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Conference Report
Tom Peters Webcast Highlight of 25th Annual
Conference
 In
1976, a newly organized Design Management Institute invited 45 design
managers from a variety of corporations to gather in a church meeting
room on Nantucket for open, provocative discussions on design management
issues. Twenty-five years later, with the sponsorship support of
IBM, Procter & Gamble, Siegelgale, Caterpillar and Ernst & Young,
the 25th International Design Management Conference webcast keynote
speaker Tom Peters’ presentation Design as Advantage #1 to
include an international audience. It is well worth revisiting Tom
Peters’ high energy, provocative presentation through the webcast,
which is archived at dmi.org until mid-January.
The conference also provided an inside look into the design management
stakes at product-based corporations such as Black & Decker and
Bose Corporation; design management issues from a three-year perspective
following the megamerger that formed Novartis; and a design-based
strategy that embodied relationships (visually and verbally) for
France Telecom’s new identity as it moved from basic telephony
to Internet services, and from private to public status. Inspiration
came in a variety of highly visual packages-from the enriching experiences
in the eWorld as documented by Columbia Business School Professor
Bernd Schmitt, to the beauty and variety of Japanese culture and
design as embodied in the Japanese lunch box, in Kenji Ekuan’s
presentation.
Midpoint in the conference, Richard McDermott stepped the audience
through Designing Organizations to Foster Sharing Knowledge –
a key point being the creation of discipline-crossing communities
of practice to focus on collaboration and creative problem solving.
Equally thoughtful, Robert Hayes, professor emeritus of Harvard
Business School, articulated the challenges facing managers of design
and operations in the New Economy. The challenge they face is not
just to create new theories, frameworks and tools for managing New
Economy operations, but also to learn how to grow, manage, and balance
them with traditional operations within the same organization. Earlier
that day, DMI recognized Hayes with a Life Fellow award for his
support of design management. Corporate core values and brand stewardship
among employees were two key points in the presentation of Chuck
Berger, CEO of the Scotts Company, as he hit the bottom line considerations
and the role of design in nurturing a 140-year-old brand.
Holding the end-speaker position at the conference with a highly
practical note (and a distribution of small tubs of Play-Doh), Hasbro
and Marketing by Design teamed to demonstrate how one company now
manages the workflow of design projects from concept to print-including
the history, budgets, and deadlines of the projects as they move
through their facilities-using highly sophisticated, designer-friendly
software. Two divisions of Hasbro (Hasbro Toys and Hasbro Interactive)
demonstrated how they used an entire suite of tools and services.
Closing the conference, the selected attendee panel offering summary
remarks included George Allen, from CapitalOne Services, Elizabeth
Skillings from L.L. Bean, Ethel Romm of Niton Corporation, and David
Griffiths of the British Post Office. Experiences of the conference
varied with speaker preferences, but there was universal enthusiasm
about the networking opportunities and learning exchange among speakers
and attendees at this and every DMI conference.
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