I, along with my classmate Thalith Nasir, have started a discussion group at school and it is going quite well. We meet every other week for about an hour and a half to discuss a variety of topics related to HCI. In a interdisciplinary field like HCI, if you look hard enough you can always pull some insight or lesson from any topic.
At each meeting two group members are given five minutes apiece to present their topic and kick off the discussion. Some members choose to present some of their current work for critique, discuss tough class assignments, or introduce the rest of the group to an elective that nobody else is taking. Doing it this way, we have gotten to discuss topics ranging from multi-touch technology to visual color design to sculpture. See Burr Walker’s blog for some more.
Thalith and I started this group to continue cultivating a culture of sharing and openness in our program at IU, and it is something that we hope the industry will do more of. Many forums such as CHI and other conferences embrace this approach on a large and academic scale, but even individual schools, programs, and business can greatly benefit from taking the time to tap into and share the wealth of knowledge within organizations.
