Rants and Ramblings: random commentary about culture, media, politics, technology and whatnot.

shining stars

I had better luck picking panels on Monday. There were still a few that I didn’t find useful, and one that was so crowded I couldn’t get into the room. BUT two sessions yesterday were fantastic.

The first — and possibly my favorite or second-favorite of the conference — was danah boyd’s interview with Henry Jenkins, which covered everything from participatory fan culture to youths and social networking. It was interesting and mind-expanding, and I felt like I was back in grad school. As Rob pointed out, it’s a perfect introduction to what CCT is all about.

Updated: A recent two-part entry on Jenkins’ blog about participatory culture and participatory democracy delves into some of the ground covered in this session.

I also really enjoyed Luke Wroblewski’s session about design patterns. I’d had a vague understanding of them before, and in a well-paced, info-rich 25 minutes, he managed to explain how they work, suggest how they might be implemented and give a really interesting example of design patterns at work. I really hope he posts his slides. Updated: The presentation slides are now up at his blog.

Related Links:

• Functioning Form: Design Patterns: An Introduction
• Yahoo! Design Pattern Library
• Designing Interfaces
• Patterns in Interaction Design