Symposium Planning Seminar II Recap from 1/10/2013

Thanks to Meg Shea for this recap!

Summary of USP Seminar on Symposium Planning 1/10/13:

A group of Unis got together on 1/10/13 to discuss the symposium.  We started off breaking into smaller groups and discussing the readings given over break.  After those discussions, we brought everyone back together as a large group to talk/plan further.  Out of that large group, we had some ideas for presentations and some ideas about how presentations could be organized:

New Presentation Ideas, or Things to be Incorporated into Other Presentations:

• Chisom Amalunweze – The new “Everyperson”, how will genetic mixing affect our future?  What will this mean politically? For disease?  This could work well as a panel or group presentation
• Maryanne Henderson – Some presentation on how technology is distributed between the rich and poor.
• Irene Liu – Could possibly genotype people for the gene that explains your predisposition to risk-taking.
• Maggie Love – What is the future of books/eBooks?
• Silvia Seceleanu – Could  do something with wikileaks/national security strategy documents? This could possibly tie into a panel of “What Ifs?” where certain events were examined and possible outcomes/futures discussed.  For example, what possible repercussions could the death/assassination/murder of Osama bin Laden cause?
• Meg Perry – When do you know you’ve reached the future?

Comments on Existing Presentation Ideas:

• We thought Brian and Ana’s presentations might work well together, exploring the concepts of the future in different cultures.  Furthermore, are there cultures where the Future as a concept does not exist at all?
• Won-Ji’s and Maggie’s ideas could work well together as an examination of the future of creativity.  How will music and books be created and distributed as technology advances?  What about human attention span, is that changing?  If so, will that have an effect?
• Ben’s idea of an interactive Game of Life is really intriguing, and could either be a presentation or a break between presentations.\
• Irene’s idea is similarly really fun and could be a presentation or break between.

Comments on Organization of Whole Symposium:

•   We like the idea of “breaks” in between presentations where things are happening.  For example, Maya, Wanyi, Nikki, and Meg’s dance would be a nice break.
• We also like the idea of having a series of presentation and then bringing the presenters together in a panel to talk about how the presentations relate to each other.  We want the presentations to talk to each other, rather than be distinct.  The people associated with each of the 3 Topic Ideas (Future Perfect, Winning the Future, and Used and Abuses of the Future) could have a fair amount of say in how they organized their session.
• Having time capsules of some sort could be cool.
• Having images on the walls of different visions of the future from the past could be fun.  This would be similar to what Carlos provided for us at the retreat.

Favorite Quotation of the Night:

“I would be a protein in your dance”