I sure wish I could have been in that coffee shop in Milwaukee! Here's what I have in mind for my two "stations"; let me know if this is more or less in line with what you were talking about and thinking of. I'm definitely moving out of my comfort zone here as I'm going to try to do without computers, or maybe just have one computer with one interactive thing going on. Do we know if there's wireless available in the conference room?
So,
1. A big timeline representing the 60 years of the conference, printed out and hanging on a wall, with categories for data about the conference (e.g., location, number of workshops & participants, keynote title) and data about the practices and economics of higher education over the last 6 decades. I'll fill in some of this data, but I also want to provide printouts of reports that I've gathered; I'll put these materials on a table in front of the timeline and invite people to find data they think is interesting and write it on the timeline. I think I'll have a handout to go along with this, or maybe just information/instructions printed out and hanging on the wall next to the timeline.
2. For each of the 12 area clusters in this year's conference, I'll print out 3 or 4 different ways of visualizing the text of the abstracts (e.g., word clouds, collocate network diagrams, concordance lists for key words). I envision printing each one on relatively heavy paper, connecting the different pieces of paper with string, and hanging them from something--if not the ceiling then perhaps a couple of those portable clothing racks--so that there's a hanging strand, so to speak, with visualizations for each topic area. I also have text from the first CCCC that got reported on (1950), and I was thinking of doing some visualizations that compare that conference to this one.
You know, I've never done anything at a conference other than stand up and talk for 15 minutes, so I'm feeling simultaneously excited and totally anxious about this :) I really welcome any suggestions you have for what I'm planning. Does it seem interesting? engaging? worthwhile? do-able??
Jody--I'll get Bob to take some pictures of me and I'll send them to you tonight or tomorrow, ok?
2 comments:
i wish you could have been there too! i think a lot of good stuff can go on through email and the blog but there's a certain kind of. . .i don't know--dare I say freedom?--to the f2f or even phone/video meetings. i felt more brave about--or perhaps inclined to (?) suggest things, ask questions, wonder aloud, etc. and i'm thinking a lot of this would likely have been edited out of an email or post.
long story short, we wished you had been there too!
and i'm with you on the comfort zone thing--i am also excited and nervous.
i think your station ideas are great--i'm eager to learn more about what you're doing with the 1950s CCCC as I'm looking at that as well. i like the interactive aspects of the timeline. very much. looks like there will be enough there even if people don't feel inclined to participate (but i think they will). i think the biggest disadvantage we all face is that we'll be giving people lots of stuff to take in and process in a short amount of time so i'm trying to come up with things that invite response but don't depend on it to make the point of the piece. i think you do a great job of balancing this here.
as for the second idea my first thought is that if the set-up is difficult, it can be foregrounded. one of the things that anne and i talked about (as noted in her excellent notes) is to make the display/set-up of the displays part of the performance since we don't have the advantage of being first in the day or getting into the space long before our session begins. your description of your second station makes me want to videotape as much of the event (set up, whatever) as i can.
we might also consider if we want to (or if we are able to) eventually house parts of these works online, inviting people to engage with them later/again/when they have more time. again, my main thought is that there will be lots more to see, experience and do than people will have time for.
I second the wish to go back in time to the coffeeshop and have you there, Madeleine!
Your ideas sound perfect to me.
I am starting to dig into what kinds of visualization I might post, too. I want to do five or six (which may be too much of a dream, but we'll see), but the first, most obvious one is a horizontally formatted line of word clouds of the workshop/panel titles from 1950, 1960, 1970, 1980, 1990, and 2009 (each annotated just a little, to explain the source); putting them side-by-side like that makes the shifting topics very easy to see, and even a bit startling.
Beyond that, I will be sitting down with a book that I showed Jody -- Data Flow: Visualising Information in Graphic Design -- that has some beautiful and provocative diagrams in it, and considering how I might use some of the shapes and presentations there to take what comes out of Many Eyes and reformat it (if I can) into new perspectives.
I do want to make a little video that shows data flowing and shifting over the course of some set of years, because this will be still another way of seeing change and continuity. (I ordered my iPod-sized projector today; we'll see if it's any good...!)
Finally, I do want to do something on the computer for people to play with. Most simply, I could simply have Many Eyes up and running -- if we have internet access in the room. (I haven't heard yet. We did request it -- and I've just emailed Eileen Maley to see if we were scheduled in such a room. As soon as I hear, I'll let you both know.) But I am also willing to build a little slider of some kind or microscope-type take on looking at some data.
I like very much the idea of having a map/brochure. I'm willing to print those here and bring them, if we could have some sense beforehand, for sure, of what we were doing. (It would also mean that we would have to 'map' the presentations by putting up some signs by them, since we won't know soon enough where stuff will go in the room.)
I'm also interested in chatting with you both some more about how we encourage as much slow-down-and-look responses from our guests, how we get written/audio reflection from them.
(I'm also thinking that we could easily transport at least our signs to the display area for afterwards, too, to capture ongoing reflection and response...)
At the end of a reasonable day,
Anne
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