brightly colored food

I had to admit a tiny ping of melancholy when Molly mentioned that she was heading to the Microsoft Social Computing Symposium. The irony here is that I’m up here in Seattle right now, working with engineers in our Kirkland office.

Between the people I met at IBM Research, grad school, conferences, and then all the papers read, I recognized most of the names on the list. There are times I miss the chummy, heady world of academia: when a good design gets thoughtlessly overruled in a design review, when there’s no time to really think about a design problem, when the folder of articles I’d like to read becomes a dumping ground.

That said, I love making products that people actually use. As much as I enjoyed school, it’s just practice for the real thing. Furthermore, and sadly, the seepthrough from the knowledge produced in the academic world at conferences, symposia, etc. into the world of digital product design is pretty insignificant. Few academics really speak the language of design, and, thrilling as I found a lot of that to be now, I generally find myself more inspired by elegant design solutions (even if from completely different domains) and conversation with other designers.

This post isn’t meant to end on a sad or bitter note. Academia’s a great place, and school was a home for a while, and people often have conflicted and complex feelings about formative places. I read The Corrections when I was back in Iowa a couple weeks ago. Same idea.