Sorry I haven’t been as active on this blog of late; I’m going up for tenure soon, and blogging doesn’t seem to count for much. (Even though I have to wonder how blogs stack up to conference presentations in terms of scholarly impact.)
Anyway, I recently composed a position paper that started as a rant on this very blog. The topic is on the essay and HCI, and specifically why HCI ought to embrace–rather than marginalize–the essay as a contribution type.
Download it here. (PDF, 84 kb)
Interaction Culture 
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Solid contribution, thanks for it. While interpretation is one of the main meta-narratives to the essay, it isn’t the only one, but I think you hit the nail on the head that the essay can help know what others are thinking. Sadly, I sometimes think that what they are thinking is… ‘another smallest possible contribution to science, publish now’