I was at the Intel European Research & Innovation Conference on 21.09.2010 in Braunschweig, Germany. http://www.intel.com/corporate/education/emea/event/irc/deu/
It was different from those that I normally attend as it was not peer-reviewed or academic, but rather private and industrial. Keynote speakers were top guns of leading edge companies, research institutes and universities. Attendants were ‚friends’ of Intel who came to socially network. It had a different atmosphere.
The conference, for me, testified to the thesis of ‚mode-2 knowledge production’ in which researchers and experts from private and public institutions are gathered (temporarily) to work on ‚projects’ large or small. There appeared a strong belief in this kind of collaboration as the viable way to stay ahead. There was also a pressing desire to turn research into innovation. Perhaps this is not at all new, but it strikes me hard to realize the opportunities there are for design. Design (research) ‚of course’ has the potential to transform (technical) knowledge into meaningful products and services. Jonas was right, the lines between basic, applied and clinical research although not necessarily erased are joined together. Basic research is but a phase that is sometimes necessarily isolated within the design process, widely conceived.
I have also got the sense that design is hardly taken seriously. It is considered to be useful but secondary or peripheral to science and technology. This is also perhaps not new, but what I have found most troubling is that the term design is understood to be just user interface and user-centered design and nothing more. I have tried to explain the potential of design but have found myself not up to it. The failure was due to my inability to explain in terms understandable to my listeners. If nothing else, the conference has motivated me to articulate design more aptly, and more importantly it has confirmed the necessity of design theorizing/articulating.