Now on the official Day 1 of the conference, we on the Ethnography Team are cooking. We've got a server and a network and everyone's individual laptop and camera working on the network. We've got a system for getting everyone's files off their cameras, onto the network, and backed up.

Today our core group spent a lot of time dicussing the actual "bins" or folders that we're setting up on the network. Each person who brings in photos and videos works with the group to determine which bins those should go into. The bins represent themes that are emerging that will then be analyzed further as more and more data -- in the form of images -- comes in.

Probably I haven't yet said what our final deliverables actually are. First, there's a slide show that's put together every day and run in the dining area and in the area known as the "CPSI Hub," for the other participants to see. Second, I am blogging our process and the conference in general, and using my own photos and photos from others on the team. We will make a multimedia show that will be presented at the closing ceremony on Friday. And in the months to come, Maren will do more analysis and present a report to the Creative Education Foundation.

The purpose of the report is to describe the CPSI "culture" and offer analysis about how the conference can adapt and change for the future. CPSI was started in 1954 by Alex Osborn (creator of the Osborn-Parnes Creative Problem Solving Process, father of brainstorming, and a founder of BBDO). The conference has been held continuously since then. How does a 51-year-old conference stay fresh, keep its core audience, and continue to build that audience? That's the question.