Yoshiki mentioned to Bret (and me when I was in LA), that since SIG CHI was coming to San Jose in early May, it might be a good time to invite some research groups and students up to our lab. I think that makes a lot of sense, and my intuition is that connecting with other research groups could have very good long-term benefits for our work, both in sharing knowledge and finding interested people to work with.
So! I think we're going to throw a party! SIG CHI is May 7-12, so my guess is that we'd likely have a party the evening of Tuesday the 10th or Wednesday the 11th. (If anyone has other suggestions for dates, let me know.)
Who do we invite? My plan was to email Bjorn, Maneesh, Sean Follmer, and maybe Hiroshi Ishii and ask if they knew anyone that was going to SIGCHI that would like to see what we're working on and hang out.
I was also going to look over
the schedule and see if there's anyone there that's in the same ballpark as our research. (With just a quick glance, it seems really hard to tell who would be good to invite from that list. I would appreciate it if anyone else glanced over the list and suggested a few likely candidates.)
My backup plan is to go down to San Jose for a day and just invite people I meet. As a joke, Bret mentioned setting up Laser Socks to attract people, but that actually sounds kind of fun. I doubt I'll end up going in-person, but maybe if the above two options don't work out.