I'm a Selfish Social Butterfly
I’m back from Interaction 08, and I’ll be posting about it for several days. This was an outstanding conference for a multitude of reasons. From a professional standpoint, I’ve been inspired and rejuvenated. I have brought back a few things that I think I can apply to my work. As my company paid my way, I think they can be satisfied that I got their money’s worth. I wouldn’t have asked to go if I hadn’t thought it would be beneficial.
That said, I will readily admit that I also attended for selfish reasons. I’ve been participating in the IxDA list for a few years, and there are a number of members that I feel I share a common bond with, but I’ve never had the opportunity to meet them. I finally had that opportunity, and it was a heck of a lot of fun.
Don’t get me wrong, I like my coworkers, and I enjoy discussions with my students, but being the only Interaction Designer in my company, it is a rare treat that I get to engage in conversation with a “like mind”. So I very much enjoyed meeting a lot of people who’s names I’ve known, who’s opinions I’ve shared or argued against.
Of course, I also met quite a few people that I didn’t know from the list, and they were just as engaging. I spoke with people from Ebay, Philips, Microsoft, Adobe, Avenue A Razorfish, SAP, Blackbaud, Frog, IDEO, and any number of other companies, large and small, that I have and haven’t heard of. I spoke with designers from here in Pennsylvania, as well as London, Australia, and the Netherlands. I made a conscious effort to meet as many people as possible, many times purposely avoiding sitting with someone I had already met. I hope I didn’t offend anyone.
And, of course, there are the design celebrities. The conference afforded me the opportunity to have discussions with the likes of Alan Cooper. That’s cool.
And hey, there was even one person that told me he reads my blog. It was good meeting you too, Joshua!