The Doors 3 - On Matter conference asked a big question: how can information technology contribute to environmental sustainability? Twelve design workshops that took place in the same week as the conference aimed at putting the big question into practice by asking: so what can we do?

The conference's Launch Event on Tuesday 7 November compared the latest long-term eco-scenarios and meta-trends in information technology. These 'big stories' fed into the twelve workshops, which highlighted different aspects of the info-eco debate, ranging from possible applications of global satellite data to new forms of telematic communication.

THE MAIN ISSUE: MATTER

ON MATTER -- QUANTITY

To what degree and how can information and communication technologies REDUCE CONSUMPTION of environmental resources?

ON MATTER -- QUALITY

To what degree and how can information and communication technologies CHANGE OUR RELATIONSHIP between the 'mental' and the material'?

On Matter
Factor 20 cannot be reached through isolated technological solutions. Doors3 investigated social, cultural and political perspectives, with designers in the role of catalysts, pragmatic visionaries with an important role to create and visualize new ideas. We can all see how new technologies transform societies, but can we take a more pro-active perspective and ask ourselves how technological development might be driven from the needs that societies formulate.

Change the political approach

from

FROM TECHNOLOGY TO SOCIETY

to

FROM SOCIETIES TO TECHNOLOGIES

Intelligence in a connected system...
The question is not whether technology will save the world, not whether we should be optimistic or pessimistic. Let's think along different lines... Much of our traditional thinking is EXCLUSIVE: this is not that, here is not there, cyberspace is not physical space, etc. Virtual and physical reality are seen as two separate, sometimes even opposing realities. In order to initiate a fruitful thinking process, it may be better to attempt to augment our existing reality, resulting in one new space, one new reality with new properties. And aim our thinking and our design efforts at those new properties.

Can we make our (eco-)systems more intelligent? We can aim at providing feedback about the world's ecosystem in ways that stimulate and help us to adjust our patterns of behaviour. If we want to reflect on our actions, we can benefit from increased knowledge of their consequences. Can computer-supported communities leverage shared reflection and shared understanding? Can these communities bring people closer together and help formulate and achieve common goals? Can connectivity facilitate new social structures?

How might these notions affect our daily lives? On an individual level, on a local, or a global level? The workshops challenged thinkers and designers to show us what intelligence in a connected system might look and feel like...

So what did we do?
An international group of experts agreed on twelve subjects for twelve workshops. Workshop commissioners were assigned to define a clear-cut question for each workshop, to find moderators and experts to facilitate the workshop process, and to provide a initial workshop descriptions that could function as 'design briefs'.

Eventually, each workshop had some 15 participants that worked together for three days, resulting in an eight-minute presentation of the workshop's results that fed back into the conference on its final afternoon.

Participants found the workshops a very rewarding and inspiring experience. Much was learned in situations where people form different backgrounds jointly explored concepts and ideas. Everywhere, there were small groups around tables, people arguing, explaining their ideas using flip-overs and whiteboards, and, at the end of the day, participants typing in the day's results into the DOME discussion environment.