Wendy March, head of Intel's People and Practices research group (second from right in the photo above), gave a wonderful talk yesterday entitled "The Future Will Be Ordinary" -- a deeply thoughtful examination of how important the mundane aspects of daily life are in determing the future of technology, and how difficult learning about these aspects is for a researcher. More on this later.

Stand-out piece of advice from yesterday's panel, however, also came from Wendy, when asked what she likes to see in applicants' portfolios: 1. I don't think I ever want to see anything glowing ever again. No more glowing orbs. Thank you. 2. I never again want to hear a project in a portfolio described with the words "It's kind of like a book." 3. Beautiful product photos are nice, but they don't really tell me anything. Please please please show your product in the real world, surrounded by real things.