feedback

How did you like the conference? I spent the whole afternoon eating aspirins (a bad flu who is taking over me) reading blogs and tweets about Lift09. The majority of feedback seems to be positive:

"Lift09 is just top! Great people, working wifi, cool art installations and a gigantic fondue this evening!" -- Dania Gerhardt

"excellent organization, wifi works great, power plugs, very pro" -- Alexi Perrier

"lift09 is a fantastic event this year, day 2 rocked BIG time all the way with a climax" -- Yuri Van Geest

"I’m lucky enough to be in Geneva today at the simply wonderful Lift09, where I’ve met lots of great people [...] and been stimulated, entertained and surprised." -- Bill Thompson

"I just had a wonderful experience at LIFT in Geneva. There was an refreshingly new audience from many different areas (design, finance, urban planning, business) which alongside the great topics of the talks made up for a very cool event." -- Andre Ribeirinho

"with these kind of conferences, it's all a bit random. Many talks just don't resonate, inspire, make it past translation issues [...] and so on. Equally, many talks are fantastic. Conferences like this should take chances, and Lift is smart and confident enough to take chances now." -- Dan Hill

"This is the best conference, bar none, that I’ve been to in a long time." -- Cyrus Farivar

"la qualité des conférences #LIFT09 est vraiment la plus élevée qu'il m'ai été donné de voir. Les conférences de cet aprem sont extra" -- Sandrine Szaboz

"I had an AMAZING time here at #lift09" -- Mark A.M. Kramer

To be exhaustive I searched for a negative reaction. Of course I don't agree with it ;) but it comes as a reminder that despite all possible efforts nobody can make 800 persons happy!

"The disappointment comes mainly from the impression of declining density, compared to the three LIFT conferences I attended before. More repetitions of topics previously covered, again a seemingly lower number of presentations, and an overall level that does not seem to rise. Maybe the future just went away, on holiday. Or maybe it's just me." -- Hannes Gassert

I am looking forward to the post conference survey to have a more complete view of how the Lifters enjoyed Lift09.

Alexa Andrzejewski of Adaptive Path compiled some of the best ideas she has heard at Lift Asia in a blog post. She wrote a nice recap of the most important things that have been said:

[...] ON VISUALIZATION: By capturing and visualizing multiple streams of real-time data, we are able to show what IS happening rather than what WAS happening, prompting questions we didn’t know we had. (Stamen)

ON THE PROBLEMS WITH CASH: With cash-based systems, it’s the poorest people, those who take little bits from the ATM at the time, who bear the highest transaction costs. (David Birch) [...]

ON SUSTAINABILITY: What if devices were made to be worn IN not out, feel like an investment that’s made to last, age gracefully and have timeless features? (Raphael Grignani) [...]

ON ROBOTS: If we have a limited vision of what robots should be, our ability to create robots will be limited. The debate about humanoid vs. non-humanoid robots is moot — there’s room in the taxonomy for all kinds of robots. The most evolutionary robots will be “Homo Robotus:” Robots that are a part of a person, amplifying the person’s body and mind. (Bruno Bonnell)

ON ENVISIONING THE FUTURE: The ability to create unconstrained visions of the future lives within us all. To tap into it, we must escape from the fetters of legacies, assumptions and technology-driven innovation. We must return to the wonderful world of make believe. (From my talk on “Experiencing the Future Through Make Believe” during the Open Afternoon)

Link

Hi Lifters, further to my suggestion the other day, the first post-Lift Lifters meetup (to my knowledge) took place yesterday. Stephanie and Julien who I both already knew came and I had the chance to meet Claude and Nicholas. We had a very nice evening talking about our Lift experiences of course but not only (I learnt a lot about tv series!).

I don't want to report here everything we've discussed but I definitely like this type of informal meetups with people sharing the Lift-spirit.

Apparently, three other Lifters from Zürich like the idea too and are going to meet later this month. I'm looking forward to hearing from them.

Last but not least, several other Lifters contacted me with encouraging comments even though they could not make it yesterday. This could be a good excuse to organise another meetup sometime soon and to get to know even more Lifters!

First of all, congratulations to the team of LIFT. You have worked like fools and loved like giants, and I do feel very loved and privileged by being part of such an event. Each and every LIFT for the past three years has changed my life in one way or another. This year my personal insights started to pour in some time during the wee hours of Saturday while roaming the streets and clubs of Geneva.

However this feedback is not about me and my belly button or my fictional diversions that are so very entrenched in my own narrative, this is about the part that I usually send to Laurent via email, but that now needs to go on the public record. I already gave Laurent one big hug on Friday afternoon.

You guys - the LIFT team - must know that I have some experience with dealing with other events of this nature and that I have deep appreciation and respect for the immensity of the work that goes behind the scenes. Thank you all for the effort, the lost sleep, the raw nerves and what is invariably the unavoidable fatigue.
So here is what I liked about this year and what I did not like.
What I liked:

Lift was an amazing experience again. Thank you to the team for this wonderful conference. Actually, after attending my 3rd Lift, I confirm that it is not really a conference. It's a breath of fresh air... it's a moment of magic... it's a special spirit... it's a moment during the year that has taken a special place, not only in my calendar.

This year was different from last year and from the year before. Different speakers, different attendees, different trends, different discussions and yet the outcome is always the same over the years. When you leave the CICG on Friday night, your brain and soul are filled with inspiration. A flow of energy that continues to live inside of you for days, weeks, months. So many brilliant people, so many talents, so many ideas, so many projects, so many possibilities to remember, to think about and to develop.

This afternoon, while I was chatting with another Lifter, I had the idea to extend the experience a little bit longer. Not just virtually via the community blog but in real life. No matter how active we are online, face to face contacts are still a million times richer. So why don't we gather locally for a LiftDebriefing? It could be an opportunity to share what we've experienced during these three days, what we liked, what we didn't, what we discovered, what we missed, what we hope for next year, how we are going to use the Lift experience in our lifes.

For all the Lifters of "Suisse romande" (the French speaking part of Switzerland), I suggest to meet next Tuesday for an informal LiftDebriefing. You can find the details on Facebook.

I'm looking forward to seeing you there.

Autour du Worshop UbiComp, animé par Nicholas Nova et dans notre session par Frederic Kaplan
La discussion s'est engagée sur la notion de "disparition des interfaces" qui semblent être induites par l'UbiComp, c'est à dire "disparition des ordinateurs".

Nous commençons nos échanges sur la notion de FeedBack, c'est-à-dire la restitution à un ordre ou à une manipulation donné par un utilisateur. Un dispositif doit-il renvoyer une prise en compte dans le monde électronique/informatique ?

Ce point de discussion, nous oblige a définir ce u'est une interface est-elle caractérisée par un feedback ou par la métaphore ou le langage qu'elle met en place ?.
Petit balayage du réel: le marteau exprime sa propre raison d'exister de par la logique de son usage et de sa forme, le thermostat du radiateur au contraire n'indique pas le résultat de son action immédiatement...

La manipulation d'un objet technique depuis l'arrivée de l'électronique et de l'informatique augmente les possibilités au détriment de la logique interne structurelle de l'objet, de sa taille qui n'est pas dicté par la technique mais par par les critères physiques de son utilisateur. L'objet technique contemporain
( NéoObjet ) n'a plus de de logique de construction de son esthétique propre (on peut totalement décorrélé la forme de la fonction).
Comment raisonner la forme et les fonctions dans un objet où les fonctions sont portées par des technologies qui prennent peu de place et dont le service peut être en dehors de l'objet.