I was recently in the UK to give the opening keynote at the Design Research Society’s Undisciplined conference. I detail some of my academic and professional history and talk about the concerns of a practitioner, perhaps an alternate take on what many in the audience (designers from academic settings) are thinking about themselves.

Here are slides and audio in separate widgets. You can start the audio and advance the slides manually to follow along. The talk goes for about 45 minutes and the discussion for another 25 or so.

< Audio [audio src="StevePortigal_DRS2008.mp3"] Also, see my London and Sheffield pictures here.

Judd riffs on the SXSW Cabal

They’ve got the throbbing pulse of the masses of young people who are disaffected and just making so much media they don’t know what to do with it. Well, that’s not true – they’re tagging it. All of it.

I can relate to Judd’s frustration, even if I don’t share it currently and specifically where he is. I’ve straddled so many professional communities (various flavors of product design, interaction design, anthropology – and of course those groups break down into too-annoyingly-many-to-list-here sub-cliques/specialties) in my career (as I think Judd continues to do), being accepted by some, rejected by others, tolerated by more. Of course, I’m not unique in doing this, although I’m sure the mix I inhabit is a bit of a fingerprint.

It’s fascinating and stressful to come up against the self-proclaiming power of a new-to-you group and marvel at the self-referntiality and incestuousness. And easy to see the reasons you wouldn’t want to be a part of any group that would have you as a member. And sometimes that has proven right, and sometimes it takes some time to the mutual acceptance/tolerance