Friday, April 23, 2004
Going to CHI...
Next week I'm off to CHI in Vienna - we've got papers in the time design and ambient intelligence for scientific discovery workshops, some meetings with other EU colleagues, lots of sessions to attend, and some serious socialising to do (see notes on the important bits of conferences).
It's interesting to reflect on what I'm now expecting from a conference. For me, one of the great things about going away next week is that currently there are too many minor distractions at the Uni, and I keep on not getting anything done - I'm actually expecting to achieve more next week whilst at the conference than I did in the past two weeks whilst at Uni, despite the students still being away. This is partly because the usual interruptions cannot happen, and partly because ones options are more limited - I can write, or listen to sessions - either way I'm immersed in HCI, and not in sorting out admin, or deciding I'll re-arrange my files on the machine, or tackling the piles of paper that keep cascading off my desk and onto the floor.
However, I'm assuming a certain level of resources - I expect to be able to connect via a wireless LAN, for free, or at the very least to have access to machines with a permanent, fat internet connection. Without that, things will be steeply curtailed! Whether that is on offer, I have no idea, but it is interesting what we tend to expect now. I have no need to tell people my contact number out there as my mobile works, and I should be able to see email in any of my work or private accounts. For me, I'm as connected to the world as I need to be, and yet just sufficiently removed from it so that I'm less disturbed.
And this may be the work pattern of the future. Only yesterday we were discussing working from home; given that work now no longer offers us anything much better in the way of resources or access to information, it may be that we simply move to different physical locations depending on the nature of the interactions we wish to have: to be at work will be for social and management reasons - in the garden, beacuse we want to think - at a conference, because we want to write and collaborate on new grants.
Next week I'm off to CHI in Vienna - we've got papers in the time design and ambient intelligence for scientific discovery workshops, some meetings with other EU colleagues, lots of sessions to attend, and some serious socialising to do (see notes on the important bits of conferences).
It's interesting to reflect on what I'm now expecting from a conference. For me, one of the great things about going away next week is that currently there are too many minor distractions at the Uni, and I keep on not getting anything done - I'm actually expecting to achieve more next week whilst at the conference than I did in the past two weeks whilst at Uni, despite the students still being away. This is partly because the usual interruptions cannot happen, and partly because ones options are more limited - I can write, or listen to sessions - either way I'm immersed in HCI, and not in sorting out admin, or deciding I'll re-arrange my files on the machine, or tackling the piles of paper that keep cascading off my desk and onto the floor.
However, I'm assuming a certain level of resources - I expect to be able to connect via a wireless LAN, for free, or at the very least to have access to machines with a permanent, fat internet connection. Without that, things will be steeply curtailed! Whether that is on offer, I have no idea, but it is interesting what we tend to expect now. I have no need to tell people my contact number out there as my mobile works, and I should be able to see email in any of my work or private accounts. For me, I'm as connected to the world as I need to be, and yet just sufficiently removed from it so that I'm less disturbed.
And this may be the work pattern of the future. Only yesterday we were discussing working from home; given that work now no longer offers us anything much better in the way of resources or access to information, it may be that we simply move to different physical locations depending on the nature of the interactions we wish to have: to be at work will be for social and management reasons - in the garden, beacuse we want to think - at a conference, because we want to write and collaborate on new grants.
(c) 2003-2005 Russell Beale
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