it was a fantastic conference, but clearly something different this year. one colleague, kenneth from design continuum, said it very well – two years ago was many external ah-hahs, this year it was far more internal and personal. indeed, there was a lot of food for thought. there was also a lot more grey haired men there this year, which definitely means the conference has arrived. i believe this also contributed to the feeling that there was a lot more networking going on this year than two years ago, but that could have just been a change in me.

more great new things:

• the architects who spoke this year (elizabeth diller and petra blaisse) were MUCH better than last time. they had profoundly new ways of approaching problems and their egos were in check. i distinctly remembering how cliche the architect they had two years ago felt.
• actually, almost everyone’s egos were in check – the speakers felt (for the most part of course!) very authentic and approachable this year. most of them hung out and attended the conference too
• robert lang (origami guy), michael curry (puppet master), jamy ian swiss – all great surprises that were fun! jamy said was that it is easy to be the magician at a conference like this because people don’t expect much of you, so they are always wowed. while there is some truth to that, i must say i could have listened to all of them for much longer. people grumbled that curry went on too long, but i was inspired.
• a nice play by play blog (unfortunately it is chronologically backwards)

was better last time:

• surprise appearance by isaac mizrahi!
• better schwag – a timbuk2 messenger bag among many other great stuff!
• the speakers on software/web were pretty miserable, made me sad for my industry
• john hockenberry - while amazing, he was even more amazing last time! he was clearly working on too little sleep and his sharp whit and insightful questions weren’t there.

mixed feelings:

• the studios were an awesome idea, but there were still some profound kinks in them like poor space planning, hard to hear the presenter, too many people
• ok, gotta say something bad about someone. i was seriously disappointed in the talk by aimee mullins – she rambled a lot and was clearly very focused on her modelling and herself more than on design. in about 10 years i think she will be a very good speaker, but she needs to get past her focus on self and start universalizing her learnings.
• david maccaulay – what can i say, when you have such high regard for someone it is easy to be disappointed. what was great – i had lunch with him and asked a million questions, spent three hours critiquing illustrations together, it was amazing! what was distappointing- well, he is a huge introvert and didn’t have a lot of profoundly deep things to say. he was very matter of fact about everything and unemotional for the most part. e.g. when i asked about how he decides to do new projects he made some reference to looking at his checkbook. he is also married for a second time to one of his students, i think that was the straw that broke my back. i guess i love that he didn’t hide it at all, but i am not sure i wanted to know that!