Journal.
De-constructing dConstruct '09
Photography credit: Adam Greenfield by Matt Biddulph on Flickr.
A couple of years ago, in a post I can no longer find, Mike Davidson gave attendees to South by South West (SXSW) some sound tips on getting the most out of the conference. The one that stuck with me was, paraphrasing, that this community, our community, is still young, small and relatively free of hierarchy and attitude. It was in that spirit, he said, that you shouldn’t feel afraid to talk to speakers or panelists – and that by and large, they’d be thrilled if you did.
I’m reminded of this today, thinking back over today’s dConstruct in Brighton. Having not had the chance to attend conferences for too long, dConstruct marked my third and final web conferences of the year, fulfilling one of my commitments to prioritise them and find the time and space to reflect on why I’m doing what I’m doing and how I can do it better.
dConstruct is run by clearleft, one of the smartest groups of people you could hope for, and the programme is reflective of that – it brings together a selection of inspiring, informing speakers, consciously connecting our world with those of games design, architecture, and philosophy. Heady stuff, if you can get it right, and Clearleft do.
Having treated myself to an overnight stay at myhotel, it was easy to see over my morning coffee and pastry why the Brighton that passed by the coffee shop window makes it such an appropriate venue for this sort of event – young, free-thinking, and independent. The Brighton Dome largely worked as a venue too – the auditorium is a wonderful space, although its confined and echoing bar area did make conversation and mixing hard in between the sessions.
One of my heroes, Adam Greenfield, was the main reason for me being there. Everywhere, Greenfield’s book isn’t perfect as he’s said himself, but it has been a really influential book in helping me understanding and develop my own thinking on the intersection where design, urban space and the individual meet. Delivering a keynote to a bleary-eyed audience isn’t easy, particularly when your pushing some tough concepts, and he did a great job, backed by a beautifully minimal slide deck that put the focus, as it should, on his words and his ideas. His themes in ‘Elements of a networked urbanism’ are summarised on his site, but the idea that stuck with me most was the role that information plays in a cohesive community: that it’s possible to have too much, to know too much, and that it can disturb the delicate balance that cohesion is built upon. Nice too to get the chance to say ‘thanks’ in person afterwards when we found ourselves sat beside each other at the coffee break.
Other highlights for me were Robin Hunicke and Stamen. Robin Hunicke took on juicy feedback, her funny, kooky, smart twist on a theme that I’ve heard Dan Rubin talk on earlier this year from a web design perspective: the role that tactile interfaces have on our willingness to interact, but also – from Hunicke’s perspective – to get something back in return. Hunicke is fiercely clever, but carries it in a completely disarming way – she was, it has to be said, the speaker that split the audience from what I saw on Twitter – but for me she’s hitting on a theme that is going to become more and more important in how we think about design and the response we elicit from it.
Stamen too, were great, the most direct web design inspiration in their fabulous data visualisation work on everything from hurricanes to crime to art collections.
Going back to where I started this: what makes dConstruct work for me is that it’s small enough to feel personal, and not cliquey as some other conferences have felt, where you can really feel a distance between speakers and delegates, from the in-jokes to the seating arrangements. Nothing summed the difference with dConstruct better for me than seeing Adam Greenfield, there towards the end of the day long after his keynote, soaking up August de los Reyes’ talk. And chatting to the likes to me.
If you weren’t there, get the dConstruct podcasts when they arrive – they will be worth your time.
Related:
- dConstruct photographs on Flickr
- Eva Lottchen’s fabulous notes from dConstruct ’09 (via Adam Greenfield)
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