April 16, 2008: I'm grateful


Anyone who's followed my blog over the past seven (!) years knows that
I'm always promoting the IA Summit. [1] It was my baby at its
inception, but it's gotten better every year. As a strapping nine
year-old, it's clearly enjoyed some great parenting along the way.
Many thanks to Richard Dalton, Dick Hill, and the rest of the
committee for another outstanding event.

But this year something extra special happened. Amid the sessions,
networking, socializing and such, I encountered some completely
unexpected generosity.

Kevin Cheng and I have been discussing his writing a Rosenfeld Media
[2] book for some time. His proposal is about done, and I'm dying to
publish the book. But Kevin's nothing if not careful and diligent; on
the first day of the Summit, he told me he wanted to get a little more
input on a few points before finalizing his proposal. I suggested we
convene a few interested people— maybe five?—and see what they
thought.

A day later, after some tweeting and some gentle arm-twisting, nearly
twenty people were seated around a few tables, ready to talk comics
and user experience design. And that we did; not for the half hour I'd
hoped for, but for over two hours. Incredible. It's not like they had
nothing else to do. I still can't quite believe it.

Everyone contributed. It was a polite discussion, but it was
punctuated by passionate interjections and plenty of joking. Dan
Willis went into auto-facilitation mode, really helping things along.

Why do we need companies and hierarchies? With another hour or two,
this ad hoc collective could probably have figured out what to do
about global warming.

I want to acknowledge those who donated their time and ideas; I'm in
awe and thank you deeply:
* Stephen Anderson
* Mario Bourque
* Lorelei Brown
* Whitney Hess
* Kaleem Khan
* Livia Labate
* Jess McMullin
* Matthew Milan
* Danny Muller
* Greg Nudelman
* Adam Polanski
* Dave Sturtz
* Russ Unger
* Dan Willis
* Stuart Woods

I hope I'm not forgetting anyone; please let me know if I did! Thanks
again (sniff); you guys rock.


PERMALINK
http://louisrosenfeld.com/home/bloug_archive/2008/04/im_grateful.html

LINKS
[1] http://iasummit.org
[2] http://rosenfeldmedia.com

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