iDMAa certainly started things off on the right foot. Though I gained membership in the organization when I joined the University of Georgia and the New Media Institute, I didn’t know much about the organization until Scott Shamp sent me his Podcast talking about last years events. It of course helped that the event was in historic downtown Savannah, GA this year at SCAD.
The conversations were great and the keynotes idea inspiring. Jon Ruppel’s “Renaissance of User Interfaces” talk was extremely well done, making use of a WiiMote (via the Wii2Flash interface) to control much of the presentation. Many of the UI innovations and noodling that he talked about he also demonstrated from within his slide presentation. The variety of UI prototypes he was a able to demonstrate using Flash were particularly impressive. Much of their development is done using Flash and Silverlight.
Sean Bunner from the Home Shopping Network (HSN) talked about some of the realities of taking innovative UI design into the home, or as he discussed into the LCM (least common denominator). He listed factor such as ROI, Legal, IT, time, politics, and idiots making innovation particularly difficult. Also factored into this was the complex issue of the CRM or core customer. But at the same time, these structures and limitations sometimes gives you an opportunity to innovate in different ways. Not to mention of course that the LCM = $$.
The games panel which I participated in was spirited and interesting. The other members of the panel were fun to listen to and the audience was very engaged. Though I didn’t get to really meet her until after my talk, several people said that I practically introduced and explained why everyone should go to Patricia Aufderheide’s talk on Saturday morning. Oddly I’d met her earlier in the day and walked along River Street in Savannah without quite realizing who she was.
SCAD’s facilities are excellent and the food and drinks have also been quite nice so far. I was only minorly disappointed that there was no beer at the reception, though that was quickly dashed at the sheer variety of wines they offered in stead. Dinner at the Bayou club was full of both laughs and insights, or as Scott said this morning, we won the fun dinner award for Night 1.