DANA table the ember of an idear

Something Yvonne said to me when today struck a cord. I can't quite think what it was but it was on the lines of what we want to do is to get people to share and interact with each other.

This stuck with me and having had a chance to think about it. I've come up with some vague implementations.

Imagine a sandwich table. People pull out bread ( bread symbols) and then drag their sandwich on to a 'dispenser' for each 'filling' ( Cheddar dispenser, Brie dispenser , Ham dispenser.) but then you can drag over adjectives (lots, little ). People experiment with making a Sandwich this becomes quite personal ( perhaps you can see some of the results on another large display). To make a sandwich you have to pass your bread through a number of stations( the dispensers are mobile perhaps the bread is not). So while people use it they talk ( 'Can you pass the Salad dispenser' 'has anyone got the LOTS dispenser').

Perhaps more dispensers appear the more bread is in use ( the more people the more activity). Untouched bread fades. Perhaps dispensers self disperse around the table ( they all repel each other).

Variants

Philosophy dispenser (Make your own philosophical statement/flower arrangement by joining together other philosophical idears ) ' can someone pass the logical positivism?' Each philosophcan dispensor gets a micro-zoom to unfold and describe the concept ( steal description from WIki). Each philosophcal train of thought is a flower

Flower arrangement - as above but with out the philosophy.

Intelligent designer - assortment of body parts which you put together to make your own creature. Same dispenser issue.

Ultimate Band - make your own ultimate band by pulling your band through different band dispensers.

All of the above are the revese of the desktop Xerx metaphor ( drag documents to services becomes drag services to documents).

Filters

Limited number of filters, by combing filters you can see different things. Challenge is to look for something - a needle in a haystack hiden on table. Fiters are like the Jeff Han ones but cannot be created or destroyed'. Pass the zoom in filter please.

Textual filters - table full of words, people combine filters to find words.

Numerical filters - table full of tiny numbers- combine filters to look for interesting numbers and sequences)