Notes from Pines Calyx Metadesign Tools Workshop

For meeting m21-14-3-8

Level 1. Sensual

Mostly thoughts from straight after getting home

• I can almost see the some of the tools now...
• Fell asleep Friday night to an old Star Trek episode that somehow seemed relevant (re: StoryTelling).
• Felt quite at home - good people on the whole
• A fun but important event (despite feeling somewhat outside of most of it)

Level 2. Factual

Techie stuff

• Doing the techie stuff is a very full time job - didn't get much chance to get involved with the groups but was happy enough to flit between them
• Technically fairly successful - a big box full of video tapes used and a hard drive full of audio recorded (about 40GBs)
• Now need to synchronise it all and mix some outputs

Level 3. Connectivity/systemic/the outside world

What i was referring to as "content"

• Surprised how different the two groups' presentations were, but during each i was thinking "yes, this is probably what a Metadesign Brief looks like!"
  • Group 1 - probably the more conventional approach. Something you could actually do in/with a community
  • Group 2 - far wider reaching and abstract (and funny)
• Positioning was great - seemed to really sink in with them after a while (i was with/filming Group 1) - then had lunch with most of Group 2 - "coincidentally" they had sat down for lunch in (more or less) the exact same arrangement as their positioning exercise had produced! [spooky indeed, we all agreed!]

Level 4. Future

Is here...

• Technology always takes longer to get right and is more intrusive than planned (Bradley's 94th law)
• However, people can be very accommodating and will put up with a fair amount
• In principle the Team Consciousness elements that were tested here show promise
• More lapel mics (one each) would be great!
• Need to synchronise it all and mix/render some wiki-shaped QuickTimes

Level 5. Summary

or

Just some good quotes:

• "It's like flying in the dark with no lights on" (struck a definite chord)
• "Claiming a space that's beyond design"
• Um...

The process of patching together the video and audio will, I think, give a very good idea of what the TeamConsciousness system will need to do. At least now we have lots of raw material to experiment with - and it's stuff that is well worth presenting in the best possible light!