A related anecdote: ASU held Emerge2013 (http://emerge2013.asu.edu http://emerge2013.asu.edu) a few or so ago. There were some workshops that ran from midweek

A related anecdote: ASU held Emerge2013 (http://emerge2013.asu.edu http://emerge2013.asu.edu) a few or so ago. There were some workshops that ran from midweek to the weekend, and on the last day there were some workshop presentations, talks, festivities. It was quite fun (I was in a workshop). Sterling is ASU's "Visionary in Residence." http://csi.asu.edu/csi/introducing-csi-visionary-in-residence-bruce-sterling/ http://csi.asu.edu/csi/introducing-csi-visionary-in-residenc... He gave the closing talk of the conference. It was pretty interesting, for two reasons. One, I learned about Vaclav Havel. Two, Sterling called out the conference for being (if I recall correctly) a bit too self-absorbed and navel-gazy. That is, while it was fun and no doubt interesting to the attendees, what practical value did it generate? I may be recalling the details wrong, but the essence of it was that while he thanked ASU for putting on this grand show he was also willing to poke a stick at it and question its value, question whether it worked in a notable way. I think in a way he missed the point (or a point), and perhaps had the wrong expectations about the conference, but I'm glad people are willing to stand up and push people to question he things they are doing. [edit: Just started listening to this Berlin video. "Diegetic prototypes". He's big on that; used that same term in his Emerge2013 talk.)