reboot11 day two

A random assortment of experiences at day two of this year’s reboot conference:

• Building spaces with pen, paper and curiosity was a fantastic workshop talk by Ole Qvist-Sørensen from Bigger Picture: participatory and revelatory. If you’re looking for a novel take on helping groups work, look here.
• While I was fiddling with pen and paper, Mark Wubben was upstairs talking about ubicomp, and he included a slide about The Talking Bus. And I wasn’t there to bask in the glory of the story.
• The Place to Work saw thirty people squeezed into a hallway talking about working in coworking spaces, shared offices and cafés. The most interesting part was the go-around-the-room where everyone said a little about their own working situation. I sat beside Mikkel Hippe Brun, who rolls with his own battery-operated telephone-network connected wireless router.
• David Sjunnesson, from 1scale1, who I’ve been meeting every morning on the train in from Malmö, was the one to get me over my Arduino inhibitions: I spent 80 minutes cramped into a room with 30 other eager geeks (including [[Catherine]]) at the Full Body Arduino workshop. David and his crew were excellent tutors, and when I made my Mac make the Arduino blink its LED (to my surprise) I felt God-like.
• Bruce Sterling, who lost me at the LIFT conference several years ago, pulled me back in with a surgically-crafted poke in the eye with a stick as the closing talk. Throw away your socks with holes, get a new bed. Brilliant observations from a position hovering a mile above our enlightened self-involvement.
• The Baking Bread project never did see us bake bread, but we did make a fetching solar oven that, with some fine-tuning over yesterday, got up to 136 degrees C this afternoon and made Guy Dickinson a mildly-steaming-hot cup of strong tea. Thanks to Peter Madsen-Mygdal for the raw materials, the wrangling and the enthusiasm.
• I met several people who found my reboot by bicycle guide — prepared a couple of years ago — useful. That felt good.
• Spent a great dinner over great Thai food talking with [[Olle]] and [[Luisa]] and Christian Dalager about all sorts of crazy ideas (“social drawing-sharing website,” “RSS feed of our bank transactions,” “capture the flag with RFID,” etc.) Christian’s a kindred spirit and our ideas and projects overlap a lot, so I’m certain we’ll end up working together.
• Ended the night in the meat-packing district at the after-party. More loungey than Vega (where previous years ended), and a nice feel to it (it was in parking lot, so I spent a good part of the evening leaning on a transport truck’s tires). Had a good chat with João Santos, and many laughs and good-byes with many others.
• Finished at the top of the game, as my old basketball coach always advised, and caught the midnight train with the Malmö crew.

It’s 2:02 a.m. as I finish this up; should be asleep, but there’s a lot to process and this is one way that helps. This was reboot number five for me, and reboot number one for Catherine (more about that when I’ve talked to her more about it); it’s a special place with special people and I’m thankful I somehow found my way here.