A CONVERSATION about the FUTURE of formerly EPIC Europe. Read more here
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Post-Barcelona Meeting Info120 participants from twelve European countries and the US came to Barcelona for our first EPIC-Europe meeting of its kind this May. It was a lively and inspiring event. Many thanks again to the student volunteers, our sponsor, to our host Elisava – and to all the participants! Find below the programme outline, notes from the workshops, the list of attendees, some pictures, and remarks on next steps.
Session notes All three workshop sessions started with either short presentations or a panel discussion, continued with small group discussions, and ended with bringing back the results to the plenary. The first session, Mapping Ethnographic Practice in Europe, opened with short presentations from Sara Forell (Piece of Pie, Spain), Heather McQuaid (PDD, UK), Alice Peinado (Parsons Paris, France), Heinrich Schwarz (Independent, Germany), Michele Visciola (Experientia, Italy). See the raw notes on the results from group discussions here. The second session, Evolving Industry-Academia Collaboration, started with brief provocations from Lena Blackstock (University of Dundee, UK), Gordon Hush (Glasgow School of Art, UK), Dörte Töllner (Point-Blank-International, Germany), Dr. Simon Roberts (ReD Associates, Denmark). The notes from the subsequent group discussions are here. The third session, Ethnography and the Corporation, began with a discussion by industry representatives Tommaso Colombino (Xerox Research Centre, France), Truls Erik Johnsen (Telenor Group, Norway), Tini Reiter (BBVA, Spain), Tom Robinson (Swisscom, Switzerland), Jörn Schulz (Deutsche Telekom/ T-Labs, Germany). Group discussion notes are here. Attendees Attendees came from Sweden, Denmark, Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, France, Scotland, England, Ireland, Italy, Spain. Backgrounds were quite diverse, including design, anthropology and business, and so were current work environments – people worked at research, design and consulting agencies, with corporate employers, as independents and academics. A few impressions 
You can view more pictures here, if you are on Flickr please join the group and add some more. We are in the midst of pulling together a video of the event. Some reactionsHave a read about what others say about the event:
- from Fabian Klenk, Useeds, Germany: http://uxtogo.wordpress.com/2012/05/15/epic-europe-network-meeting-2012/
- from Juan Luis Chulilla, Online & Offline, Spain (in Spanish): http://www.onlineandoffline.net/en/una-breve-cronica-del-evento-epiceurope/
- from Lena Blackstock, U. Dundee, UK: http://www.lenacorinna.com/epic-europe-a-reflection-euroepic-
- from Anna Wojnarowska, Experientia, Italy: http://www.experientia.com/blog/short-report-on-epic-europe-a-conference-on-ethn\ography-research-in-industry/
- from Jorge Rodriguez, AlgoBueno Studio, Spain: http://algobuenobcn.wordpress.com/2012/05/13/epic-europe-ethnography-in-motion/
Next steps As discussed at our Saturday morning brunch, there is strong interest in a follow-up event next year and in establishing a European network of ethnographic practitioners in industry. We have now started to think about the requirements for an internet platform that will allow all of us to communicate and organize ourselves. Come back here for news on the platform soon. Post-Barcelona meet-ups … have taken place so far in Munich and Berlin (read about it here – a more detailed report by the organizers will follow soon). Let us know of any others. Talk to you soon!
