Back from EPIC2008 and the dust is settling. That post-conference euphoria, a sense of existential communitas created by being in seclusion amongst like minded individuals soon dissipates on return to the cube farm. I'm going to commit some more thoughts and feelings on the conference in a day or two but for now, some brief navel gazing on my own presentation.
I enjoyed giving it, not least because I enjoyed doing the research and I genuinely think it surfaced important issues relating to ageing and independent living, which are relevant from a wide range of perspectives (technology, policy, public health etc). However, it is also nice to present material you know well and feel passionate about (apologies for use of the most over-used and abused word in business).
However, it was difficult to boil the paper down into a short talk with slides. (Download epic_full_paper_v21.09.08.pdf – still not yet totally locked and loaded but near enough final draft). I think I managed to get the main points across, though I think the style that I adopted possibly got in the way of the paper's arguments a bit. I mean, and I do mean this, I didn't mean to be funny but I obviously used turns of phrase that people found funny – "sensing the sh=t of out the home" etc. As someone said, a bit of humour during a talk is like a spoonful of sugar. No doubt a good thing in moderation. I hope it didn't get in the way. If it did I think you'll find the full version less than a bundle of laughs and worthy of selection into the conference.
As i said on the day, if you want to look at the much longer report we wrote on conclusion on the project mid 2007 then please let me know (I'm not able to post it) and you might also be interested in the Transportation and Mobility related posts on the blog.
UPDATE: Full draft proceedings for the conference available here