Leeds Metropolitan University

Which is where I went to the Industry day of HCI2004.
An interesting day an my first ever conference. I managed to get there in time for the keynote speach. But today my youthful appearance really counted against me, everybody else was very academic and I really stood out from the crowd in both being from a company and by looking under 25. I think next time I'll have to go dressed up, just to make myself look older.
Things got better in the afternoon though after I apprroached a chair from the afternoon's talks. Once we got talking i got introduced to a few people, so at least I was stood looking lost :)

I still found the material very academic, for an industry day. The most interesting talk was given by a research student who worked on the accessibility report for the DRC. I even plucked up the question to ask a question. But the answer was really devoid of content. Ah well, it was interesting none the less. I think more could have been done to cover more commercial topics. But since most people were there for the week and were academic I suppose this might leave them uninterested.

Still pleased I went. At least I know what to expect now and hopefully before too long I'll be able to put forward my own papers :)