I went tolast week.
I had no idea what it would be or whether it was worth going. It turned out it was a mixed bag. Simon from who organsied the tickets, asked me to write up any thoughts I had, which seems a good idea. Here they are.
Firstly the is amazing, it was a truly inspirational place to have a design conference. It was exciting just being there!
Coming back from Cornwall I’m still not quite sure what the point of the conference was. Two main themes ran through the two days; Digital Collaboration and Sustainability. It’s amazing when you step back from two days how little you can remember. These are the things that stuck.
I don’t really know much about IDEO but took as through his project and there were hints at how collaboration could work in the design process. You can’t help but be impressed with someone embracing the idea of collaboration and experimenting. Unbelievably I didn’t hear anyone use the phrase ‘‘ of the design process, which I was sure someone would (note ironic tone to that). Tom also mentioned that a good proportion of users just lurked, he referred to the 80/20 community rule. I think this rule of communities is fascinating and an important comment in his talk. The question I seem to ask a lot is how can you design for the 80% rather than be dragged toward the more interesting 20% or even the 1% super-interesting superuser.
talk was like reading a , (in fact I found myself thinking about Clay’s work a lot through out the whole conference – that was actually the main theme for me – everyone should just invite Clay!) for that reason I didn’t get much out of his very slick talk. I wish he’d cut loose and got his teeth into the meat of a problem, been brave. Though I was interested enough to go to his break out session which was when I realised he was actually a ‘life coach’ in different clothes and it all made a little more sense. I am not knocking what Nick said and his idea of finding ‘Purpose’ to your life, your company or an idea, (which we explored in his workshop) still resonates, it’s just I’ve done this kind of work shop quite a few times, so nothing new.
Sadly because I went to Nick’s breakout I missed ‘‘ by David McCandless Duh! I caught only half of , I am still annoyed at how rubbish it was. It was a stream of screen shots of websites that ‘co-created’. It would have been more interesting just to google the phrase. Unbelievably disappointed. My twitter stream is more interesting and informative. What would have been interesting is a thought provoking argument that linked these sites. How is co-creating going to change the design process. I could not imagine giving this speech. Probably the reason WiredUK isn’t very good (though I do subscribe). Huff.
There was a sustainable forum next which if I’m honest I took nothing from, I wasn’t alone, the format was wrong, there was a serious lack of ‘forum’. stuck out as a voice worth listening to if he had the space. The problem with sustainability is the message can be shouted and then you just don’t listen. THERE WAS A LOT OF SHOUTING. Where were the stories, the inspiration?
Finally there was a conversation with people running cornish businesses. Nothing sticks out other than the inspiration Tom Henderson OBE of – who challenged the audience ‘stand up if you saved a life today’. His simple mantra was the tweet of the conference. ‘Keep is simple, Do it now’ hard not to disagree really. Worth note was Lucy Jewson who runs . Her story was brilliant but the thing that stuck was the almost casual way she said cotton prices had more than doubled and the age of £2 t-shirts was dead. The age of cheap everything was over, the next two years would see prices go through the roof! Scary stuff – how good would it have been to explore this design challenge?
I was beginning to worry why I hated conferences so much, but although I was complaining, I seemed to be enjoying the day and it was distilling some thinking. It was the ‘Froth’ a phrase I learnt at Matt Lockes ‘‘ from Mary Hamilton of . (I’m so glad I can link conferences and zombies!) It was the coffee breaks, lunch and the amazing night in the biodome that was actually the interesting bit.
Day Two for me was less interesting, perhaps it was the hangover, but the talk, although interesting, just reminded me too much of lots of other things I had read or listened to before. (I refer to Clay Shirky.) talk was the highlight of the conference. A coherent story of someone taking academic research and then making something. He lived on the Isles of Silly and tracked how communities pass on information. This insight helped create software that lets people/industry track digital conversations – fascinating. He also spoke briefly about a website called that allows community groups to set up a legal framework. Something I know how difficult it is to do, so very interesting. Not checked that out yet.
I then chose ‘Future thread’ when the conference split in three. I heard nothing new here, but people I was sitting with thought this was the most interesting part of the conference, perhaps I didn’t listen hard enough. I would have liked to hear more about the ‘messy bit in the middle’, as Simon described it on the way home. The thing that did stick in my head was I thought Peak Oil was the issue, turns out Peak Minerals is where it’s at!
At lunch I had a great chat with Luke from again the froth being the best part of the day. Getting the space to create action not discussion.
The afternoon was a group of inspirational 5minute presentation which just made you want to leave the conference and do something, anything. We also learnt that Chris Hines MBE of Surfers against Sewage was an extremely good speaker.
Then came who i’ve never heard of, her talk was ‘Engaging with the Future Differently: From Pyramids to Pancakes’ It was another shouting session. She self proclaimed to be a Big Thinker, she couldn’t understand why more people (especially in the UK) weren’t Big Thinker too. Her big thinking didn’t seem that big, she gave little insight into what the future was going to be and basically said we had to adapt and be different or we wouldn’t survive! Most people in the room could have told you that. Most people could also have said that the hierarchy of the past were looking very shaky. I paraphrase John Thackara in his thought that perhaps the future might create more hierarchy not less and that it was weak thinking not to discuss that further. was constantly the bright person in the room through out the conference. I’ve not read but I will now.
And I’m not even going to mention how we got to ! We did indeed ‘keep it simple, do it now’
