Unifying HCI: the impossible possibility

First, while CHI is a wonderful venue for learning about all sorts of research, it cannot provide the time and close contact needed for interdisciplinary research discussions to develop and mature. One key feature of the BRS is that it offers time time for a collection of researchers to meet each other, learn from each other, and teach each other. Researchers from computer science and psychology and sociology and information science; researchers from all ranks of academia and from industry, researchers from all parts of the world; some researchers just starting their careers and others well-established all together for two days. Indeed a common point made in feedback from participants is that the BRS provides them with an opportunity (in some cases, even "forces them") to do what they'd like to do at CHI, but cannot for fear of missing too many important activities in their own specialty.