Me: Weathering 2020. Ambivalent about 2021.
2020 has obviously been a very different year—I’m grateful my situation has been largely uneventful, somewhat repetitive throughout. I’ve cherished working from home and not missing the daily commute, learning how to bake sourdough bread, spending more time with my family, and gradually doing up the house.
I did break up the monotony by attending several conferences and workshops this year, namely SofaConf and Primer (my post-event ramblings here), then Interaction Design Day, which I helped co-organise with many other talented local leaders. The two workshops I attended during Primer conf—SystemViz and Layers—opened up new perspectives for me on speculative design and systems thinking. I was also fortunate to be in Milan for Interaction20 (again, post-event ramblings from me), before the lockdown happened, and I will attend Interaction21 fully remote in February.
Locally through IxDA London, Jason, Tanya, Jill, Igor, Giuseppe and I have organised 10 events this year, covering topics from Interaction20, systems thinking, strategic design, art and IxD, somewhat-smart and autonomous things, and designing for an uncertain future. We even managed to maintain our annual movie night run despite going virtual. A few weeks ago, a small group of attendees joined us for our final event of 2020 – a quiet, end-year reflection of the year and some smart guesses towards what we’ll face in the coming months and years – a nice way to wave the year goodbye.
