Design Conversations

When Richard Boland held his closing speech at the Positive Design Conference he really put pressure on us, making us reflecting on to what extent us coming to Monterrey for this event really could make up for the money it had cost, the time we had to spend away from our families and for the tons of carbon dioxide we had generated by flying there. I definitely think that we achieved a good result, even from a sustainability perspective, with lots of new ideas for research and education. However, the most important result from my perspective was the interdisciplinary conversations and the academic bonding it resulted in.

So how do you design a conference that will lead to such conversations? I think it was a very good idea to have a mix of inspiring presentations and group work. The social events were also great, with lots of opportunities to talk and dance and explore the local culture. It was fun meeting all the IT researchers such as Lars Mathiassen, John Carroll, Nanette Napier, Lev Gonick, Michel Avital, Kalle Lyytinen, Geoff Walsham, Ken and Julie Kendall and Rajendra Singh but also having conversations with people from other fields such as Carlos Osorio and Diana Withney and many more.

I really think the conference was a great example of positive design, with respect to both process and outcome. I’m looking forward to the next conference in Korea 2010, especially after Professor Dong-Sung Cho’s presentation of the BEST Sustainability Report!

/Lena

Fantastic AI workshop

A few weeks ago, 2nd year students at the Software Engineering & Management program at the IT University in Gothenburg got the chance to try working with Appreciative Inquiry. The workshop was organized around the theme "How to energize project starts" and the students worked with identifying strengths from earlier projects to produce a checklist that can be used for future project starts. The students interviewed each other and discussed in groups and the experience was great - a friendly, positive environment in which motivation to improve was high!

As a moderator of the workshop, Lena Holmberg did a fantastic job and all students were very pleased with the experience. Personally, it struck me how well AI can be incorporated into the educational program and the different courses we offer our students. I see great potential in using the method for evaluating, reflecting, designing and improving our educational programs as well as the work within single courses.

Problems versus Strengths

Within industry we have seen that practitioners thrive in solving problems while they take strengths for granted. Strengths are indeed viewed as needed, but what's the joy of doing something well again compared to solve a problem...this is one of the challenges we need to work with to make sure industry can benefit from approaches like appreciative inquiry.