So, I just have to say that the gang at FITC did an amazing job with FITC Amsterdam. I’m back, fully energized, inspired, and jetlagged.

On day two of the conference, I presented a modified version of the “Harnessing the Abundance” presentation I debuted at FITC San Francisco 2010. The talk was well-received, and it seems folks took a lot of different things away from the presentation. It’s really interesting to connect to people in so many different ways and levels — especially considering the international, multi-disciplinary nature of the audience.

But one question I encountered quite a bit when talking with the other speakers was, “What was your talk about?” Stacey Mulcahy asked me this during her Influxis Voodoo Lounge session, requesting I sum it up in a single sentence. After some floundering, I eventually settled on this: “My talk was about how we can use technology to make our dreams come true.” It was a bit of a tongue-in-cheek interview, but looking at that statement, it’s really not that far off.

My presentation was about ways we can make the most of today’s technological landscape in our creative process — specifically in realizing our creative ideas. I firmly believe that we’re living in a special time. The technologies and communities that surround us have reached such a tipping point that regardless of your background, we have never been more capable of taking our ideas and making them real.

I created a special page on my site devoted to covering the tips and pointers I discussed during my talk. You can find them here:

Harnessing the Abundance Notes

During my presentation, I attempted to illustrate these pointers through a project I’ve been working on for the better part of two and a half years. Here are some blog posts and videos that chronicle that project’s progress, most of which was shown during my talk:

• Flow Project Kickoff with Wiimote and IR LED
• Wiimote Holder and Glove Completed
• Wiimote Calibrator Demo
• Flow Lives, but Now with No Glove
• WTF is Flow (a focused overview of the project)
• Flow Receiver Completed (demo of v1 of the AIR interface)
• Test Render of Groggy Self Portrait (first test output from Flow)
• Stroke Visualization
• First Real Drawing Captured (3.5 hour oil pastel drawing)
• Exploring the Data
• Sperm (stupid visualization)
• Making Velocities Visible
• Drawing with Architecture
• Hello, Sunflow
• A Stroke Renderer
• Making Tubes
• Vimeo Album of Flow Project Progress

Also, all the software and tools that I wrote and released during the creation of Flow can be found over at this Google Code project:

capturingflow.com (if link is down, check here instead.)

And for me, the highlights of the conference were definitely presentations from Evan Roth, GMUNK (Bradley Munkowitz), and MK12 (Ben Radatz). Getting to meet and interact one-on-one with these personal heroes of mine was quite humbling. They were modest, kind, and appreciative through and through. I tend to forget sometimes that these people we look up to and admire are, in fact, people. And every time I get to meet and have a discussion with one of these pillars of our community, the world gets a little bit smaller, things seem a little bit more possible, and I realize just how amazing it is to be a part of this community.

A big thank you to everyone who came out to FITC Amsterdam, who came out to see me, and who came up to me afterward to share their comments and make a connection.