Cross-posted to the IDPo8 Blue Blog.

A word from Bill Buxton (with my emphasis):

“The risk of someone stealing your ideas, or making a fool of yourself, by sharing your ideas before they are done is NOTHING compared to the certainty of ending up with IMPOVERISHED RESULTS if you don’t.”

In the aftermath of project two, I have to comment on the fact that it felt like everyone was guarding some huge secret idea that was supposed to be the next big million dollar extravaganza. I literally had no idea what people were doing until the presentations, and that kind of saddened me. And it’s really frustrating that there are people in this program that think we’re competing to be the “best designer” out of everyone.

I realize some students want their ideas to be “pure” from the outside influence of their peers (mentors and professors excepting). But it seems to me that’s the wrong sort of motivation for this program. I mean, we’re not learning from the professors and mentors only, we’re learning from each other.

Maybe this is happening already and I’m not seeing it because I’m too busy running around being an AI and keeping on top of classes. And that’s fair. But in case it isn’t happening, I’d just like to say that I think it would be really cool if there were more inter-group discussions about projects in general.