17-01-2007 by Fabio Sergio

Interviews: Laurent Haug and Nicolas Nova.

Convivio’s interviews feature interesting voices from the multi-disciplinary field of Human-Centered Design.

Our guests this time are Laurent Haug and Nicolas Nova. Laurent and Nicolas are two of the organizers of LIFT 07, a conference held in Geneva 7-9 February 2007, focused on the “challenges and opportunities of technology in our society“.

I had the pleasure of attending the first instance of the conference in 2006, and it offered a streamlined sequence of very interesting contributions from well-known speakers, coupled with ample unstructured opportunities to meet interesting people, the very speakers included.
I also thoroughly enjoyed the balance between high-level, “conceptual” contributions and more detail-oriented “hands-on” examples of work done where human culture intersects and intermingles with technology.

This year the list of speakers features again an impressive line-up, and the organizers have added even more opportunities for attendees to act like active contributors rather than passive recipients of somebody else’s messages.

Hello Laurent and Nicolas, thanks for taking the time to take part in this interview.
Can you tell us a little bit about yourselves and how and when you decided to organize an event such as LIFT?

Laurent:
I am an entrepreneur and consultant working in the web industry since 1994. I have been involved in start-ups, consulting (Arthur Andersen) and banks (Pictet).
The idea of LIFT came after I attended the Reboot conference in Copenhagen in may 2005. I felt like something was happening and we needed to bring it to Geneva too.

Nicolas:
I am a researcher working at the Swiss Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL) and a user experience consultant in the video game industry. Since I am based in Geneva and given that Switzerland is a small country I quickly had the chance to meet Laurent through friends in the IT industry. One year and a half ago he started discussing the relevance of a conference in the region with like-minded people, in a sort-of “think tank” spirit to gather and talk about how technologies impact our lives, our practices an the impact on our society. I quite liked the idea and joined him to help bootstrapping the process.

How would you describe LIFT? What are the key motivations and inspirations that led you to the current format?

Laurent:
LIFT is an excuse for an amazing community to gather and brainstorm. We chose a few topics, a few speakers, then we created a cool event around that to facilitate networking and new ideas. The philosophy is basically that creativity and ideas can change your life, so we will try to make this happen for attendees. And I believe there are a few values in there. For example, we try to keep the conference accessible so that anybody can have a chance to participate, we build the conference with everybody (we ask a lot of questions before and after the event to make it better), we try to be accessible, low profile and creative.
The motivation is to make this place a bit more aware of the big changes that are upon us, to maybe help make it more successful.

Nicolas:
Another motivation is to bring together both local people (lake Geneva area) and people from elsewhere to have a mixture of relevant contributors from different field.
In addition, our point is to go beyond current IT conferences and talk less about technology and more about how people experience it in various contexts. Europe is full of interesting voices that think, research, design and talk about these aspects, but sometimes it’s less known than in North America. So we believe there was room for this kind of event in Europe.
Finally, we also felt that there was a tremendous lack of awareness of what people were doing, even in the same region or even in a country as small as Switzerland: LIFT is then additionally meant to show who’s doing what.

I am not sure the term really makes sense in this context, but after experiencing LIFT 06 I’d be tempted to say that you applied a Human-Centered approach to the design of the conference last year, and all seems to hint you’re doing it again this year. Is this impression in any way correct?
Was it intentional? Did you actually tackle the complex task of organizing such a large event with HCD methodologies in mind or is it more of a “conference I’d like to attend” mindset that is at work in the end?

Nicolas:
Even though the human-centered approach nicely reflect what happened, it was actually not that intentional and this mindset emerged from how we thought a conference should be organized and from the type of event we would have liked to attend in the first place. Besides, when you start building a conference from scratch, you don’t have all the needed expertise so you do it with others.

Laurent:
Actually, I feel LIFT06 was deeply human centered, but that was not really intentional, nor did I follow a method or something. It was more me trying to see how I could best accommodate the constraint I had: small budget (LIFT is auto-financed), short notice, small team, no previous experience in organizing events. So we tried to get help from the community as much as we could, as LIFT is a gathering more than anything else.
We asked people to help us with some decisions and suggestions, outsourced a few things to the attendees, and after the event gathered precious feedback via a survey. This helped us prepare for LIFT07, and this year we went even further in creating a human centered event: we tried to replicate people’s rhythms (1 day to meet people, 1 day to meet ideas, 1 day to connect the dots), create self-organizing events so that anybody could have a chance to step on the big stage (that’s a big problem for conference like ours - reboot, le web 3, etc. - people in the room deserve to be on stage as much as the speakers sometimes).

In a world that is more and more interconnected, with people often engaged in a constant exchange of information with their peers, the very nature of conferences is being challenged.
Possibly and arguably as a result of this fact organizers have been recently looking at creating “un-conferences” that are more about sociality and conversation than about lectures and audiences. LIFT seems to fall into this category to a certain extent.
What is your view?

Laurent:
I think we have a good balance this year. Nothing is perfect, neither the traditional model, nor the un-conference model. In Europe, un-conferences have one big issue: the communities are not as strong a in the US, so if you gather 100 people from a local city you won’t get people like Robert Scoble and Michael Arrington in the room.

Nicolas:
In my humble opinion the “un-conference” is one model among other ones to create new sorts of events: more interactive, creative and open to discussion.
However, we were more in favor of a mixed approach, having both Open Stage (through a voting process, more structure than last year) and invited speakers.
Why inviting speaker? We felt it was a good way to establish the LIFT conference and found the process interesting to create conversations about specific topics.

Laurent:
Conferences don’t always leverage the power of the community they gather, so that’s the bad side of this model.
This year we tried to do something in between: the official program brings people from all over the world (this year we have Chinese, Korean and Indian speakers for example), which in return, gather an even more diverse and interesting crowd. Then with initiatives like the Workshops and the Open Stage, we take tools from the un-conference playbook to put anybody who deserves it on stage. The system is simple: people propose talks, and the ones that are most requested happen.

This seems to reflect the widespread notion that people are increasingly abandoning passive roles when it comes to “the activity once known as consumption of media”.
When it comes to conferences, former “attendees” expect more and more to act as true “participants”, even just by sharing photos on Flickr or commenting about their experience on weblogs.
If this is true what “tools” will you be offering participants to enhance this part experience? What are lessons learnt from last year?

Laurent:
We will definitely propose a lot of new tools this year. As I previously explained, the biggest step was probably to open our stage to the participants. In terms of tools, we are discussing with a partner to bring live file sharing and chat. such a thing would definitely a plus.

Nicolas:
I would take it the other way around, my point that LIFT should be seen as a tool by itself, to “bootstrap the conversation” between people who shape the discourse about technology.
Last year, people were active because they felt engaged and empowered by the discussion and not because there were blogs/Flickr and glued streams all over the place. That’s the main lesson to me. And personally, I was really happy to see that the tools we brought all had unexpected consequences. Who thought that the notepad given by one of our sponsor gave birth to super nice Flickr picture about each presentation?

LIFT is about the “challenges of technologies in our society”. What is your view on this matter? How does technology play a role in the conference itself?
How can a conference such as LIFT actually help in pointing, or even shaping, some of the many paths technology offers for exploration?

Laurent:
I think technology is now intimately embedded in our society. Like it or not, you have a mobile phone in your pocket. So technology is changing you, offering you new possibilities and changing the way you live. LIFT is a conference about all these changes we are witnessing (I heard there would be more changes in the next 8 year than in the past 20), intended for those who want to be part of what is coming. We try to identify strong trends and bring a set of speakers around them, with the idea to start a conversation in the community. We don’t pretend to be exhaustive, but that’s why this year we added Open Stage and Workshops.

LIFT06 was undoubtedly a success both in terms of attendance and of attendees’ satisfaction.
How do you plan to up the ante this year?

Laurent & Nicolas:
We have more days, a much better concepts, and huge innovations like the one I think is the most important: LIFT+. We think that you can not sit for 10 hours and listen to new ideas and people, and keep your mind fresh. people need to move, play, talk, so we created an event that will happen right outside the conference rooms. LIFT+ will be a set of installations by artists and designers, intended to make you play, create, share, and ultimately meet new people.
In terms of attendees, we will raise the number of people in the room from last year, but not much. Part of the LIFT concept is to give people a chance to meet, and I don’t think it happens in a 10.000 people event. So we decided to limit the entries to 500 participants, and you better save your seat very soon.

Last year the conference offered plenary sessions alternated with parallel speaking tracks targeted to smaller audiences.
Will this basically be the same structure for 2007 or will you be changing it radically? If that is the case how and why?

Laurent & Nicolas:
We fine-tuned everything a bit. Check the program and you will get the idea. Wednesday is for workshops, Thursday is for short, 20-minutes presentations of new ideas. and after you have been active and met new people on Wednesday, after you met new ideas on Thursday, Friday will be a day to sit back and connect the dots. we will give you time to enjoy your new ideas and friends, with only 4 panels and the open stage sessions.

Any word of advice for people considering attending LIFT in February? What to expect? What to bring? What to leave behind?

Nicolas:
First I’d say that I hope you’ll be surprised. Then, try to have a look at the current list of participants and check their affiliation to experience the diversity of background and jobs. This will eventually lead to a different angle than the one offered in other events. And, possibly, try to leave behind the idea that technology is about tools, processes and systems, it’s rather about usage and human creativity.

Laurent:
I think all you need is a fresh mind. Come with a lot of ideas and energy to go toward others, then try to get out of your comfort zone. Go and see the presentation that covers something you are not doing on a daily basis, go to people who are around you, don’t stay with your friend at the coffee breaks!

Thanks Nicolas and Laurent for your time and insights.

For anyone interested in attending LIFT 07 online registration is available here.
Hurry up, there are still a few places left, but something tells me they won’t last long. I’ve already reserved mine, and look forward to a second serving after last year’s feast.

Posted in Conferences, Interviews | 2 Comments »

04-11-2006 by Fabio Sergio

IDEA 2006. Presentations.

IDEA 2006 (previously mentioned on Convivio) has taken place a few days ago, and judging from various comments the conference was successful and filled with interesting contributions.
Most presentations (many with videos and MP3s) can be found here.

Apparently (and unsurprisingly) Bruce Sterling’s keynote was the highlight of the conference.
You can download the audio here (12 MB, MP3).

Posted in Interaction Design, Conferences | No Comments »

22-10-2006 by Fabio Sergio

LIFT 2007.

The 2007 edition of the LIFT conference will be held on February 8th and 9th in Geneva, Switzerland.

Last year’s wonderful modular program allowed participants to go wide or deep, and interspersed the various talks with opportunities to socialize with interesting people and leading thinkers from various disciplines.
More than 350 people gathered for 2 days from more than 20 countries to brainstorm with the likes of Régine Debatty, Cory Doctorow, Robert Scoble, Euan Semple, Bruce Sterling, Stefana Broadbent, Bruno Giussani, Jeffrey Huang, Emmanuelle Richard, Beth Krasna, Matt Jones, Hugh Macleod, Xavier Comtesse, Marc Laperrouza, David Galipeau and Anina.

“LIFT: a conference about the challenges and opportunities of technology in our society.

LIFT is about teaming talented observers, explorers, and builders with people whose work depends on understanding current challenges and creative solutions presented by emerging technologies.
Attendees will face cutting edge business models, bold predictions, radical thinking, ideas to inject into their own part of the planet.
LIFT has a simple goal: connect people who are passionate about new applications of technology and propel their conversations into the broader world to improve life and work.”

I’ve heard through the digital grapevine that the organizers have a few suprises up their collective sleeve for next year, so check the conference blog every now and then if you’re planning on attending.

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25-09-2006 by Fabio Sergio

IDEA 2006. Information: Design, Experience, Access.

IDEA 2006, a new conference organized by Adaptive Path’s Peter Merholz, will be held in Seattle, USA, on October 23-24, 2006.

“IDEA 2006 brings together a diverse set of designers, creators, and researchers addressing a fundamental challenge we’re facing today: how to let everyday people take true advantage of the overwhelming mass of information that floods their lives.
Throughout their days, people are engaging with complex information to manage their lives … the appropriate presentation of information helps people make sense of the world around them.

The conference addresses issues of design for an always-on, always-connected world.
Where “cyberspace” is a meaningless term because the online and offline worlds cannot be made distinct.
Where physical spaces are so complex that detailed wayfinding is necessary to navigate them.
Where work processes have become so involved, and so digitized, that we need new processes to manage those processes.“

Posted in Interaction Design, Conferences | No Comments »

18-09-2006 by Fabio Sergio

Situated Technologies Symposium

The Architecture and Situated Technologies symposium will be held in New York, on October 19-21, 2006.

“Since the late 1980s, computer scientists and engineers have been researching ways of embedding computational intelligence into the built environment.

Through a combination of workshops, presentations, and panel discussions, the symposium will attempt to stage a set of encounters between invited participants, an audience encouraged to participate, and the City of New York.“

Posted in Conferences, Ubiquitous Computing | No Comments »

01-09-2006 by Fabio Sergio

Second European Workshop on Design & Semantics of Form & Movement.

The Second European Workshop on Design & Semantics of Form & Movement will be held in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, on October 26-27, 2006, at Evoluon.

The scope of the conference is the design of products, systems and services with a focus on the meanings conveyed by the products and how they behave.

If design is making sense of things, as Krippendorff puts it, then design semantics is in the heart of the design discipline.
Moreover, if we accept that humans do not just respond to the physical properties of things but to their individual and cultural meanings as well, it becomes clear how huge a challenge it is to develop design semantics in a systematic and scientific way.
The first DeSForM conference demonstrated how useful, even exciting it was to meet and document the ongoing work related to this challenge.
During DeSForM some poles were put around this vast and mostly unexplored territory.
DeSForM 2006 aims at a further exploration and exploitation of the field.

The workshop will be in Eindhoven, the 2006 European Design Capital during the Dutch Design Week in which the city is sparkling with more than 90 design-related events, and it will be organised by TU/e and Philips Design.
The workshop will be held in the amazing Evoluon, the landmark of the city.

Activities:
Demonstrations
Keynote lectures
Long paper presentations
Short paper presentations
Evening dinner
Visit to 3TU Design United exhibition at TU/e

Co-chairs:
Prof. Steven Kyffin, Philips Design
Prof. Loe Feijs, Technische Universiteit Eindhoven
Dr. Bob Young, Northumbria University

Program committee:
Prof. Matthias Rauterberg, Technische Universiteit Eindhoven
Prof. Bill Gaver, Goldsmith London
Dr. Anne Guenand, Université de Technologie de Compiègne
Dr. Sara Ilstedt Hjelm, Interactive Institute and CID, KTH, Stockholm
Prof. Bernhard Bürdek, Academy of Art and Design Offenbach am Main
Prof. Susan Gold, Sierra Nevada College
Dr. Caroline Hummels, ID Studio Lab, Delft University of Technology
Prof. Kees Overbeeke, Carnegy Mellon University, Pittsburgh
Jodi Forlizzi, School of Design, CMU

Posted in Conferences, Human Centered Design | No Comments »

31-07-2006 by Fabio Sergio

Fifth Conference on Design and Emotion.

The fifth Conference on Design and Emotion will be held in Gothenburg, Sweden, on September 27-29, 2006, at the Chalmers University of Technology.

“Emotions arise towards people, towards places, towards food, and towards things. Emotions influence our well-being as well as our purchase decisions.
From a design perspective, we need to know more about how artefacts elicit emotions.
We also need to know more about the way we can identify the relevant emotional aspects and how we can evaluate the emotional impact of a particular design.

The International Conference on Design & Emotion is a forum where practitioners, researchers and industry meet and exchange knowledge and insights concerning the cross-disciplinary field of design and emotion.”

The conference will focus on many sub-themes, such as attachment and behaviour, brand and identity, methodological and theoretical issues, emotion and culture, surprise and delight, space and environment, unpleasant emotions.

Posted in Conferences, User Experience, Human Centered Design | No Comments »

16-05-2006 by Fabio Sergio

Participatory Design Conference

PDC 2006, Participatory Design Conference, Expanding Boundaries in Design, will be held in Trento, Italy, on August 1-5, 2006.

“The theme Expanding Boundaries in Design focuses attention on the multiple contexts in which design takes place and on an expanding range of possible design outcomes.

Finally, Participatory Design has a significant role to play at various stages of design, from initial concept development, to system configuration, to implementation, to integration within the context of use, and ultimately to ongoing design in use.“

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