Hello everyone,

If you've ever been to an IA Summit---or any conference, for that matter---you might have found yourself in that peculiar space, that mental limbo between raising your hand (or tentative finger) at the end of a really amazing, provocative, ground-breaking presentation and padding down the corridor and in to the next session with a brain bubbling over with thoughts. Thoughts in search of a conversation.

You had something to say. You attempted to contribute. The session's run out of time. You turn to chat with the stranger sitting next to you, but he's already half way out the door. You look back at the speaker, now surrounded by a phalanx of friends and well-wishers. You contain your thoughts, gather your canvas bag and shuffle out of the room.

The revolving door of conference presentations, of bite-size billboards for the latest thinking around topics dear to our practice can be as maddening as it is invigorating and illuminating. Maddening because the presentations seem to mount up even more quickly than our thoughts; and the breadth seems to sacrifice our urge for depth.

An antidote? We discuss. We strike up conversations over the pastry table, around the book display, after three too-sweet glasses of wine. If we're lucky, we find someone who actually shares our interest in methods for remote usability testing of Polish language children's game sites.

Enter the IA Summit Topical Lunch Tables...

This year, the opportunities for discussion have been extended to lunch.

We want you to be able to find the folks who share your obsession with a particular topic or nagging UX World question. We want to help you explore, a bit more deeply, the subjects that matter to you personally.

For each of the main conference days, you'll have the opportunity to join one of many topical lunch tables where you can gather and converse about subjects drawn from:

IA/UX practice (tagging, personas, prototyping)
Popular debates (design process methodologies, what do we call ourselves)
Big Picture ideas & issues (IA in physical spaces, Web 3.0)
Related pursuits (writing a UX book, starting a business)
New(ish) ideas in the air (the use of storytelling in the design process, mobile UX)
Provocative questions touching on any of the above

Based on your feedback and suggestions (see link below), we will program 6-10 tables per conference day. Ideally, each table will include a host who is a self-described expert of or passionate thinker about the topic or question at hand.

To keep things flexible and interesting, you'll also have an opportunity during the conference to suggest a topic for an additional table as the impulse arises.

But for all this, we need your input!

With six hundred people and about as many potential topics, we'd like to hear from you about what topics should be carried into these organized lunch tables. To suggest your ideas, simply click on the survey link below:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=UPEZgBdLkfYBYYvghnIxFA_3d_3d

Sometime next week, we'll be posting the schedule for topics and an explanation of how to sign-up for a table at the conference, only two and half weeks away. Thanks so much for your feedback. We look forward to a lot of good talk to come...

All the best,
Cindy Chastain
Topical Lunch Tables Volunteer