Hi everybody,

Since conference reflections are the flavour of the week here are mine.

First of all Lisbon - I've never been there before and I'm sorry I left 
it so long. Barcelona is rightly famed as an important and characterful 
cultural centre but, for the visitor, maybe Lisbon has the edge in 
kindness. It is spacious, compact, and relaxed with beautiful buildings 
and cityscapes almost everywhere. Shopping friends were in ecstasy and 
who could resist a town where every bar is also a cake shop, the fact 
that every other shop is a bookshop also tells you something about the 
city and its people. The icing on this particular cake is the Lisbon 
trams, beautifully preserved Ruritanian transports worthy of a Terry 
Gilliam movie, every time I saw one it brought a smile to my face.

The conference venues were not chosen for convenience and maybe we all 
grumbled a little about that, but Eduardo's poetic vision of our 
scientific inheritance made it imperative for him that the morning 
plenaries were held in the historic Geographical Institute, whose grand, 
if dimly lit splendours made those sessions very memorable. Lunches and 
evening receptions were in the faded elegance of the Palacio Pombal and 
afternoons were in more practical locations, including the term-time 
bustle of IADE's own teaching spaces. There was always a cafe somewhere 
nearby to escape to and it was easy to overdose on good coffee and 
exquisite custard tarts.

I did not see as many of the conference presentations as I would have 
hoped, fatigue and DRS business took its toll, but I came away with very 
clear memories of interesting people, interesting ideas and some new 
knowledge. Most sessions that I took part in gave rise to some 
thoughtful debate and a colleague from outside design commented how much 
she enjoyed the openness and supportive atmosphere, not all disciplines 
will give you such a community of "critical friends". 

Of course none of us are perfect and we still have a lot to learn about 
the art of conferencing. Designers generally are good storytellers and 
we had excellent presentations from both experienced and novice 
researchers. Some (including some some senior members of the community) 
have yet to master this art and I hope they will have learned from the 
experience that "giving" a paper is not the same as reading it out.

Two people on the last day showed how it can be done. The last talk was 
given by our recent past President, Richard Buchanan and of course we 
expect nothing less than an expert performance from somebody with his 
experience and standing. His discussion of the Design Methods movement, 
in terms of his contemporary conviction that we need to engage more with 
the art of rhetoric, was a masterclass in both clarity of argument and 
brevity, making his main points and leaving us interested in reading the 
text. A piquant edge was provided by the fact that an earlier speaker 
(sorry I've forgotten who) had commented on the dangers of rhetoric as 
an artform that can persuade us against our true interests.

But, as I say, we expect no less from Richard and he is one of the 
fortunate tribe of Anglophones who have a built-in advantage in these 
situations (and, unlike Richard, often fail to notice that they are 
talking to an audience that does not share their tribal experience or 
tribal humour). So my main example comes from the other end of the last 
day, the first paper, presented by Yukari Nagai. She and her colleagues 
gave an exemplary performance in both preparing and delivering their 
work, despite the obstacle of working in a second language and I would 
commend her approach to anybody who finds this a challenge. I was 
particularly impressed since the subject matter of the paper - a very 
quantitative approach to understanding aspects of creativity - was one 
that I did not expect to like. In the end I was convinced that this was 
sound research which had added something useful to our fund of knowledge 
and I have already used it in informal planning discussions for creative 
projects.

First, she and the research group she represented had taken a good deal 
of trouble in preparing their story in the form of a set of powerpoint 
slides. We heard some rather sarcastic comment about powerpoint during 
the same day's presentations and I feel that it is important to say that 
powerpoint is only a tool for visual presentation. It can be used to 
show an audience almost any kind of visual material and its usefulness 
is entirely dependent on the skill of its user, it is also a great prop 
since a well-constructed set of slides can remove the need for written 
notes, allowing a prepared speaker to concentrate on talking to the 
audience.  During the conference we saw examples of crude use of bullet 
points and (even worse) great tracts of text in small type, but we also 
saw some good visual communication and in design it is often important 
to see the things we are discussing to ensure that language does not 
deceive us about their nature.

Anyway, Yukari Nagai  used powerpoint to give a framework to her talk. 
She used both text and image judiciously to support her narrative. She 
presented complex material with great clarity, as a result of careful 
organisation and a well-rehearsed performance, and she left us with a 
good understanding of her methods and main findings. The rest we can 
find out by reading her paper. The fact that several anglophones in the 
conference seemed unable to match this clarity and purposefulness goes 
to show that conferencing is a difficult art and it deserves careful study.

very best
Chris

Chris Rust, Chair of DRS Council
********************
Professor Chris Rust
Head of Art and Design Research Centre
Sheffield Hallam University, UK
+44 114 225 2686
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www.chrisrust.net