The evening's sole event was one free drink and lots of free hotel food and an abundance of schmoozing in the 'design fair' (vendors of all sorts: paper, software,etc.)...

Highlight points:
Lindsey:
- Rural Studio, Aburn Univ's graduate student architecture program established by Sambo Mockbee, tries to encourage the "citizen-architect" by teaching these themes:
1. Collective Practices (working in groups)
2. Advocacy empowers design (a reason to make things)
3. Diversity = Creativity (unusual/new solutions from variety of sources)

- check out the site: www.ruralstudio.com

Bielenberg:
- wanted to create a 'Rural Studio' for graphic design - Project M

- teaches notion of more spontaneous creativity (a la Eduard de Bono) as opposed to the traditional heuristic method: from the gut - "Think wrong"

Swett:
- design is integral to democratic rule - look at how founding fathers approached the problem of establishing our society's governing bodies

- designers + architects have qualities necessary to be public leaders - ability to serve a client, to develop consensus, creativity, articulate goals, define pathes to reach them, creating new value from limited circumstances, etc.

- however, leadership is about people NOT design

(aside: what is "critical path management"?)

I first heard this term in the Air Force. It basically means the shortest distance from a to b. Obviously, with management they are talking about processes and people, but critical path is what project managers use to determine what needs to happen when and what is interrelated to get the project done on time. I like to think of how they build sidewalks at universities. First the architect comes in and makes sidewalks where they think they should go based on design, asthetics and cost parameters. This is not always the critical path. Once the students arrive, they start cutting their own dirt paths through campus to get to where they need to go. This is critical path, at least in my mind.