On-Site:
		Preparing the venue one week ahead of the participants' arrival - a week of intense manual labor to produce some of the furnishing, install spaces, hardware and software, prepare documents and even fix bicycles! - became a demanding period for the managing team to integrate our expectations and positions. The first few days of the two-week program introduced a range of issues, profiling the focus on the general theme. Expert Lecturers, some of Japan's most influential Designers, shared their thinking and working methods by showing concrete examples of their designs for general and professional users. These talks followed the overall ambience of casual, participatory self-organization, encouraging personal contacts for follow-up activities. During the ensuing research phase the participants brought together observations, issues and possible proposals; organized into three groups, each one developing its own peculiar working character in short time, a large range of concerns became obvious.

		Even quite orthodox methods of brainstorming and analysis provoked heated debates on the selection of dimensions an d tagging of issues; clustering forces implicitly accepted as reasonable by some, seemed irrelevant to others ...
		Ad hoc model building using simple paper cut-outs helped advance explanations and mutual understanding; the actual positioning of items as concrete, symbolic or conceptual elements revealed relationships, which were at times even surprising for those who thought they knew what they were talking about ...
		Probing defaults has been a major motive in the group sessions; experiencing the everyday environment in many regards as a provocation of common sense anticipations prepared the participants to let loose many preconceived notions in favor of new propositions ...

		Round-table meetings helped to put all ideas and issues to the attention of all, securing a general level of consistency for the final presentation of findings, summarized under the headings of:
+		creating a tangible atmosphere to bridge remote relations
+		reactive workspaces
+		facilitating collaboration through interactive tables
		The local feel and communication demands of the withdrawn countryside of central Japan offered the participants, many of them first-comers to Japan, continuing opportunities to verify their findings and ideas of the workshop sessions. The Summer Academy concluded with a small exhibition and presentation of each group's design processes and methods to an invited group of experts in Tokyo.

Lessons:
		The promotion of former Summer Academy participants to partners taking responsibility, has proven to benefit not only the attendants but also the overall organization; their commitment has been overwhelming; always close to pick up expectations and concerns of the other members they helped a lot to avoid many of the possible communication glitches. Having the professional endorsement and support of a corporate or institutional partner greatly enhances the quality of the program. RICOH (+) delegated one of its senior design staff as full-time participant whose first-hand accounts were highly valuated by all of us. The Summer Academy's web-site lacked many of the features we wanted it to have; from the few rather experimental options included, we recognized however the potential of early integration to better prepare faculty and participants before getting together. This year's Summer Academy in Sweden (+) is pursuing this idea with more competence- we are keen to hear their experiences... On-site we faced also the difficulties to handle and share the material of the different groups; transparent accessibility to common resources is at the core of any collaboration. Keeping in mind the long-term purpose of IIID Summer Academies to lead to the establishment of the Information Design University, the development of an IIID Academy Software Platform should be pursued; features for the management of internal and external communications, human resources, schedules, tasks and references will be equally important as those for planning and supporting of research and teaching. Quite a few of the attenders picked the one-week-homestay option; these were unique opportunities for authentic experience. The process of tuning expectations and defaults brought from abroad to the vernacular conditions and conventions of the host families had a momentous impact on the group-discussions. Propositions had to pass common sense plausibility screening. We made the great mistake, not to include post-processing of the Academy's outcome into the program; the preparation of a first documentation-draft, opening of publication channels and scheduling of spin-of activities should be essential part of the task-list. The event has been financed in equal parts by admission-fees, sponsoring support and IIDj's own investment; future activities should be based on more sustainable funding, where anticipated outcome will raise the necessary support from industries and institutions.

Thanks to:
+		Ricoh (+), Tokyo
+		Hitachi Design Center Europe (+), Milano
+		Adobe (+), Mountain View
+		Vodafone (+), Tokyo
+		Art Center College of Design (+), Pasadena
+		University of Siena (+), Siena
+		Iamas (+), Ogaki