From the moderator, Steven Johnson

The touchy-feely language of "convergence" portrays different forms of media merging into one unified thing. The Collision conference set out to challenge that notion-to propose that media are actually smashing head-on into each other, and to examine the shrapnel for clues.

On Thursday morning, I started things off by talking about what we can learn from the videogame world, where video, audio, and interactivity have been commingling for the longest period of time, with the most commercial success. I showed a few clips from "emergent" games like The Sims and SimCity, where players "grow" characters and systems, instead of shooting at things. The game designer Eric Zimmerman expanded on this theme of emergent gaming by creating an interactive event that the entire conference participated in, building sentences out of semi-random words included with the conference materials.

Along the way, we also saw some thrilling next-generation broadband interfaces from Quokka, Excite@Home, and Sony. We ventured into the automobile industry with Dan Sturges' anti-SUV, fold-up "neighborhood vehicle," and saw some spectacular typographic explorations from MIT's Visible Language Workshop. Interface guru Brenda Laurel gave a typically inspiring, and cautionary, address on the real problems and possibilities of non-linear forms. Throughout, the audience challenged us with both practical and philosophical questions, keeping the speakers honest and leading us down new avenues.

As we saw during the video intermissions, interactive media may be as old as Tinkerbell and Winky-Dink, but the hard questions of how to design for it are only now coming into focus. I came away from Collision with a much clearer view, and I hope the attendees did as well.