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DMI Conference Review: Amsterdam May 2011
This year’s annual European DMI event in Amsterdam was a fresh mix from traditional conference formats. With diverse breakout sessions, including workshops, meet and greets, and various speaking formats from a roster of star speakers, it provided some keen insights and practical takeaways into the Value of Design.
The topic of the conference is a theme that has been of equal importance to all stakeholders (design agencies, companies, universities, design councils) and has been discussed in the design management community for many years without coming to a true consensus. The speakers provided a multifaceted view of the theme, addressing it not only from a theoretical perspective, but also sharing experiences of implementing the theoretical models in practice.
Also, knowing that some of the greatest value in attending conferences is not only what you learn, but who you meet, this year’s event included numerous networking opportunities. With several meet and greet breaks, a collaborative breakout workshop, and scattered parallel intimate speaking sessions in the well-appointed historical Felix Meritis, people were afforded the opportunity to really engage with fellow conference-goers. As part of the organizing team and as participants of DMI conferences in recent years, we tried to find the balance between great speakers that are relevant to all attendees and smaller sessions that aimed to satisfy more personal needs, combined in an interactive format.
The speaker lineup included many great influencers, here are some of the highlights:
Tim O’Kennedy
A fresh perspective from another discipline was provided by Tim, who gave us an entertaining presentation about the management of advertising. His engaging way of conveying his story should be an example of how design managers could better sell the discipline.
Alexander Osterwalder
 Alexander’s work on business model generation led to a complete new way of approaching the otherwise traditional development of business strategies, seamlessly integrated with the design thinking movement. Not only is his book inspiring, it is also a case study of pure entrepreneurialism. Speaking from our own practice, we can verify that the business model is working in workshop formats very well as an initial platform to discuss potential projects and innovation opportunities.
 Marty Neumeier
Marty provided a very practical outlook on design thinking, innovation, the value of design, and how these methodologies could be translated into simple actions. His presentation was practical, insightful, and rich with key takeaways.
 James Woodhuysen
James always captivates the audience with his provocative viewpoints and future forecasting on hot design topics and trends. He hit home on the need to become more knowledgeable in the swing of market trends, including the BRIC’s and the growing elderly population, by immersing oneself in available publications and public awareness.
 Deborah Mrazek, Sam Lucente, and Katherine Wakid
We very much appreciate the representatives from HP and Jump for their disclosure and transparency of their challenges and solutions to position and showcase the value of design. The value matrix was a hot topic of discussion among conference-goers and sparked some interesting debates as to if/how the model could be of value in their organization.
 Finally, a key takeaway of the conference: the breakout session broken into small teams to define the challenge of what could be the equivalent of the Marketing Pillars (4 P’s). Working on the 7 I’s (Investigate/Insights, Innovate, Inspire, Invest, Integrate and Industrialize) for Design might be worth further exploring.
We thank all participants for their active involvement and dedicated motivation that was visible during the conference, which in the end is crucial to really help grow design within business. We hope that everyone keeps up the good discussions to build a strong foundation for design and design management.
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