Laurent Haug, fondateur des conférences Lift présente le programme de ce premier jour de l'édition 2009 de Lift à Genève.

The next Lift@home will happen next Monday (Nov 9) in Geneva. Organized by Nicolas Nova, the event will be about "Urban informatics".

Future "networked and digital cities" have popped up on the radar for sometime now. This is a topic we address on a regular basis at Lift from a various set of viewpoints (art, design, architecture, digital services) and with a long-term vision. This time, we would like to explore what could be the implication of urban informatics in the city of today

Speakers

• Nicolas Nova, Researcher at Lift lab / Lift conference
• Fabien Girardin, Researcher at Lift lab
• Boris Beaude, Adjoint Scientifique at Choros / EPFL
• Pascal Wattiaux, IT consultants for sport events at PW Sport Ltd.

More information (and free registration)

Beside team communications, this blog features posts written by community members. If you have a Lift account you can also share your thoughts and ideas by clicking here. Here is a post about the World Usability Day, an event organized by Florian Egger in Geneva.

World Usability Day was founded by the Usability Professionals' Association to ensure that the services and products important to life are easier to access and simpler to use.

Join us on Thursday 12 November at Hotel Bristol, Geneva, to participate in World Usability Day 2009.

This year, the event will have two parts:
1. Usability training courses in the afternoon
* How to integrate User-Centered Design into your projects by Mary Mooney, MBA (Telono)
* How to set up and run your usability tests by Florian Egger, PhD (Telono)

2. Presentations by invited speakers and our traditional networking apéro.
* Achieving Usability with Interaction Design Patterns by Ahmed Seffah, PhD (EHL/UNIL)
* TRIL : Technology Research for Independent Living by Claire Somerville, PhD (TRIL Centre)
* Apéro sponsored by Telono

Cost
Training (course materials included):
* Regular price: CHF 240
* Student price: CHF 100
Guest Speaker Presentations & Apéro: FREE

More Information & Registration

Lift09 speaker Dan Hill (video) wrote a blog post an essay following a walk in Geneva, touching on the story of the city through its architecture. A very nice way to rediscover the city I live in, and see it with fresh eyes.

Notes on Geneva. A Walk.

As noted previously, I managed to escape for a brisk walk around Geneva during the Lift09 conference, heading from the conference venue down towards the Musée d’Art Moderne et Contemporain (MAMCO) and back. This was the first time I’d done such a drift aided by the iPhone’s GPS+Google-driven 'certainties', and it worked well, enabling me to embark in broadly the right direction, veering off aimlessly onto the most interesting-looking streets whilst reacquainting myself with the optimum route every now and then; a kind of waggle dance back and forth, following invisible satellites.

It's my first time in Geneva, and I'd definitely love to hook up with some of you and do some sightseeing while here.

I saw a couple of things I'd love to do while here, the main one being a visit to CERN.

(The Patek Philippe museum ranks pretty high up there too.)

Any other ideas? What are the must-do things while here?

And where can I find the best chocolate to bring back home? :)

I arrived in Geneva about an hour ago and proceeded to withdraw way too much money from the ATM by mistake (darn exchange rates).

Hotel Capitole initial reactions: Friendly staff. Room smells of old cigarettes (or mold; I hope it's old cigarettes), and (surprise, surprise) the WiFi doesn't work! (Will hotels figure out how to provide Internet connectivity properly in our lifetimes?)

Oh yeah, and it's a good thing I checked about the time difference (I live in the UK) because there's an hour difference. Even though my iPhone is set to automatically change timezones it didn't pick it up.

And did I mention I picked up a lovely little Asus Eee PC at the duty free in Gatwick. I can't wait to charge this baby up and play with it a bit more. Ah, and I've added yet another charger to my rapidly growing collection (it's a good thing I've gotten into the habit of carrying along a multi-socket extension cable whenever I travel; that way you only need one adapter at the end).

So I'm at the hotel and I have no idea where the conference is -- or whether Thomas Vander Wal's ticket has transferred to my name correctly (apparently it has but I don't see my name listed in the attendee list.) No big deal, I'm sure we'll get it sorted tomorrow.

Which reminds me, I gotta stop writing this and get back to finding out where I need to go and what's happening tomorrow (I decided to come down on a whim yesterday afternoon!)

Oh and I've got oodles of emails to reply to about Singularity. What is Singularity? Why, it's the world's first large-scale online web conference :) We just announced it yesterday and I've been getting some amazing feedback on it ever since.

Looking forward to meeting some of you, seeing more of Geneva, and experiencing the conference tomorrow :)

Dear Buddies and all

I am reposting this as a direct request for couch surfing. Here are my reasons:

1. There is something about hotels that is just plain wrong. They can be great, but they can be so so bad. And the carbon footprint aint pretty. Plus I feel slightly guilty about heading off without my family and hence cannot allow myself to stay at the kind of hotel that might make it worthwhile.

2. I would prefer to meet local folk, delegates or friends of delegates, if possible. Chance's are it will be much more of a cultural exchange than I'm going to get with the concierge

3. I'm riding a great wave, I'm in the "green room" as we say in Australia, but I'm not rich yet.

4. I would prefer to enjoy reciprocity beyond the basic exchange of cash, by way of professional help I can offer, cooking breakfast, offering you and yours our guestroom in Brighton and that sort of thing.

5. I will out most of the time anyway!

Sooooo... dear Buddies and others. Can anyone put me up from 6-9 Feb? Either a local delegate or one of your lovely friends who might want to join the positive web of friends we share all around the world in Australia, Europe, UK, USA, Shanghai, New Zealand, Peru etc etc.

Any couch/blow up mattress will do.

After LIFT, I am going to head up for some fresh mountain air by rail. Any advice on that most welcome too.

Bestest to you all!

Libby

...........

Hi All

Have just been offered a press pass for LIFT08 and am looking at travel and acommodation now, one week before.

Love the idea of adopt an new attendee and will be taking the advice offered here.

Anyone want to offer advice any (last minute) tips re: budget accommodation and/or travel from Brighton,UK?

Thursday 8 November is World Usability Day!

To celebrate this worldwide event, Telono, a Geneva-based user experience consultancy, is happy to invite you to some after-work drinks in one of Geneva's trendiest lounge bars!

Please register via the link below:
http://wud-geneva.eventbrite.com/

Hope to see some of you there!
Florian.-