–Engage

I’m excited to be a part of this years upcoming Geekend 2010 back in Savannah, where it will permanently remain.

The entire speaker list has been posted on their site with the schedule.

l’m excited to be leading a panel with one of my fave Savannah geeks, Kevin Lawver (@klawver) and new geeky friend Scott Cudney.

Here’s our description:

Is Apple More “Open” Than Google And Why You Should Care?

David Malouf, Savannah College of Art and Design (moderator)
Scott Cudney, Savannah Networks, LLC
Kevin Lawver, Music Intelligence Solutions

Using the examples of Apple and Google, this panel will explore the qualities of a system that make it open. Then the panelists will outline opportunities and issues within these systems that attendees can apply to their own contexts. (Note: Please steal this panel, share widely, attribute back to us, contribute your own ideas, and send them back our way.)

This year is looking to topple the success of laster year, so get your tickets today.

Here is the announcement for Call for Participation for the Collaborative Innovation Networks (COINs) conference happening this fall, hosted by SCAD Industrial Design Dept.

COINs2010 Call for Papers

February always comes in like a rocket and leaves even more quickly even on leap years (yes, I know this is not a leap year). For me coming into this February was one of the most crazy of my life (just ask my wife). Being on the ground planning a conference is so different than doing it remotely. There are certain details you can’t let go because you know the lay of the land and further people expect you to do more as well. It was indeed hectic, but also a labor of love as Interaction## always is for me. I can’t believe I have nothing to do with Interaction 11 | Boulder.  I’m determined to keep that a reality except maybe a talk or workshop.

The reality is that I have never been so burnt out on IxDA in all my life. Even 2 years ago when I “retired” from IxDA leadership I didn’t feel nearly as exhausted as I do right now. This isn’t a complaint, but just background to where the rest of this is going to go.

2 Years ago when I co-chaired Interaction08 I did so out of passion. I saw what Dan Saffer (@odannyboy)  was creating and I was inspired tremendously by the content he was creating and I knew we had a winner if only the conference got the right support. So I took the logistic steering-wheel with the amazing support from SCAD Conferencing. Arguably (not by me, ever) Dan & I re-wrote the book on what a UX organization’s conference can be like: Profitable, speakers well compensated and taken care of, well designed (& the design well executed by @danimalik & @ebacon), sponsorships that don’t buy content but still get good value, NOT in a hotel or other institutional setting, and finally GREAT (not just merely good or acceptable) food (the kind of food people talk about 2 years later).

When Bill DeRouchey (@billder) and Jennifer Bove (@jlb) took the reigns for interaction 10 (@ixd10) I was beyond excited. Bill’s attention to detail and Jennifer’s passion for content I knew would come together to create an amazing story. I also knew that Todd Zaki Warfel (@zakiwarfel) and Will Evans (@semanticwill) would do a great job with the experience design. I came in to do what I do best. Not just represent SCAD, but make sure that SCAD’s attention to memorable events shown through again re-inventing the organizational conference experience.

It was a joy working with Sue, Leslie, Heather and Alice in SCAD Conferencing. I can’t imagine a more experienced, passionate team to work with outside the IxDA organization. They were unstoppable and amazing. Just as an example of their super powers. For those not there, We tented one of the amazing historic squares here in Savannah. to do that and make it a presentation space meant using a generator for power. Well a storm hit. The tent was not the problem, but the generator. Generators and lightning don’t get a long so we had to shut down the tent’s electricity and while that was a big blow to exhibitors showing there, it was even worse for speakers unless we came up with a quick solution. Next to this square is one of the 2 amazing historic theaters that SCAD runs. That night there was going to be a performance, but it was free during the day when we needed it. So!?! Quick changearoo and a few score of phone calls later, we had a venue switch (creating an event not with 10 venues but now with 11–Think Spinal Tap, baby!).

This kind of can-do, don’t-quit, attitude epitomized everything that went into this conference again and again. Whether it was digging out a tent the day before for the Fri-night party and never giving up on our oyster roast (I still can’t believe we were shuckin’ oysters at a UX conference) or turning our industrial design space into a space age disco/rave with glow sticks to boot, we would be no where without these Four Musketeers.

So while it is true, I helped focus food choices here and there. I was not giving up the brisket and I threw myself on the tracks for the lamb sliders on Friday night or came up with the international theme for food for Saturday night, it was the connections to the caterers and the venues that really made this fantastic. These Four Musketeers were the real miracle workers.

All this is to say that great experiences required experienced talent to execute on whatever hopes embedded in the design may attempt to communicate.

If anyone is looking for a space to put on a conference and are related to art & design, I highly encourage you all to look at SCAD as a partner for such an event for no other reason but the amazing work of Sue, Leslie, Heather and Alice.

If we can give the longest ovation in the world, I would give it to these women.

::BEGIN APPLAUSE::

This really made me kvell!

Trustees Theater, Savannah, GA

I’m giving myself a present tonight and maybe you’ll join me. Like many closely involved in this conference, I’ve been workin’ really hard. Lots of overtime hours of personal time. Lots of fights with the significant other over workin’ lots of overtime hours. But I remain energized because I have the inside scoop. What’s that scoop. OMG! this is going to be amazing!

So what is my present to myself and what does it have to do with my blog? Well, I’m taking a break from it and I’m going to spend my time perusing the schedule of speakers at the conference. I’m suing this moment to tell y’all what I’m lookin’ forward to so much that keeps me energized. Oh! and shhhh! I have a secret … not a lot of spots left … I’m not supposed to say anything yet, but we are very close to selling out.

So let’s start lookin’ at the content …

The Pre conference stuff

Yea, I can’t go to any of these because I’ll be actively working as a judge for the Student Competition (have you seen the amazing finalists?) I can tell you though who I would go see and why.

My top choice for the morning session on Thurs is hands down Tangible Interface Prototyping with Massimo Banzi and Tom Igoe. For anyone with even the slightest itch to move into thinking about physical interactions and how to prototype them, you should go. It’s hard to taste this type of prototyping with doing a bit of investment, so this is really an amazing opportunity. Did I mention that Massimo was one of the people who invented the Arduino platform?

But if I was a hard core web & software design guy, I would then choose either Brainstorming and Design Principles by Dan Saffer or Mental Models by Indi Young. I think many people really feel that brainstorming is easier than it really is and Mental Models are such an important tool for understanding how to begin to synthesize solutions that truly fit the human contexts we are designing them for.

In the afternoon, I think we are going to be privy to a rare treat. We are all used to our “methodologies”. You know the famous ones like Contextual Inquiry and Goal-Directed Design. Well, after a lot of searching through many of these, the one these guys have created is by far the most exciting as it is the only one that considers the emotional context with the rational or cognitive. So hands down, no exception in the afternoon, I would go to Predictable Magic: Designing Emotional Interactions and Business Results. The methodology was created by FIDSA Ravi Sawhney who started his career working in Xerox PARC on some of the earliest Pen-touch interfaces ever.

Friday

I’m always looking forward to seeing Nathan Shedroff, our opening keynote. Whether he is talking about Experience Design, Sustainability, Sci-Fi, or the topic he is bringing to us Service Design, he has a tremendous level of insight that always leaves me fulfilled.

I have 2 other pieces I’m looking forward to on Friday. The first, Who’s Going to Teach the Next Generation? with two educators I’ve gotten to know through my recent work with the student competition, Martin & Jeremy from Australia. Even if you have no intention of being an educator, you will be effected by how the next generation will be educated.

The other one I’m looking forward to is David Grays talk, Knowledge Games: A Grammar for Creativity and Innovation. Why? Because I’ve been wanting to meet this twitter buddy of mine like forever, and he is one of the smartest most insightful designers I know. Oh! and I’m a huge fan of his work at his company Xplane. Having had conversations with him about Knowledge Games, I really am looking forward to something more tangible and synthesized for he and I and everyone else to talk about.

Ok, so this isn’t content, but I am looking forward to it. The Friday night opening reception is going to be amazing. I have personally been the hand crafter of this party and for those who were at the parties at Interaction 08, they know that I am pretty good at this. This party features a game room, Blues band, Georgia Oyster Roast, Coffee Bar, local beer, and catered by one of the best restaurants I have ever been to, Cha Bella all at the fabulous Morris Center at the Trustees Garden.

Saturday

I didn’t know I was supposed to look forward to this speaker until one of my new co-workers told me he is THE guru on designing for social change and sustainability. Enzio Manzini will be speaking on just that: Design for Social Innovation and Sustainability as the morning keynote.

There are so many people coming to this conference who I have wanted to meet for years now. Shelly Evenson a former professor of Interaction/Service Design at CMU and now working at Microsoft. As Service Design (her topic) here is on my brain due to our new program in my department. I’m excited to hear her talk. (I’ll have to wait for the video though.)

But I have a dilemma as even more true to my heart is the work of Timo Arnall out of Norway. I was so upset I didn’t meet up with him when I was in Oslo last summer and his work in Near Field Communications is practically the tome on the topic. So I do think I must go to his talk: Designing for the Web in the World.

Later in the afternoon, one of my favorite conversationalists, Chris Fahey, will be giving a talk. I’m sure it will lead to much discussion and be quite inspirational: The Human Interface (or: Why Products are People, Too).

The day closes with a session that every is invited to, where the Finalists of the Student Competition, give a presentation of the work they did on Thursday as part of Stage 2 of the competition. Once more, you’ll get to vote for your favorite presentation after they are all over. Thank you Dell, for giving such great support to this first Interaction Design Student Competition by IxDA.

But after that we get to hear from the curator of the MOMA’s Architecture & Design collection, Paola Antonelli. I’m sure it will be just a great talk: Talk To Me.

Did I say “the day closes” … Oh! no, I was so wrong. After dinner in a great restaurant (don’t be shy, ask me for my favorities if you see me), get on a bus and head to my home away from home, the Gulfstream Center for Design where the Industrial Design and Furniture Design departments with and house programs in Service, Sustainability, Interaction, and Design Management. See our facilities and join Microsoft as we create an international adventure through food and get your energy pumping with some great DJed Dance Music. Did I mention the free alcohol? Just sayin’ …

Sunday

I must admit that Sunday feels so relaxing to me when I look at the schedule. We even start late (w/ breakfast served) so we can recover from the night before. I don’t feel compelled to make choices at all. Lots of very good stuff indeed from storytelling to physical prototyping, to bodystorming and more. But it all closes with Dan Hill and his thoughts on the new urban landscape: The Soft City.

So? …

Let me know if you’re coming and let the world know what YOU are looking forward to and if you aren’t coming why the heck not? This is going to be the best Interaction conference IxDA has every put together yet.

IxDA has been an honor for me to be a leader of since the very first moment I joined the Yahoo group August 2003. It has always been about learning. Whether it was learning about group building from Challis Hodge, speaking from Robert Reimann, teaching from Jared Spool, leading from Dirk Knemeyer, designing from way too many people to even imagine, IxDA has always been about putting myself in proximity to people I can learn from. Often as in the case I’m about to describe, the decision to lead was not purposefully about learning, but through design’s best tool, serendipity, it most certainly turned out that way.

A few months ago Bill DeRouchey, one of this year’s co-chairs, reminded me that I wanted to lead a Student Competition as part of IxDA’s Interaction 10 | Savannah conference coming up this February. It wasn’t so much that I had forgotten as I was actually hoping someone else would step up and take it over. I’m SOOO glad no one did.

I immediately sent out feelers to people I wanted to be on a jury. I sent some 15 invitations out and assumed that many would say, “I’m sorry, I’m too busy, but thanks for thinking of me.” What I got back were 14, “SURE!”. And more than that, I even got about 5 people at different times and for different pieces who were incredibly energized and worked really hard.

For each piece we’ve worked on, 1 person though has stood out to me as my mentor for the project. This just reminding me that the person with vision and leadership is not the smartest person in the room, but best capable of knowing who is and how to utilize them. Jonas Löwgren from Malmö University in Sweden has worked almost as tirelessly as I have. But more important than his work ethic has been his contribution to the content of the competition, and his availability to me as a reflecting board.

From Jonas, I have learned so much in this process so far, but I have to say the thing I have been trying to internalize with me the most is Jonas’ ability to synthesize and facilitate through criticism. As someone who comes from a more, let us say, direct culture, I have found that I have struggled the most at learning how to give criticism of students and peers in an approachable way.

I have noticed that Jonas’ discourse style even in his second language is one of synthesis and facilitation. What this manifests itself as is to be that person who restates with innate sensitivity what a group of people are trying to say. But it isn’t just restating, it is contextualizing and purposefully giving higher relevance to some points more than others. Then he reacts in a way which produces the “next logical step”. It is a brilliant teaching technique and one that I both appreciate as a teacher, but more importantly appreciate as a peer and student.

Of course, I have other more direct lessons through this process from all of the participants on the student competition jury and I appreciate every opportunity from all. Working closest with Jonas though has been a true pleasure and I wanted to give this public shout out.

To see what all this good leading & learning has led to, please feel free to go to http://interaction.ixda.org/student-competition and encourage all students to put themselves out there. Jonas, myself and the rest of the jury are some of the best educators and practitioners out there today and our feedback and review regardless of your likelihood of winning will be a source of review you will not have too many chances to receive.

The first weekend of November (just 2 short weeks away), I’ll be one of a slew of great speakers her in Savannah, GA on the topics of Technology, Entrepreneurship and Design at the first of what hopes to be a great new annual event called Geekend!

Check check out this amazing program!

I’ll be doing a flash workshop, “Sketching: The Secret Sauce of Design”. A course on how to bring the fundamental design practice of sketching to any creative, solution oriented endeavor. Come and check it out, but be sure to bring a good pencil and an awake mind!

I’m also going to be doing a session on Sunday during the unconference part with @kplawver on Twitter. It doesn’t sound all that original or enticing yet, but we guarantee to show you something new!

See you there! It will be a blast!

(I started this post over 3 months ago and finished it today. Sorry if it feels a tad disjointed, but I still like it. Hopefully you will gain some inspiration and motivation by it.)

In 2008 I had the pleasure of co-chairing the first Interaction Design Association (IxDA) conference, Interaction 08 | Savannah. My partner in crime, Dan Saffer, provided a tapestry weaved through his vision of what would make a great program for the interaction design community, and I had a shared vision of what the conference experience should/needs to be.

There were many success criteria that anyone sets for themselves but the overwhelming response (and associated almost 200 person waiting list) of Interaction 08 were the pre-success factors that led to more important ones later, such as rave reviews and well the number of returnees to this year’s, now 2nd annual, conference, Interaction 09 | Vancouver.

The new chairperson, Greg Petroff, under new constraints led a tremendous team of volunteers to create an even better event than its predecessor. Greg, followed much of the same parameters of programming that Dan set up, with is own unique twists, and he had a different city with different challenges & opportunities that he was able to use to his advantage to create a great total experience.

As the logistician, in my organizing of the 1st conference, I was convinced that the logistics made the event, and I was totally wrong. They frame the event, but they don’t make the event. What makes the event are the people. Hands down, this year had an energy and a sense of community that last year did not. The critical mass of Twitter & Facebook had an undeniable effect on how people not only communicated, but also related to one another before, during and now even afterwards.

People talk about the “summer camp” atmosphere of the conference, but not in a bad cliquy way. Why? Because anyone and everyone can have instant entre into the world of the camp itself. There is an almost zero barrier to entering the world of Twitter and following being such a passive act with little obtrusion to those you are following, means you can connect anonymously and assert yourself on your own terms.

But the conference was not Twitter by any means. The other piece that people brought into the conference is their voice. The voice of the conference was everywhere. The true desire to use our skills and talents towards improving the human condition was infused throughout the conference. This wasn’t by design, except to say the design was to let the natural voice of the community find itself. It came through the organic conversation between speakers and attendees and sometimes between speaker and speaker.

Being at the center of it all, I often wonder if I’m just kidding myself. Is this feeling just for me? Did all 450 or so people at the Four Seasons & Fairmont in Vancouver have any semblance of the same experience? (Please let me know if you didn’t.) I am constantly challenging this, so I don’t get too myopic in my world view.

What I hear though is that many, and I would argue most of the people I met (many of whom for the 1st time physically or virtually) had some level of contentment and connection to what was created in this gathering.

But back to the voices and what they were saying and how they were saying it. Despite the many technical difficulties the one recurring thought I have when I think about this year versus last year is that we all from keynote to lightning round speaker to hallway conversationalist matured. Our tones, our topics, our means of connecting with one another have all gotten more professional, more intelligent, more thoughtful, and more human.

The other piece of the conference that was there for me, was a sense of positivism. Not necessarily optimism, but positivism. What’s the difference? Well to me, one can still have a sense of the negative nature of the world we live in, but still feel as though they can have a positive effect towards changing it. Obviously, the sustainability folks (talked about on many other forums) have put out their call to arms to help save the world, but Dan Saffer & Kim Goodwin put out in my mind an equally important call to arms–BE DESIGNERS!

Dan Saffer’s presentation did a great job of invigorating the audience about what is at the core of what we DO and to get out there and just DO IT! Kim’s was more reflective and urged us to understand the connections between us as people/practioners as human beings, and to take on the challenges of our practice, especially the one of education.

As the next Interaction conference looms, back to Savannah, where I now call home and hosted by the Savannah College of Art & Design, which I now call employer, I see something even more new beginning to grow. A next step for the interaction design community and the user experience community as a whole.

1. The frame we are creating for Interaction 10 | Savannah is going to be completely different. The new co-chairs, Bill Derouchey and Jennifer Bove (@billder & @jlb), have been listening, but also exploring the possibilities of what we haven’t thought of before. They are designing with the help of a great team a new type of conference. One that the UX community has not seen before.

2. SCAD is working harder to make sure the logistics are even that much better than before. We have more venues (none are hotels, except for the pre-conf workshops) that really bring out the spirit of both SCAD and historical Savannah. Two venues date back to the 1700′s.

3. But this isn’t about history, but more about inspiration. This event will have new voices emerge (or old voices using new tones) that include student contests, interactive art exhibition and film documentaries.

4. Don’t just listen, but get active, engage, do. The pre-conferences aren’t going to be the only place to engage in dialog, or work with your hands. There will be inspirational talking heads, but there will also be discussions and activities to participate in both days of the conference.

There are a few things from the ’08 conference to continue to look forward to. Odds are the weather will be better than Vancouver (we have a 67% chance of better than north of Dixie weather in Feb in Savannah). And most importantly we are planning on bringing back our old caterer for a couple of the parties. Our event at Interaction 08 | Savannah won our caterer accolades in the press all around the Southeast. So she’ll be coming back.

But before we get ahead of ourselves, there is the most important thing again–the voices. There is no better voice to bring to Interaction 10 | Savannah than your own. So bring it. Make a submission of the various types of presentation and leading opportunities and rise up in chorus with the many others who will be presenting and leading this coming February.

I’d love it if peeps would leave a comment if they have even the slightest inkling that they’d like to lead something at Interaction 10 | Savannah. But more importantly go to http://interaction.ixda.org/ and submit your abstract(s) for consideration.

See ya there! (I mean here! I live here now!)

I’m just thrilled pink that Interaction 10 (The 3rd Annual Interaction Design Association (IxDA) conference on Interaction Design) will be coming back to Savannah and being hosted by the Savannah College of Art & Design (SCAD). Interaction 08 | Savannah was indeed a special moment on so many levels for me: 1st IxDA conference, me being co-chair, and it being the start of my relationship with SCAD. (Videos from interaction 09 | Vancouver are available too.)

It’s return is a testament to the amazing people at SCAD and how much they put into the first event and how much they enjoyed having us. It is also a testament to how much value SCAD sees in the IxDA as the global organization for Interaction Design, how much they value interaction design as a unique and vital design discipline and how much value SCAD themselves has gotten out of their continuing and growing relationship with IxDA.

But right now, it is about you all. Any conference is first and foremost about the content, but content can only be as good as the format and structure and even interactions enabled for creating that content. This year’s co-Chairs @billder & @jlb (Bill Derouchey and Jennifer Bove) have done an amazing job of taking the best parts of previous years and listening to the IxDA community to create some amazing new format options.

Take a look at the great new web site. You will be happily surprised that there is more going on than just a bunch of talking heads. Go on! Take a look!

And you can also follow the Interaction 10 world by following @ixd10 on Twitter.

So it seems, after the workshop I’m giving in Oslo tomorrow there is going to be a meetup of UXNet folks.

The event announcement is in Norwegian, so I’m assuming that I’m the celebrity and not the cuisine.

Link to the event. Please RSVP

Hi folks,

From Business to Buttons is over. It was a GREAT conference. I loved being with a collection of mostly senior level designers predominantly from Northern Europe (especially Sweden). I loved getting a chance to spend some time with amazing American speakers on what felt like a retreat instead of a conference.

There are 2 more videos of note I’d like to put up from the conference.

Erogonomi Design, Stockholm, Sweden

The folks at Ergonomi Design–1 of the largest, oldest and most prolific industrial and interaction design studios in Sweden–spoke about the convergence of industrial and interaction as an act of combinging 3 areas of eronomics. I won’t give away much more, but the content of this presentation was very interesting to me, from the point of view of frames by which to look at this collision.

Presentation

Scott Berkun, Seattle, WA, USA
Scott gave an exceptional closing talk on “Why Designers Fail” and what to do about it. He was a bit rushed, but pulled it off with humor and style. A great performance. in many ways it was the perfect 2nd book end of the conference that built off of the original message that Garr’s presentation so wonderfully started us off with.

Presentation

More
There are a few more videos on the site to look at as well–interviews, presentations, and surveys of the conference experience.

Appreciation
I want to thank all of the organizers and sponsors. You had a hard thing to do, pulling off this conference in a recession like this. I loved the attention to detail and the spirit that exuded from the volunteers (Students from Malmo University & Staff from InUse).

If invited, I would definitely come back again, and if i wasn’t a poor professor, I would try to come back even if uninvited. I think with some tweaking this could really be a great convergence conference.

I’m here speaking and running a workshop in Malmö, Sweden at the From Business to Buttons conference. It’s been a great time. I feel warmly welcomed by the design/UX community in Sweden. There have been some great talks (many available on video).

Garr Reynolds, Osaka Japan

The opening keynote was by Garr Reynolds, whom I now feel is a bussom buddy of mine. He gave a great presentation on giving presentations. But it turned out to be an even better presentation on the importance of simplicity.

As people who know me know, I hate talking about simple, but after a great conversation with Garr, we determined that simplicity is not the same as simplistic or simple and we definitely agreed that simplicity is very complex to achieve.

Here’s his presentation followed by an interview with him.

Presentation:

Interview

David Malouf, Savannah, GA, USA

I gave a new presentation on the importance of bring human connection to your designs. Then I did a follow up interview as well. Oh! it was quite daunting to speak after Garr Reynolds who is a Steve Jobs trained samurai of giving presentations.

The Presentation

The Interview

Matt Jones, London, England, UK
This was my first time seeing Matt Jones present. I have seen his presentations online before, but never in person. This one on Personal Informatics & the importance of visual design was excellently presented.

Presentation

Bill DeRouchey, Portland, Oregon, USA

Bill gave a new presentation for me. It is surprisingly my first time seeing Bill give any presentation (not counting our talk just a few days before at CIID). It was delivered quite well and the topic on the importance of voice in copy was quite excellent in relevance, timeliness, and delivery.

Presentation

So these are the videos I’m going to post for now.

Keep a look out for the videos from Ergonomie Design & Scott Berkum who are yet to come.

I’m very excited about the month of June. It is a whole new experience for me. It is the beginning of my professorial career in terms of one special consideration. That is, June is my first of 3 months off in a row (+ 2 weeks in September). I tried hard to get a few paying speaking gigs and even do some consulting, but I’m new to this racquet and I need to try a bit harder. I did however manager to score a trip to Scandinavia that I was able to parlay into some paying and pro bono gigs and I have a payin gig here in Dixie after that.

In case I have fans who are interested in finding me, I thought I’d let you know everything I’m doing so if you are in that place you could decide to join me.

June 9 – Copenhagen, Denmark – Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design

I’ll be joined by Bill DeRouchey (@billder ||  http://historyofthebutton.com/) as we give dualing presentations to spark an even better conversation. I’ll be specifically speaking on the nature of interaction and if like other design disciplines if there are underlying materials that we manipulate as designers or not.

For more info go here. (Drinks & dinner will surely follow, so ping me to find me.)
Link for this event changed to better represent that both Bill & I will be presenting.

June 11 & 12 – Malmö, Sweden – From Business to Buttons conference

I’ll be participating as a speaker and a workshop leader. As a speaker I’ll be giving a talk entitled, “‘What’s goin’ on’ to ‘We’re not gonna take it.’” where I’ll continue where I left off with my Johnny Holland piece on the importance success criteria in design to connect to people’s humanity.

I’ll also be doing my Sketching for Interaction Design workshop @FBTB. I find this workshop to be a lot of fun for all involved. It’s like pictionary for designers.

For information about the conference and my talks you can simply go to http://businesstobuttons.com/ (Registration is still open).

Oh! the night before (June 10th) there is going to be an informal IxDA face-to-face meeting. Keep an eye out on Twitter for the 411.

June 16 – Oslo, Norway – Public workshop sponsored by BEKK

I’m very excited about this workshop. It is truly a evolutionary work where I get to combine the best shots of my previous workshops AND add a new bit that I’ve never done before. This is an invitation only event, though I hear if you go to this web page (in Norwegian) and beg they might let you in.

June 24 – Durham, NC – Sketching Interaction Design – Tri UPA

I’ll be doing yet another evoloved version of this important workshop for anyone who wants to understand what all this design stuff is about.

Register or get more information here.

So finally after 3 months of waiting the next large chunk of vids are up on line via Library.IxDA.org.

My faves include:

ME! – Foundations of Interaction Design

Jared Spool & Friends: Hiring the next generation of interaction designers

(at around the 46min mark you can see me causing a ruckus during Q&A. It’s real fun!)

Do you live/work in Europe (North America, the Middle East, Asia, Africa or Latin America)?

Are you involved in the world of products or services that involve electronics, software or web sites?

Do you manage these products, design these products, or otherwise help define what it is they’d do?

Then you have to go to From Business to Buttons!!!

The conference is June 11 & 12 in beautiful Malmö, Sweden right next to Copenhagen, Denmark.

The amazing speakers (besides me) include:

• Scott Berkum – I love Scott. He’s just one of those people who get the real purpose of all this design and management and business stuff and drives right to the point quickly and elegantly.
• Bill DeRouchey – He is like my twin of Interaction Design, but I’m the evil one. His powers of perception get so elegantly applied to real world problems based on years of experience doing interaction design for acclaimed design studio Ziba.
• Karen McGrane – A veteran of the agency world with close to a decade working for the venerable Razorfish before trotting off to create her own firm understands the importance of underlying stories as designs & technology converge around brands and products.
• Matt Jones – is a brilliant designer, who took his passion for travel after years at Nokia and the BBC and created a brilliant “unproduct”, Dopplr.com that epitomizes the Web 2.0 revolution–user contribution, social network, vertical extension, API services. His insights into the multiple facets of internet design disciplines is almost unparallelled.
• Carolyn Chandler – gets where design meets the road with business and development. Her new book (with co-author, Russ Unger), “A Project Guide to UX Design” is a wonderful example of crowdsourced wisdom with expert curation around the total UX Design process.
• Gene Liebl – is the Director of UX at HUGE, an award winner user experience consultancy. Their ability to convert stories into products & services for IKEA & Jet Blue have been well documented. They understand how to sell UX in the age of reduction.

These are just the people I know PERSONALLY, and can attest to.

I know the work of InUse, Ergonomidesign, & Malmö University’s IxD Department, and know that they al have currated a total amazing event that brings the best of Europe and N. American Design & Business talent together.

So go to the site and sign up, right away!

So today I went to http://businesstobuttons.com/ and finally saw the new updated site for this year’s conference. There are a few European conferences that year after year get a special mix of presenters and workshop leaders and THIS one always had my attention. More than Shift or Lift, I have always wanted to go. Maybe it is because of the special mix of organizers (inUse, Ergonomidesign, and Malmö University) who are able to combine their diverse points of view and bring together such a special group of speakers. I don’t know how they have done it so consistently year after year. I’m just so excited that @niklasw invited me and accepted my crazy idea for a talk.

Some people at Interaction 09 | Vancouver may have heard me say that I’m going to Malmö this summer for this conference. I know I might have come across as bragging a bit. But my jubilation at attending this event is not so much ego as it is FINALLY getting to check off that box that has been on my travel sheet since I was a little boy to go to Scandinavia. I have dreamed of the halls of Valhalla since I was a little boy (1 too many episodes of Thor, or something like that). My interest only increased the older I got, and the closer to design I became. Was it the story of how Denmark protected almost all of its Jews? The Swedish entrepreneur who used his industrial backings to save even more? Yea, that played into as well. So I hope people don’t confuse being giddy as a boy in a comic book store with arrogance and bragging. If you did see it as bragging, I’m sorry.

So today I finally got to see the list of speakers who will be joining me. What is so interesting is that 3 of them are people whom I interviewed with through my career to work FOR them. I’m humbled to be speaking as a peer with this group and feel like I’ll be as much an attendee as a speaker at this event.

As for me, I’m coming up with a completely new talk I’d like to share. It helps if you are a music fan such as myself (see just below here). I’m also doing my workshop, “Sketching for Interaction Design” which I’m also hoping to do in other spots in Northern Europe if time and money permits.

Anyway, here is the talk I’ll be doing, and do be sure to check out the links for speakers and the rest of the conference I spattered above:

“What’s going on” to “We’re not gonna take it”

The customer of yesterday focused on quality differentiation. The customer of today assumes quality as a given.

The new differentiators are beyond quality and usability, but is directly related to holistic aesthetic design consideration.

Designers bring a new level of “fit” to this new class of products and services. They imbue stories that engage and delight. Surrounding all this is depth, connectedness, and individual expression, that adds up to the “soul” of a design.

Achieving this level of design is hard work. But even more, it requires a rich and rigorous understanding of the make up of interaction design as the design of situations, and of behavior of products as they respond to human interfacing.

How to get there is through a rich understanding of design foundations as the core tools and language for communicating this holistic vision.

Let’s look at what all this means practically for your product and services and explore them together in conversation.

Thanx again to @niklasw and the rest of the organizing team for From Business to Buttons. I can’t wait to see all my new Scandinavian friends when I’m there this June. I’m also planning on staying a few days before the conference in Copenhagen and after the conference in Stockholm.

Here are my slides from my two pieces from Interaction 09 | Vancouver.

I had the honor of having an email interview with the brilliant Will Evans of Semantic Foundry. The fine folks over at JohnnyHolland.org published the interview for us.

The interview is just a personal one, but is a series of interviews that Will and some others are putting together, highlighting speakers and workshop leaders for the Interaction 09 | Vancouver conference which is fast approaching.

I’ve mentioned my workshop on this blog before, but want to take this moment to really underscore how I feel this will be a tremendous opportunity for people interested in Interaction Design, but who either do the work tangentially like project managers and producers or who have been thrust upon interaction design practice from either development, HCI, information architecture, visual design, or usability.

So give the interview a read and even if you don’t come to the workshop, do come to Interaction 09. If it is 1/2 of what Interaction 08 | Savannah was like, it will be amazing!

See ya in a few weeks in Vancouver!

This summer (July – Sept), I’m looking to do 1 of the workshops I teach. If you or someone you know would be interested in organizing said workshops please let me know. I’m willing to travel most anywhere in NA provided expenses are covered and the total event meets some minimum compensation requirements.

Here’s a list of my current workshop offerings:

Sketching for Interaction Design
This workshop has been a pretty big success for Autodesk and other corporate clients, and will be taught again for TriUPA this June. I love teaching it. The premise of the workshop is to teach students how to integrate this most basic of design tools into their every day User Experience Practice. It is not a drawing class, but rather a class on design practice, using sketching as an entry path to the rest of design studio.

Designing Rich Internet Applications
This workshop has been taught in various formats all over the world with pretty good reviews. Most recently it was taught for SmartExperience.org in NYC. The premise of this workshop is to give designers who have been dealing with more traditional web application spaces to understand the new design medium of rich interactive web applications. Students will learn what richness is, why it adds value, when to use “it”, how to apply basic interaction design methods to it, and how to document it or otherwise communicate. The 2-day version borrows from the Sketching workshop above by also talking about general interaction design practice as well.

Introduction to Interaction Design
This workshop is being taught for the first time this February at Interaction 09 | Vancouver. While it is a 1st, it is based on my current position as Professor of Interaction Design at the Savannah College of Art & Design (SCAD). Students will learn basic frameworks for interaction design theory & practice, but more importantly learn how to begin the process of an evolving self-education in interaction design as well.

Mentoring
Another service I offer is mentorship. This is when a design team is struggling on a project and needs some outside assistance in getting back on track. My more than 15 years of experience especially in enterprise softare and products can be a valuable asset to any project that needs just a helping hand for a very short term and at avery high level. I can work with your existing design team, but bringing focus, added theoretical balance, education and tactics.

Where & How
As noted above, I’m interested in doing these workshops over the summer, between my terms at SCAD. I’m already booked for June, so that leaves July – Sept open. I can see this working a few ways:

1. A corporation would like to bring me in to their site for the day. This is the easiest to organize.
2. A not-for-profit design related organization would like me to come in and do the workshop for their members
3. Either an organization or a corporation would like to underwrite my coming to their town where I can then help promote the event. Space, and travel expenses would earn your organization a few free spots, of a more public event.
4. You are an indvidual who wants the workshop to happen. Your time and energy for organizing the workshop at your locale in such a way where we can easily cover my costs, would earn you a free spot.

Mentorship gigs would need to be crafted specifically to fit the needs of particular clients.

If any and all of this sounds interesting. Shoot me an email at dave (dot) ixd (at) gmail (dot) com.