North American Tour – Day 8 - Second Day of Workshop

These events took place on Sunday 29 April 2007

I woke up early to give some finishing touches to my presentation and did present on time, this time. The particulars of this are in my other blog, once I have the time to update it...

All the workshop attendants went for lunch to some Vietnamese restaurant and then came back to the Convention Center to wrap up and finish. The required pictures were taken, some of which can be found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jose_in_glasgow/

After the workshop there was a networking event, but I almost missed it because I was supposed to be attending another course at 6 pm. However, before heading for the course I met the other people from Glasgow attending the conference, Roderick, John, and Steve, plus some former colleagues, Lorna and her boyfriend. I also met someone from Toshiba who, like me, is attending this conference for the first time, and also that guy from Samsung who was visiting Glasgow University and staying in my office a few months back.

After my course with Jonathan Grudin from Microsoft on the History of HCI, I joined the other people from Glasgow for dinner. Two ladies from Copenhagen University and the Technical University of Copenhagen joined us as well. It took 36 hours for one of them to make it to California from Mauritius! The evening was a little chilly, but still the weather was wonderful.

I arrived back to the hotel at around 10:30 pm. I was pretty tired but I still watched the news for a while... I mean, to keep my habit...

Oh! one more thing that left me pleasantly surprised. I met this guy from Mexico who works for the Universidad Tecnologica de la Mixteca (UTM) in Oaxaca, Mexico who told me that some of his students are taking part in the student competition during the conference. He insisted in telling me they are doing a wonderful job over there and on the high level they have achieved on the HCI field. Of course, I have my doubts, but I was nice to hear from this. Eventually, I saw to Mexican committee which I easily recognized.

I didn't know I should have brought presentation cards! Everyone is exchanging cards and a little piece of paper with my name on it doesn't have the same impact. There's also a job fair on Tuesday. I asked the guy from Microsoft who was in my workshop with whom should I talk about internships and he gave me some name... I need to do this because I was turned down from MSR, Cambridge last week :-(

I chatted briefly with Kate, Elnaz and Echo. Miss them all.