John and David,
I believe I had somewhat different thoughts about "Common Ground" than most
of the comments I have seen posted. I did not expect to find a common
ground for design research ready and waiting on arrival at the conference.
The common ground, for me, comes in the work that we do after the meeting.
Common Ground was a excellent effort to present some of the major streams
of design research that are active today. It provided me with an
opportunity to see some of the best examples of quite different approaches
to design.
The work of finding common ground is what should take place after the
meeting, as we sift through the different approaches and results and see
what is shared in common and what are the sources of difference.
I look now to what emerges in new papers that connect the lines of thinking
we saw at the conference. And I particularly look forward to how our
reflection on "Common Ground" affects the papers in the next DRS conference.
Thanks for organizing a conference that begins the process of sifting and
rethinking that is essential for the next stage of design research!
Richard Buchanan
--On Sunday, September 15, 2002 9:50 AM +0100 John Shackleton
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> On Fri, 13 Sep 2002 11:25:38 +0200
> Wolfgang Jonas <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> I belong to those people who had expected 'Common Ground' to be more
>> than a title. Of course I can understand John=B4s explanations, but
>> that does not change my disappointment. Maybe this conference format
>> is somehow outdated...
>
> Sorry to hear that you were dissapointed, Jonas. One of the main
> objectives in organising the Common Ground conference was to establish a
> more regular pattern of DRS conferences than has occurred in the past. It
> was felt that in order to do this the conferences had to be as inclusive
> as possible of members' interests, and that to put together parallel
> sessions based on themes emerging from the submissions received was the
> best way we could think of doing this.
>
> I would hesitate to claim that there is no possibility of other, maybe
> better, ways of organising such a conference, and we would certainly like
> feedback to improve future conferences. Perhaps I could ask you to expand,
> (on line or off), on your comment that the format was outdated?
>
> Regards,
>
> John
>
> John Shackleton
> Design Research Centre
> Brunel University, UK
>
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