2nd BIRD Conference

This is just a little 'field report' about my first and probably last cooperation with one of the big German Radical Constructivists, I adore since I have studied sociology in 1996. This paradigm was also the basis for my pre-degree, not in the domain of sociology, but in the area of design where I tried to develop a 'constructivist methodology for service design'.
I was very lucky when Michael Erlhoff invited me to conduct the workshop together with Siegfried J. Schmidt. In preparation, I dug out my old pre-degree documentation and my old books which were indeed a bit dusty. I started to prepare a power point presentation as introduction about the basic theses of Radical Constructivism and its linkage to design research, while Mr. Schmidt sent simulatniously his text via e-mail which should become the basis of his workshop presentation. What a bad surprise! The subtitle was 'Farewell to Constructivism'! While I stuck in the middle of this paradigm, Mr. Schmidt already left it behind. There was no time enough to catch up 13 years of discourse! Moreover, I began to sweat thinking about four hours workshop and not knowing anything about the participants: Students, graduates? Could they run a four hour discussion without any additional interventions or offers? Indeed they could. The time frame was even to short. They also bridged flexibly the gap between constructivism and post-constructivism which S.J. Schmidt now describes as 'philosophy of narratives and discourses'. With this alternative, he claimed to distinguish the constructivist weaknesses like e.g. the unreflected term 'construction', the subjectivism or the missing link to action or practice. If someone is interested in the workshop discussion, some 'flash lights' are briefly summarized in the attached document - which is unfortunately in German. Use it and continue discussing!