It’s won’t be until October, but I’ll be giving another talk about the overlaps and intersections between ethnography and improv at the CONNECTING’07: Icsid/IDSA World Design Congress. It’s here in San Francisco, from October 17-20. More info as it it’s available.
(Yes, my face and voice both are part of the website. Connecting!)
I will be speaking (topic: Seventeen Ways To Not Suck At Research)) at the IDSA Northeast District Conference, held at the Rhode Island School of Design on April 20-22. My presentation will be on Sunday, April 22. I’m hoping to swing through Boston on my way out to Providence.
From Orange, who put on MarCamp, comes Mobile MeshWalk, a “Design Crawl and Walking Camp.” A MeshWalk – well, I’m still learning what that is. Check out the organizer’s description here (the short version is “a conference which is held in motion, outside, documented and captured digitally”).
dux07 has just been announced.
DUX (Designing for User eXperiences) Chicago, November 5-7, 2007
Social media and networks are producing a new set of expectations regarding people’s ability to contribute, create, personalize, and share information.
I think the theme is very timely. I’m also not sure how interested I am in it, and given that my last DUX experience was not quite satisfactory, I’ll have to keep this in the maybe pile.
See part 1 here of my experience at the AIN2006 Applied Improv conference. See part 2 here and see part 3 here.
This was the first time in a long time I’d attended a conference where I really didn’t know anyone (nor was I presenting), and as an introvert, this was pretty challenging. Factor in the general distance in tone and aim from my typical conference setting and you’ll see why I was half-in, half-out of the whole thing. Given that it was local, I passed on a lot of the social stuff and instead came home; I didn’t feel the need to be in a hotel ballroom at 8:00 am for the first presentations. I picked carefully what sessions I would go to; of course that means I had few opportunities to meet people and interact casually and become more connected to the sessions. It’s a balance for us introverts; one day I happened to come down the stairs with people and end up joining them for lunch, just because of timing; the next day I came back after lunch a few minutes early and stood by myself for a while before the sessions started (this happened at the breaks as well).
Don’t get me wrong; I’m not blaming anyone for that and I’m comfortable with letting it happen. I’m extremely fortunate that most professional things I go there are more people I know and want to talk with than I will have the chance to.
The only reason to even go into this introvert perspective on a conference is to frame my overall reaction to the way the group interacted; I was an observer as well as a participant (as a good ethnographer should be).
This group was very earnest and enthusiastic, with lots of affirmation, applause, and laughter. When many of the people in attendance are performers and/or facilitators, the dynamic between presenter and audience skews pretty dramatically from the norm. Example 1: in the storytelling presentation, someone asked a question about how we remember stories, and someone in the audience spoke up and said there was a useful exercise she would like us all try – speaking the words to Happy Birthday “go ahead and do it…”. It illustrated her response, but the dynamic was unusual. She was asking the group to do something; that is normally reserved for the presenter. Example 2: in the session on polarity management vs. problem solving, someone offered to spend a few minutes after the session formally wrapped to share some thing she had heard a professor for University of Toronto say about the concept.
The encouragement from others gave some sessions the feeling of a Patti Smith concert; where quiet comments directed at the presenter were spoken from time to time (“Andrew, you rock”). Although some presenters were taken aback by this attitude in general and found difficulty in getting through their material. Some talks were repeats of other talks given elsewhere – to non-improv audiences, and the presenters seemed surprised when things didn’t work as they had expected. “Oh, I forgot you are all improvisers” was a comment I heard a couple of times.
There was some funny jargon where everything was a type of work. “Let’s start off on the chairs and then we’ll move to some floor work.” “After this introduction we’ll get into our story work” – just like Michael Richards informing us on Letterman that he had to do some “personal work.”
The last day was held as “open space”; unscheduled time slots that could be claimed by anyone who showed up and wanted to run something, very much in the spirit of the unconference (as I suppose, was this participation ethic that many audience folk brought with them).
In the storytelling session, one person got up and told a story as part of a group exercise. Her story dealt with an experience she had facilitating a workshop (ya see what I mean?) and was interestingly characteristic of much of this group, I believe. In her story, there was some tension between some of the audience members who wanted another participant’s noisy child to leave. The mother of the child was living in her car and was desperate to be in this session (the goal of which was transformancing or something I hadn’t heard of). The person telling this story related how they were in this situation and being asked to make a decision that seemed impossible, but rather than acting she allowed herself to “go wide” and remain “in the field” and just then a man walked up and offered to look after the child, solving the problem. The emphasis of the story seemed to be the external spiritual force out there somewhere that changed the situation to a successful one. There was no acknowledgment of personal choice or responsibility, and also no pleasure in the mysteries of fate, but credit given to an inner peaceful state that let it all happen. It was a fascinating way of processing an experience and if I allowed myself to get past my negative reactions to the way the story was told (a bias against anything too New Age) I could somewhat identify with how she saw things. But I would never process something that way, let alone relate it that way.
Given the pretty vast cultural differences with the folks I encounter in design, research, marketing, and strategy circles, (where, for example, you’d never see the font Comic Sans being used) I’m fascinated by the notion that there’s some real overlap with the services being offered and the types of organizations we’re all working in.
This past Friday was, well, User Research Friday.
Here’s the obligatory shots of backs of heads and a person and a slide. Comments on the whole thing follow the pictures.
I am so appreciative of all the work put in by the folks that organized User Research Friday; the constraints of the (un)conference problem are pretty extreme and they struck the best balance they could, given the effort put in (i.e., it was free, and all done by volunteers, and that’s appropriately going to limit what is being created; this isn’t TED). I’m looking forward to the next one, too.
It continues to be amazing what people can do in terms of throwing together an event with little budget, planning, advance notice, etc. And what goes with these unconventional events is a rethinking of the purpose of such a gathering.
We (and this is the collective we, as participants and organizers of events) are still not there yet; I haven’t seen one of these work to its potential (although the effort/payoff ratio is much better than a big expensive event, too, so part of the problem is common across events in general more than the specific approach; I’m more likely to (constructively) critical because these events are at least trying to rethink the approach). There’s a tension between the different goals that people come to these things with, and the way the event is configured to address those needs: content, discussion, and networking being the biggest ones I can suss out.
The content here was so-so. One presentation was a bald-ass sales pitch, complete with a pre-emptive slide for anyone who might disagree with the value of what was being sold, referred to as “that guy” – no one would want to be “that guy” would they? The ones that always asks those (eye roll) questions? Sheesh. Great to address the FAQs that come up, but no need to be such a dick about it. At least one talk went entirely over my head. Others shared some case studies in an informative and direct fashion.
Sadly much of the content dealt with workarounds for the constraints of business today. No time to go see customers, who are too far away and may be in a situation where we can’t go see them at the time of most relevance. Can we get someone else to go see them? Or can we put a piece of technology in place that can intermediate? In general, these are good solutions to real problems, but I fear I’m watching the field drift into a spot I’m not so crazy about. I realize this reflects the Bay Area/Silicon Valley thing and had I attended EPIC or AWF I wouldn’t be struck by the contrast. Any of our local events that are self-generated in terms of content suffer the same techno-drift (see DCamp, etc.).
Only one presentation was designed to elicit some sort of dialog (not that others presenters should have taken that approach; the format didn’t really support it).
The event offered little in terms of discussion. There are tons of people in the room, so as many questions as possible in the short session length were taken. But any large-number-of-participants event will rarely build into any new conclusion, it’s merely clarification after comment after clarification. There was to be a panel session (and I was asked to be a panelist) but the organizers decided to cut it. I am not sure why. Time? Lack of focus for a topic? Too much content? Of course, I wanted my fifteen minutes, so I felt bad and my perspective on the value of the panel is filtered strongly by my desire to have been involved in the panel. Breaks, if any, between presentations were brief and some folks no doubt were reviewing content with each other, while others were just chatting, queuing, and drinking (yeah, there was free wine and beer and eventually champagne)!
The networking was crammed into that time as well. I enjoyed having a printout of the signups ahead of time so (as an introvert, I guess) I could plan for who I could see that I knew; as well as having other brief chances to meet others.
The post-presentations networking (where more food and booze came out) was a bit disappointing; it was Friday so people left to go to their other lives fairly quickly. I imagined it running later than advertised, but it petered out earlier, so I was a bit bummed on that front.
I was struck by how much focus and interest there was on the presentations themselves; I pictured more hallway chatting going on adjacent to the talks, but we all gravitated towards the talks.
I’ve not been involved in anything more salon-like; smaller, more focused, with some intention to produce some result by the end. I’m not sure I’m ready to organize something myself, but I’m definitely interested in that, as a contrasting experience.
A slideshow of photos from the day, running on a TV monitor at the end of the day
Check out a PDF of my talking points from my session at MarCamp/
It was a fun day, met some new people, met some others I’d heard of but never actually met, saw some familiar friendly faces as well. Some good discussions, some not as good. I was frankly really pleased with the session I ran; I talked for a bit and then turned it over to the group to discuss and we had great people who were smart, experienced, opinionated and articulate. I couldn’t have been more pleased. Indeed, some of the themes were echoed throughout the other sessions I was in.
I’m feeling eagerness and trepidation over the upcoming Applied Improv Conference. Eagerness because I find improv has enormous potential for creativity and collaboration (and even connections to ethnography) and discussions of improv can be provocative and intellectually invigorating.
And trepidation over whether this event will be filled with earnest, clowny, extroverted, unprofessional flakes where I’ve just got no common ground.
We have an exciting Plenary Session planned for Wednesday evening with Nika Quirk of InterPlay.
InterPlay means “interaction” and what could be better to kick off a conference? InterPlay is easy, fun, and life changing. It is based in a series of incremental “forms” that lead participants to movement and stories, silence and song, ease and amusement. In the process, we unlock the innate wisdom of our bodies and in our relationships.Nika Quirk is a lifelong mover and student of dance, starting with her interest in wiggling to TV jingles at age 3. She founded and directed a Dance Choir using authentic movement and a collaborative choreography process she developed. Completing the yearlong InterPlay Leadership Program in 1997, she earned certification in the methodology and has focused her application of InterPlay in small groups, individual coaching, and “labs” exploring business partnership. Nika’s career spans law, business management, non-profit program development, academic teaching and professional coaching. In August, she began a doctoral program at California Institute of Integral Studies and is following her curiosity about the connections between improvisational ability and social creativity.
I guess it’s up to me to bring some open-mindedness back and cover up my cynicism (which I oh-so enjoy). The conference is local, so no travel costs, and is relatively inexpensive, and is an experiment for me. I’m passing on some of the typical conferences my peers are attending this year (and that I have been regulars at in the past) in order to branch out, but I can feel the tension inside me over that decision.
MarCamp – Marketing, Advertising, Recommendations is an unconference sponsored by France Telecom – Orange.
How will marketing and advertising evolve in the next 5 years? How best to leverage the power of the community and 2.0 technologies to the benefit of marketing and advertising? How to improve the relationship with your customers? How important will interactivity with your customer be in your product design strategies?
Having been at one “camp”, I’d like to try and lead a discussion at MarCamp; but I’m not clear yet what the topic should be…
Core77 has put up podcasts ofJune’s Design 2.0 event, including my presentation (21M mp3 link here) below
Notes from my UXWeek session are online (not sure how helpful they are without hearing me talk through the issues, (Update: you can hear me talk through the issues here) but if you want to, check out Dan Saffer’s notes or the notes from the wiki.
Hawai’i makai/mauka signs
different orientation toward navigation: toward mountain, toward ocean
difference in how we move through spaceso what?
mundane observations reveal differences in cultural needs or drivers
I attended the interactive city summit earlier this week (held in SF as part of ISEA2006: A Global Festival of Art on the Edge.)
It was an unusual event for me to attend, since the bulk of the people seemed to be strongly into the issues around new urbanism, planning, technology of the future civic life, if-you-can-dream-it interactivity, etc. I admit I hadn’t thought about this stuff in great depth and so it was a lot of new thinking; although many of the examples shown were things that go through the design and technology sections of the blogosphere I frequent.
I think like so many events, this one struggled a bit with the identity. They repeated the notion of a summit several times, and one possible output was a document that could be sent to a city planner or a design planner or any number of agencies. But an event with a goal like that – a goal of producing a collective output – needs to really structure and facilitate the discussion and creation of output. The emphasis here was on invited presentations (and some good freewheeling discussion), and on quickie presentations from attendees. I don’t see how that sort of content can accomplish the stated goal. And that’s okay, I think the format wasn’t bad. We had the usual problems with acoustics and presenters with tiny type, presentations that ramble without a clear thesis to support, heavily accented presenters, etc. but I think for the most part it was a pretty good event.
Matt Jones gave a stimulating hyperlinked talk (while the laptop-enabled in the audience checked out links and videos concurrently). He showed us this amazing video of the Sultan’s Elephant – an artistic spectacle that you must check out.
There was a great presentation from Rebar, who did the widely blogged PARK(ing) project, where they created small parks in parking spaces; putting down sod, a bench and a plant in a parking space and feeding the meter for a couple of hours.
Troika spent a lot of their time defending themselves (needlessly?) from their work in the commercial domain, under the rhetoric of art vs. design. I didn’t fully understand their stance. They showed the widely blogged SMS Guerilla Projector; a handheld device that takes a text message from a phone and projects it at great distances. In some experiments they shone messages into people’s apartments, and they bemusedly described people calling the police. Ha ha? Their next slide was about empathy, which they seemed to have none of; creating technology experiences that surprise and sometimes frighten people, so they can study their reactions? They need to take a look at an ethics committee guidelines for human subjects! (NB: I was reminded of the disturbing potential for this stuff when I saw Rob Walker’s post about a popular (among cynical edgy youth, no doubt) text message in Iraq: “Your call cannot be completed because the subscriber has been bombed or kidnapped.”
In an excellent lunchtime discussion we brainstormed on the key issues where technology impacts urban life, and it seemed to me that most of the issues fell into three piles: preserving old stuff, ensuring we don’t fuck up the old stuff (those are different), and enabling new stuff. Of course, today I see this post about the closing of an historic neighborhood store. The post is not significantly high-tech (it uses pictures, and it has a broader reach since it’s on the Internet), and is not significantly unique, but I enjoyed mmediately stumbling across an example of a model that we were just refining.
I took public transit in from Montara both days, trying BART on the first day and MUNI the second day. Thinking I was pretty smart, I drove up to Stonestown Galleria on 19th, parked my car, and took the MUNI right to the front of the place. When I came back after lunch, my brand new car was gone. Towed. The conference was free (including food) but this stupid mistake cost me nearly $300 in fees and taxi! Not to mention stress and wasted time. And somewhat ironic, given the conversations we had been engaging in around surveillance, technology, privacy, and the like. How did they know that I wasn’t a customer at the mall and I wasn’t shopping while my car was there? I parked around 9:35, and the towing receipt read 10:30. What time did they call the towing company in order for them to be writing the thing up at 10:30? Couldn’t have been much after I parked. Did a security guard simply observe me walking away from my car and onto the transit platform? If I had gone into McDonald’s and then come out again, would they have figured it out? Were they monitoring me, or the car in the lot?
I’m not defending my choice, or their response, but it certainly raises some questions about how the heck they knew. Liz Goodman had just mentioned the highway signs that tell you your speed and if you are over, and she commented on the different emotional impact and social perception of a technology that monitors you for your information and a technology that monitors you for someone else’s usage. The highway sign, in her example, doesn’t write you a ticket, or tell the cops, it simply tells you about your behavior, presumably to warn or shame you into driving normally (or to reinforce your choice of compliance). I certainly wondered about whatever technology was used to identify my misdeed.
CanUX 2006 is announced. You can see a cheesy picture of me on that site if you click on the 13 in the banner. Geez, last year (when I was a speaker) they didn’t have a website!
Great event last year, wonderful location, good vibe. It was ridiculously cheap last year; this year it’s extremely reasonable.
User Experience Week 2006 is coming up in just 2 weeks. I’m looking forward to the event; I’ve never been to D.C. before, looking forward to seeing Michael Bierut and some of the other presenters. My talk and Jared Spool’s take place simultaneously, so I can expect an (ahem) intimate audience, I guess.
I know some of the folks who will be there (especially other presenters), but I’d love to hear from other folks who will be at UX Week?