the definition of insanity

Somehow I have it in my head that because I love people, and I love ideas, and I love meeting lots of people and talking about lots of ideas, that conferences are wonderful. And they are! Particularly well run ones, stocked with fantastically interesting folks (shout out to DIS2012).

But...

But I'm knackered. Shattered. In the words of my homeland, mega-zonked. And every return to my actual work - you know, the quiet stuff that happens when you sit still and type - is returning from a place of more ideas and less practice at how to wrangle them.

I guess when your supervisors actually threaten to tie you to your chair, you know it's time to get back to work making some sort of sense out of it all.

Thankfully, I've got an ocean liner chock full of ideas from these forays into the wider world. Lots to think about regarding design research and the whole first-principles purpose of what it is I'm doing, thanks to the doctoral consortium folks and the closing keynote at DIS in particular. Lots to think about regarding the distinctive nature and contribution of live experience, thanks to the workshop at CHI. Lots to think about when it comes to the potential for human connection through digital storytelling in any number of forms, thanks to DS7.

And in a way even more to think about with the lovely and talented Claire Morgan, with whom I am hard at work on a performance collaboration. We're doing an autobiographical performance two-hander with digital media, and I could not be more excited about it. Watch this space... and hopefully an actual, physical performance space sometime perhaps in the autumn or winter.