IxDA DFW Reinstatement Meetup Summary

So last night I show up at Champps and go over to the hostess and explain to her I told a bunch of people to show up there; I have no idea how big the crowd would be but that we'd get a table when there were enough. About that time, Adam Polanski (@adamtheia) walks up to the hostess station and I'm standing next to him.

The hostess says to me, "I think one of you is already here."

"Where is he?"

"Not sure."

"Can you tell me what he looks like?"

"Well, he's…." she looks at me and Adam, "thinner. He is tall. He's handsome. He is wearing a nice shirt."

So he was the opposite of me. I never found the mystery man. Oh well. I hope he burns in hell.

Anyway, the meeting was great. We came up with good ideas to re-energize IxDA DFW. We all agreed we belong to other professional organizations (e.g. STC, UPA, etc.) so we wanted a format that didn't duplicate what we saw at those meetings. We came up with doing on-site meetings at places where interaction design takes place and get a tour, lecture, problem solving workshop, or whatever at that location. Here are some of the ideas people had:

Bass Hall
Holocaust Museum
DART
Toll Authority
Walking tour of Fort Worth with a city planner
woot's headquarters
Botanic gardens
Miller brewing
American Airlines
DFW Airport (who is currently redesigning terminals)
Sabre's usability labs
Photo studio in the warehouse district

Somebody let me know if I missed one.

Adam Polanski has the idea of creating a t-shirt that looks like a concert tour shirt with a list of the places we visit. I think that will rock.

The next meeting will be a social event where we try to get more people involved and committed. When we book the on-site visits we want a solid number. The next meeting will take place in October. The location and date are forthcoming. We are going to kick off the on-site meetings in December.

If you haven't, cart your butt over to the IxDA DFW official site and register and then affiliate yourself with the DFW chapter and then watch for new announcements. This article will also be cross-posted there.