Kevin Makice's Presentation in Doctoral Consortium - CHI 2009
I had the opportunity to sneak into the Doctoral Consortium to watch Kevin's presentation. It was enlightening to see how Kevin's research "target" has continued to evolve and morph through a process of narrowing and widening. Personally, it really caused me to reflect on how important and complicated it is to define your area of research. I thought it was very insightful that one of the faculty members said "You need to become the _________ person" meaning that it is so important to be focused on your area of research as it is what you are known by. She talked about Kevin considering being known as the Twitter person. There was some dialog about the pros and cons of such an approach - especially from the perspective of possible future employment opportunities or lack thereof if you end up getting "tagged" to just one specific thing. It is the never-ending specialist vs. generalist dilemma that exists regardless of field of study. It is one of the "big rocks" as choices you make will determine your course for years to come.
I wanted to take some pictures of Kevin presenting but the faculty chair actually came all the way to the back of the room to find out why I was there in spite of the fact that I was wearing a Student Volunteer t-shirt. When he saw I was from IU, he said it was fine for me to stay for Kevin's talk but re-affirmed that the session was closed.
The input and critique Kevin received was incredible from both the students and the faculty. I love that Kevin pulled up one of his "Boy Scout" slides in response to some of the comments he received and how he was able to spin off of what they said and use their input to expand upon the topic of discussion. I am not posting specifics of his presentation here intentionally because the consortium is a closed door session with an NDA feel to it. They are all the way at the furthest end of the hall opposite of the rest of the workshops and their food is in their room, so it is rather "exclusive". The brief experience I had there gave me more than enough incentive to set a goal of getting invited to a future Doctoral Consortium.
Thanks to Kevin for doing a great job and making me proud to be a student in the HCI/d program at the School of Informatics at Indiana University.
This is Jay Steele posting to you from CHI 2009 in Boston.
I wanted to take some pictures of Kevin presenting but the faculty chair actually came all the way to the back of the room to find out why I was there in spite of the fact that I was wearing a Student Volunteer t-shirt. When he saw I was from IU, he said it was fine for me to stay for Kevin's talk but re-affirmed that the session was closed.
The input and critique Kevin received was incredible from both the students and the faculty. I love that Kevin pulled up one of his "Boy Scout" slides in response to some of the comments he received and how he was able to spin off of what they said and use their input to expand upon the topic of discussion. I am not posting specifics of his presentation here intentionally because the consortium is a closed door session with an NDA feel to it. They are all the way at the furthest end of the hall opposite of the rest of the workshops and their food is in their room, so it is rather "exclusive". The brief experience I had there gave me more than enough incentive to set a goal of getting invited to a future Doctoral Consortium.
Thanks to Kevin for doing a great job and making me proud to be a student in the HCI/d program at the School of Informatics at Indiana University.
This is Jay Steele posting to you from CHI 2009 in Boston.
Comment (1)
I'm not sure why the secrecy, but I do know some of the attendees appreciated the protective nature of it all. Me? The more conversation the merrier. When I get a chance to breathe, I may annotate and post a PDF of the slidedeck.
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