.

“On a tour of the school, I saw computers in the journalism classroom,” Donaldson says. “I loved writing and knew I would be a writer, but when I saw those new Macs, that sealed it for me.”

Donaldson started her professional career as a graphic designer for a weekly black-owned newspaper called the Los Angeles Sentinel.  She worked in a Mac environment where she did layouts for the paper and other design work.  However, like many technologists, an unforeseen event provided her with her first opportunity to get her hands dirty while preventing a potential technological catastrophe.

“One day, the server went down—in the middle of closing and our lead designer and “network administrator” had quit. So everyone was looking at me, saying, “fix it.” But first I had to figure out how to get into the system—so that was my first experience with a very low level kind of “hacking,” if you will. I got the network back up and we got the paper out. But I learned a lot from that experience,” Donaldson says.

An Eclectic Journalism Career

Donaldson went on to a journalism career that was diverse in the types of stories she covered as well as her geographic location.  Afterleaving the Los Angeles Sentinel, she worked for the Daily News L.A. covering food and entertainment stories in the Los Angeles/San Fernando valley.  She then moved to New York City where she worked for various companies and magazines like YPN.com, Windows Sources magazine, Yahoo! Internet Life Magazine, and Home Office Computing.  She is probably best known to the black community for taking over in 2000 as the tech editor for Black Enterprise.  She left Black Enterprise to pursue her Ph.D. in English Literature at the University of Virginia, and she is now ABD (all but dissertation).

Black Youth and Technology Careers

Living in a time when young black people would rather emulate Lil Wayne than Tristan Walker or follow in the footsteps of Beyoncé instead of Lynne D. Johnson, I often find it difficult to champion careers in technology.  However, Donaldson doesn’t see technology and black entertainment as irreconcilable entities.

“I think there are lessons to be learned from the ways in which young black men and women in the glaring light of publicity move and learn and grow—or don’t,” Donaldson says. “Lil Wayne, LeBron and Beyoncé, are actually three of the black entertainers I examine when I teach (I teach a first-year writing course called Tech & Sensibility—named after my blog—which looks at issues of race, gender, culture and entertainment and their intersections with technology). So I’m looking at how technology is implicated in various aspects of our lives and how we can think more critically about our engagement with technology. For example, I look at the image of a “Beyoncé” to help students think critically about the construction of a particular black femininity, black celebrity, iconography, media images and song lyrics. What is her music saying, to whom? How are her videos constructed? Who consumes them? What is the message? Same with LeBron and Lil Wayne, centering on issues of black masculinity and how technology is implicated in their constructions.”

Donaldson clearly sees value in engaging young people about the objects of their entertainment desires in the context of the technologies often used to feed their need for celebrity content.

Donaldson’s Divinations

I couldn’t resist asking a veteran technologist like Donaldson to share her thoughts on the technology trends to watch in 2011.  She shared several great insights around the policies and legal frameworks that act as gatekeepers to technology access.  Her predictions ranged from the role of the FCC in regulating broadband to legal issues around security and privacy.  I found her perspectives about blacks in education and the need to incorporate technology into the classroom to be particularly appealing.

“Too frequently, at digital humanities events and training sessions, for example, I am the only or one of two black faces in the crowd. Lots of digital humanities projects are getting funded, there are numerous opportunities for black scholars, yet rarely do I see us creating projects and accessing these resources. And that could be to our detriment personally, professionally, and intellectually—as well a loss for the academy. It’s sometimes frustrating to see some black scholars be dismissive of tech when it offer so much; and quite frankly, that’s where we are all moving—to the digital space. What we don’t want to be is another generation of consumers with no investment in the creation and development of future technologies and knowledge,” Donaldson explains.

On Being a Tastemaker

“It’s exciting. Frankly, I am surprised that I was considered,” Donaldson says.  “I’ve been keeping my head down working in the trenches, focusing on work for so long that it’s gratifying to be recognized professionally. Most importantly, as an educator, it’s critical for me to share this with my students, especially, young African-American women and men, and particularly in a space such as Thomas Jefferson’s University (big U).”

About the Author
Anjuan Simmons is an emerging technology consultant and freelance technology consultant currently working as a Director at Adverlyze, an online marketing strategy company. Anjuan has previously worked for Accenture and Deloitte. He has an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering from the University of Texas at Austin and an MBA from Texas A&M University. He can be found on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/anjuan and on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/anjuan.
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