HKU – Page 2 – Leapfroglog

Week 152

This was the last week of my stay in Copenhagen. Coming Sunday it’s back to the Netherlands. As usual leaving feels bittersweet. There certainly things I’ll miss about being here, not in the least our lovely apartment in one of the city’s nicest neighborhoods. And the many great cafés. But there’s a lot to be said for being in Utrecht, too. I have so much stuff going on there, it got a bit tiring towards the end managing it all remotely.

So this week…

I went over to Malmö to meet with Dan Gärdenfors at TAT and with Jonas Löwgren at MEDEA. In both cases there is reason for follow-up; it looks like there might be a TAT-Hubbub concept video about pervasive play and mobile UIs on the horizon, and I might come back to MEDEA to do some teaching.
I had a marathon Skype session on wednesday. Talking to all my students who are now nervously prepping for their mid-terms. As well as sessions with Claudia and Karel in preparation of the urban games festival in Leidsche Rijn we’re assisting with.
I lectured (and ran a little playtest of an audience game I’ve been tinkering with) at CIID. Look for a full report and annotated slides at the Hubbub blog, soon.

And now, it’s time to do a few more touristy things and then pack, and head home. The next weeknote will be Dutch flavored again.

Week 150

That’s a nice number, 150. One-hundred-and-fifty. I like the sound of that. So what’s been going on this week?

I hopped on a plane last Sunday to the Netherlands for This happened – Utrecht #6. Wouldn’t miss out on my own party, of course. And I’m so glad I didn’t, because we had awesome talks by Berend & Sanneke, Matt, Sebastiaan and Keez, plus a surprise appearance over Skype by Mr. Buxton. The room was packed, interaction designers of all stripes were chatting away beforehand, during the break and afterwards over drinks. I had a blast and judging by the reports that have been coming in, so have many others.

Before heading back to the Netherlands the next day I managed to squeeze in a few meetings. One of those was for PLAY which, now that I’ve wrapped up project Tako,¹ is ready to move into its next phase. We’re planning to produce several playful ‘things’ for a number of cultural events and tie them all together with a meta-game. It’s a matter of getting all the right people on board now and getting going as fast as possible. So I’ve a list of folks to contact in the coming days.

I think I broke a personal record for the number of Skype sessions in one day on Wednesday, with back to back talks with my HKU students as well as a planning session with Karel and Julius for an urban games workshop they’ll be running tomorrow in Leidsche Rijn.²

And today, after spending Ascension day on a couch, plugging away at email and to-dos, I’ll be making the trip across the Øresund to Malmö in a bus full of makers and interaction designers to attend ThoughtMade, which I’m really excited about; an exhibition and talks including a candy machine controlled by Twitter. What more can one ask for?

I need to write a report on that one at the Hubbub blog soon. [↩]
A new development area of Utrecht I’d say is the closest thing to a real-world Sim City project that I ever saw. [↩]

Week 148

So, the first full week of working in Copenhagen is behind me. I’ve mostly been working from our apartment in Nørrebro. Which is fine for now but I am looking forward to getting out more, and maybe doing some coworking here and there. Wouldn’t want to turn into a real hermit here.

Let me have a look at my calendar, what’s been going on?

Ah, so I had a meeting with Martin and Andreas of Social Square (at the very charming Granola, where they serve very tasty mixed juices, by the way). We’ll be doing a multiple day workshop to look at their design process and discover ways to use play as a tool for working with clients. The session is scheduled to take place in a few weeks. I just need to develop a more detailed plan for the session.

I crossed the Øresund on tuesday evening to attend the Nordic Game Indie Night, which was organized by the Copenhagen Game Collective (whose Darkroom Sex Game I’ve blogged about here before). There were six games on display, all from Scandinavian creators. There was free beer. And there were a few talks, of vastly differing depth and entertainment value. The setup was nice though: the games’ creators talked about each others work. The only problem was that many weren’t very articulate, and shied away from actually criticizing games. Some, though, like the guys from D-Pad Studio, really took the time to analyze a game on different levels. Others, like Cactus, seemed more interested in drinking beer. However, Cactus’s game Tuning was my favorite of the bunch, for its sheer mind-fuck awesomeness.

Apart from this, I’ve continued work on Layar, had another round of mentoring chats with my students and made some more preparations for This happened – Utrecht #6. We opened registration for the latter on monday, by the way, and were fully booked in 58 seconds (and had some server wonkiness in the process). Crazy, crazy stuff.

Week 147

Well, the volcano did mess with my flight. Despite that, I am still writing this from an apartment on Birkegade in CPH, where I’ll be spending the coming 5-6 weeks. Here’s what my workspace looks like:

Traveling here took up the whole of wednesday. We went by train; Utrecht to Duisburg, Duisburg to Hamburg, Hamburg to Copenhagen. They put our train on a freaking boat for a bit. That was different.

So I’ve been settling in. Getting a bike, reconnecting to old haunts, that sort of thing (I was here for a year in 2007-2008).

Apart from that, I’ve been taking care of some last bits of work for Layar, doing some prep for This happened – Utrecht #6 (registration opens Monday!) and talking to my HKU students. I also had a first meeting with a group of MediaLAB Amsterdam students who are creating a playful urban projection for ISEA2010 in Dortmund.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a city to explore.

Week 145

It’s been a shorter week than usual due to Easter (which was a nice long weekend with friends and family, by the way). I’ve divided up my time equally between work at Layar – which for me has entered its last phase; a few more weeks to go and then I’ll be handing over – and “other stuff”, being:

Some prep work for This happened – Utrecht #6. The line-up is shaping up nicely and we have an awesome sponsor again. Announcements will be made next monday.
An appearance at Visible Cities #03 which was all about urban games. I had the pleasure of sharing a table with Michiel, James and Juha; sharp folk all around. Some notes will probably find their way to the Hubbub blog soon.
Teaching at the HKU. Which can more or less be summed up by the tweet I posted afterwards: “Really pleased with the hands-on mentality of my design students. Feet in mud, head in clouds, as it should be.”
And now, on friday, some loose ends to tie up before the last weekend of my life as a twenty-something kicks off.

So there you go.

Week 144

In between the work I’ve been doing at Layar (which I can’t really tell you much about still, sadly) it’s been a relatively quiet week.

On monday I got my photo taken for this book on creative SMEs in Utrecht that I mentioned in the previous weeknotes. I had a chat with Lodewijk of Stekker Fest about the next phase of Tako and then headed off to Amsterdam for Mobile Monday #15. As is often the case with MoMo, I ended up half provoked – I find the views of Singularity people a little problematic – and half inspired – Booreiland and Tinker.it! had some fine design work to share. The best part was the pleasant dinner I had afterwards with Alexandra, Iskander and Peter.

On tuesday, after a day of hard graft at Layar I had a chat with Jeroen about Tako too. We’ve more or less figured out the organizational scheme we’ll need to push things forward so now it’s a matter of finding a few more people to help run it. We have a list.

Wednesday morning was spent at the HKU; chatting with several of my students about their progress. Compared to the ones I had last year, these guys are more hands-on and have all started building stuff already. That makes mentoring much easier. In the afternoon I spent some time at Waag Society talking to Ronald and Martijn about a 7scenes workshop we’ll be running on april 14. If you’re reading this, it might be of interest to you. Have a look.

Yesterday (thursday) and today are all about Layar again so not much to report there. Next week’s notes will discuss just four working days since it’s Easter here. I’m looking forward to a longish weekend catching up with friends and family. See you on the other side.

Week 143

I nearly forgot about last week’s notes even though I wasn’t even that busy. So here I am writing this on a sunday from the couch after having had a nice family brunch and with a La Chouffe close at hand. It’s all good.

Since this is a sunday I will keep it short and strictly chronological for once. Monday started off with a long interview for a book on Utrecht’s creative SMEs. This was followed by a meeting with Alexander and Ianus to evaluate the last This happened – Utrecht and make plans for the next one. On tuesday I visited the HKU for the first of what will become many conversations that I’ll have with my new group of students. Afterwards I hurried to Layar HQ for more design work, which basically took up the rest of the week (punctuated by a lunch with Alper about his trip to Austin and NYC and another one with James about the Urbanode project he is planning at VURB.) Laurens (of LouLou & Tummy fame) has joined us at Layar bringing a whole new dimension to the creative work being done there. It’s exciting to be part of that.

So there we are, a brief review of the week. Now if you don’t mind I have a Chouffe to quaff and a few 3voor12 Draait podcasts to listen to. Bring on week 144!

Week 141

It’s been a while since I spent time at my own desk in the Dutch Game Garden. It was nice to do this again yesterday, having the city right outside my door and kindred spirits such as FourceLabs upstairs. I wasn’t inside the whole time though, in the morning I had another chat at EKKO about Tako. And in the afternoon I headed to Leidsche Rijn accompanied by Julius to attend a workshop concerning Utrecht’s bid to become European capital of culture.

I kicked off the week with two days of work at Layar (now on my way to Amsterdam in a diverted train for my third and last day of the week there). I’ve been collaborating closely with some of the engineers to shape some upcoming new… stuff. Things are developing at such a high pace that it’s a real challenge to keep up. It feels like being on top of a rodeo bull sometimes, but in a good way. This means I need to be pragmatic and fast with developing and documenting designs.

In between, I’ve posted a long overdue project description to the Hubbub site for Mega Monster Battle Arena. It’s this quirky project – a cross between a game and an opera – that I was involved with last year. It feels good to finally have it out there for me and others to point to.

Other in-between stuff includes a final review of several graduation project proposals. I need to provide feedback by the start of next week, and then I’ll switch to coaching a handful of students.

The week will be topped off with what is sure to be a fun friday at the BUROPONY studio. I’ll do some work on their site, and in return have them do some additional work on the Hubbub brand. Scratching each other’s backs, that’s how small creative enterprises flourish.

Week 140

Is it march already? Time flies.

I’m on my way to Amsterdam again. Around 10 hours earlier, I was in a train in the opposite direction, coming back from Visible Cities #02. This turned out to be an evening well spent. Some nice examples of AR projects were shown but in particular Ole Bouman of the NAi’s perspective on the changes architecture will go through under the pressure of new technologies was enlightening. He came across as both critical and knowledgeable, passionate about the field with a solid grounding in its history. Inspiring. Finally spending an evening in TrouwAmsterdam – eating a burger and drinking a beer in the space where printing presses used to run – was another plus.

I’m at Layar a lot this week again. Still can’t tell you too much about what’s going on there. But it continues to be both a challenging and fun engagement, so that’s good.

Apart from this, I spent a day brainstorming new game concepts for one of the Netherlands’s big lotteries, with which they’re hoping to reach a younger generation. It’s always a challenge to immerse oneself in a new context that fast, but it went well. Lots of nice ideas came up and the workshop was facilitated in a tight manner. Participating in these things always results in useful insights for when I run my own sessions.

I do feel slightly exhausted from all this, not in the least because what should have been a two hour review of proposals on monday morning with my students turned into a three-and-a-half hour marathon session. They’ve had to submit their graduation project proposals now, so I’ll soon sit down and do a final assessment of them. Then they’re good to go.

And so will I.

Week 139

The previous week seamlessly flowed into this one when on saturday I sat down to finalize the deck of slides for Raum Schiff Erde. On sunday morning, I grabbed a train and five hours later I was in Stellwerk, the conference’s lovely venue. Kind, clever people, a nice relaxed and friendly atmosphere, interesting talks, all in all a good event. There is more about what I talked about on the Hubbub blog. It wrapped up with some music and then we were off to dinner. Turned in late and got up early the next morning for another train. I don’t think I’ve ever stayed this short in a hotel, didn’t even manage to squeeze in breakfast.

On the train ride, I managed to review all of the graduation project proposals of my students. These were first drafts, next week they’ll need to submit a final version after one more round of reviews. Some have lovely, curious topics. (A satirical newsgame, anyone?) I’ll share some of them with you sometime soon.

I had a few hours to take a breather when I got back to Utrecht and then it was off to the HKU Academy Theatre to prepare for This happened – Utrecht #5. This was the first edition of the new year, and also the first in a new venue, which made it kind of scary. But everything turned out great. (Read a few reports to get a sense of the evening, if you’re interested.) We had possibly the best series of talks so far (although, of course, they’ve all been great) and a great crowd. I’m already looking forward to #6.

As if two of these challenges weren’t enough, on wednesday it was D-day for project Tako (which is part of a bigger plan that is locally known simply as PLAY). I presented the results of my research to a room full of cultural event organizers, games developers and assorted luminaries of the Utrecht city scene. I managed to wrap up the sizable stack of sketches only hours before in a final adrenaline-fueled design sprint. The responses were encouraging, so it seems we can start exploring the next stage. But before this I’ll need to annotate the deck of slides, include all the feedback and then we might have something we can publish.

In between and after, it’s been more work at Layar. I’ve been digging into the specs for several prototypes – lots of sketching there, too – forcing myself to consider multiple paths. Some of the output has been handed over to engineers. I can’t wait to see the results of their development efforts.

Even though all of this is more fun than is legal, I can’t wait for a work free weekend, too.