B.J. Fogg visits Aalborg University November 8nd

The author of "Persuasive Technology using the computer to change the way we think and do" visited Aalborg University November 8nd. I was luckily invited by Professor Per Hasle together with a dozen others.

It was an informal gathering where he talked a little and the audience had an oppurtunity to give B.J. Fogg questions in about two hours. My complete summary of the talks is downloadable here.- 3 pages. Afterwards he gave an TV-interview(in english) to the danish magazine "Computerworld". It has not appeared on their webpage yet.

First he told a little about the history of Persuasive Technology and his present interests. The field first started to become something after his book "Persuasive Technology" was published. But since then, the interest has been growing rapidly. The first Persuasive Technology conferences has been held and a scientific group is about to establish.
His interests is mobile persuasion because he believes, that it will be the platform for persuasion.

Second the invited audience got a chance to ask questions. I was first to ask him. Unfortunately did I only have the oppurtunity to ask one question and I did ask any of the questions, that partners of HANDS mailed me. I am sorry.
I asked BJ if he had a need for new softwaretools which support the ideas of Persuasive Technology. And he did. He pointed out a couple of areas, where new tools and functionalities(read the summary) was needed. I could name a couple more.

Afterwards the was a longer debate about ethics initialised by a question from Peter Øhrstrøm. B.J. Fogg was very concered with the ethical aspects of Persuasive Technology and was eager to promote knowledge about the "dark side" of Persuasive Technology.

Finally he was asked to point out challenges of the researchfield "Persuasive Technology" and he pointed to areas out: Ethics and methodology.

When the all-too-fast-session was over I managed to ask him to dedicate my copy of his book, "Persuasive Technology". He happily accepted the invitation.

Proposal Submission Party Meeting November 2nd - the summary

The Party Meeting did not have any agenda and therefore a normal summary is not possible to write. The main objective of the Party Meeting was to have a good time together without any need to make decisions, give talks or simular. Just be together and talk and drink a good glass of non-alcoholic wine.

Participants(named as they sit on the photo to the left):
Myself, Michael Sørensen(Principal of Egebakken) Søren Madsen (Departmentmanager at Egebakken),Kristian Wolling(teacher at Egebakken), Chairman Peter(Professor at Aalborg University), Susan Gulstad(teacher at Egebakken), Carsten Nielsen(teacher at Ullerødskolen), Kirsten Sams(teacher at Egebakken) and Lars Moltsen(Softwaredeveloper at Wirtek).


Personally speaking I had a wonderful night. MeetingParticipants was in a good mood, singing, talking and laughing. So did I.

From the perspective of the proposal the partnership was strengtend.

• The HANDS network seems even stronger. Socially too.
• The Partymeeting sang the first two HANDS songs, "Send a mail"(lyrics, graphics, melody) and "Congratulation"(lyrics, graphics). The lyrics was in version 1.0 and there are room for improvements. The lyrics are opensource and version 2.0 is wanted.
  
• The first HANDS speeddating-algoritm designed by Wirtek worked excellent. Everybody was talking to everybody!
  
• The song contest "Which part of the proposal is singable and with which melody?", was won by Søren Madsen, who discovered, that the proposals abstract could be singed on the danish nationalhymn "Der er et yndigt land". Listen and sing!
  
• A HANDS drink greeting was invented. See the photos.
  

Only one mistake found its place at the Party Meeting: the non-alcoholic wine was absolutely undrinkable!

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