Here’s a quick and dirty run down of the events I saw at the conference.

I missed the first evening party, got to SF a little late, so took some folks to Manora Thai down in the SOMA area, mmmmm, deep fried soft shell crab.

The morning kicked off with Hans Rosling of Gapminder. This guy gives a great presentation with one of his messages being, there are NO gaps between the Western world and the Third world. Why? Public access to data has closed down these gaps. His website and visually driven data demonstrate this. Most of his presentation was based off the work done on his website so I would check it out. Because all of his talk was around world statistics like, population, infant mortality, etc…he did throw in for us designers, “…design increases the bandwidth of the optic nerve…” thus, when information is “designed well”, then its easier to take in. duh, but I liked how it he put it and how it meshed with his presentation.

Richard Seymour was 2nd at bat. His talk was around this project they are doing to help Virgin “Galactic” visualize space travel. He showed a highly produced movie with Space Odyssey like imagery. Pretty impressive and for those who dream of going to space, then this was it for you. But the thing that most stuck in my mind was his build up for the Virgin presentation itself. He told a story around how Seymour/Powell won a job with the British Rail but never having done any work in that field. Yes they have done motorcycles and bicycles, but nothing that big. Basically, he told a the board of directors that even though they had NO experience in this field, they had the answer that would make for a winning design. It was all about the romance, pride and heritage of trains in the past. Like the thought of traveling through space, there’s a certain fantasy and imagery that come with traveling via rail. He would bring back the delight and thrill of big things. It was this visual imagery, that he put into the heads of the board and the notion that they would create a design, that would make their sons, dream of being conductors of their new train. He mentions, the degree of design, thrill, excitement is what raises the bar and not technology.

Ironically, the next talk had the tech, but not the design. Martin Eberhard and Barney Hatt anchored the morning to talk about THE subject of the event: SUSTAINABILITY. This version was about how to do a real, electric sports car. Tesla Motors is the project. They went on and on about how this was a technical breakthrough and how different this car is. This is probably true. But when it comes to the design of car, I’d have to say…missed opportunity. Look at the website and tell me if you disagree, this sports car, sorta looks like, any other old sports car, especially of the Lotus lineage. The speakers went on about how they didnt want this to look like a futuristic, tech geek electric car. Bill Moggridge even suggested they put concepts on the walls for Martins friends and family to judge. Oh boy, any better way to bring on middle of the road? Just to be sure, I had to ask my car design friends to see what they said. “hey did you see the Tesla presentation…” and the response was prune face all around. OK, look at their website, its a nice sports car, but its just such an expected design. I’d like to see the first real ELECTRIC sports car, look like something, I’ve not seen before. This doesn’t mean it has to be some geeked out space odyssey…shit I’m not a car designer so who the hell’s gonna listen to me! Oh wait, if I listen to Richard, then I guess I CAN design a car. Well the Tesla certainly doesn’t capture the romance of a silent running speedster to me.

Now that’s what I’m talkin about!