If you are a design professional looking to expand your responsibilities within a larger company, I suggest exploring a role in Product Marketing. Designers often find themselves pushed and pulled by various constituents and forced to play a mediating role to see a project through to fruition. That fundamental experience provides a natural segue into Product Marketing positions—they are the "glue" that holds together various internal groups (sales, engineering, management, finance, etc.) and external groups (customers and business partners).

A typical Product Marketing job description lists mostly analytical, dry tasks: Setting a product development roadmap, writing product specifications, overseeing new product launches, lifecycle management, etc. How boring. What is typically missing is a requirement for any sort of real passion, for actually pouring your heart and soul into the products you are managing, as most designers do innately.

In my experience, there are three key functions beyond the typical job description that are required of a successful Product Marketing manager: Listening, Synthesizing, and Advocating. Designers need to make some critical transitions in their thought processes, but for the most part are inherently well-equipped to perform each of these functions.

Read complete article
 

Design/Management Annual Conference 36

October 25-26, 2011, New York City, USA

Get ready for two amazing days of inspiring content, engaging interaction, and forward-looking design leadership as DMI comes to New York City for our major fall conference! We'll dig into the practicalities of how best to integrate, lead, leverage, and, yes, scale design throughout an organization and beyond. It’s time to build and scale a design-driven sensibility throughout every aspect of a business—from products, to interactions, to brands, to services, to social networks, to business models.
 
Join a cast of deeply experienced and provocative presenters, including Todd Blumenthal, SVP of Aéropostale, Inc.; Michael Bierut, Partner, Pentagram; David Butler, VP Global Design, Coca-Cola; Jean-Marie Shields, Global Brand Director, Starbucks; Andrew Cogan, CEO, Knoll, Inc.; Bill Moggridge, Director, Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum; and Claudia Kotchka, Former VP of Innovation, P&G.
 
From thoughtful panel discussions, to quick and focused presentations, to deep-diving interviews, the program will keep you on your toes and jump-start you with insights and inspiration. You’ll have a chance to meet and interact with the design industry’s movers and shakers during three evening get-togethers, from a conference kickoff reception on Monday night at Wallace Church, to a Tuesday evening bash in Chelsea, to a final sendoff party at the Museum of Jewish Heritage.
 
From strategic to operational. From external to internal. Let’s get real. And by hell or high water, let’s get traction on design!
 
Early pricing expires on Thursday September 8! Don’t miss this chance to save!
 
More Information

Register Now!
 
Optional post-conference seminar:
Design Research and the Customer-driven Innovation Strategy
Darrel Rhea, CEO, 2nd Road, North America
October 27-28, 2011, New York City
  Find out more about sponsorship.
 

DMI appoints new editorial advisors

DMI is proud to announce the appointment of a new board of Editorial Advisors for DMI’s flagship publication, the Design Management Review:

Kathryn Best, Head of the Research Group Cross-media, Brand, Reputation and Design Management (CBRD), Inholland University of Applied Sciences
Kathleen Mazzocco, Principal & Owner, Clear PR
Tonya Peck, Principal, Learning & Development, Microsoft Corporation
Alan Siegel, Founder and Chairman, Siegel+Gale
Scott Stropkay, Partner, Essential
Craig Vogel, Professor and Associate Dean, College of DAAP, University of Cincinnati

These six advisors were chosen from a broad spectrum of DMI members in order to represent the diversity of DMI’s audience (brand, product, interaction, service, research, education, design management). They will serve for a two-year term, leveraging a strategic, collaborative approach facilitated by Editor Tom Lockwood of Lockwood Resource. DMI thanks the advisors for their time, energy, and ideas, as they maintain the tradition of the Review as one of the premium benefits of DMI membership, and evolve it to best reflect the state of design leadership today.
 
DMI and the Review are looking for open dialogue and we encourage members to contribute to the Review by surfacing trending themes, recommending article topics and authors, and submitting article abstracts to editor@dmi.org.

China Design Awards

DMI President Karen Reuther has been appointed to the jury panel for the 2011 China’s Most Successful Design Awards. The award seeks to honor the top international designers and enterprises for the designs that are most successful in the Chinese market. Designs are judged by looking at an all-encompassing view of the design from its conception to its commercial outcome. Awards for the 2011 prize will be announced in September, with an awards ceremony in October in Shanghai.
 

Webinars:
 
Designing for Tribes: The Value Creation Imperative
Mark Dziersk FIDSA, Managing Director, LUNAR | Chicago
September 13, 2011, 1 PM ET
 
The attitudes and behaviors of consumers are changing and some marketers still think it’s 1975. Product companies must look to new models of attitude and behavior to define the landscape in which to design products. The formulation of significant new groups deemed "tribes" are creating new purchase and marketing paradigms for traditional product design offerings. In order to satisfy "tribal needs," designers must move from an executional mindset to an idea of value creation, which is defined by addressing assessed behavior with meaningful response, accomplished by a combination of ingenuity, beauty, and charisma.
More information
 
The Unified Theory of Desire
Nathan Hendricks, Chief Creative Officer, LPK
October 5, 2011, 1pm ET
 
As designers and marketers, our understanding of people needs to go beyond function and delight. In fact, if stimulating our desires compels us to buy and purchase decisions often boil down to a battle between pleasure and pain, design should speak the language of pleasure. The Unified Theory of Desire is a simple and sensible approach to understanding people and the choices needed to create brands that connect.
More information
 

Seminars:
 
Building Great Internal Design Organizations
Thomas Lockwood, PhD, Editor, DMI Review; Founding Partner, Lockwood Resource
September 29-30, 2011, Chicago, USA
 
"Excellent packaging of all the relevant elements of design management that experienced design managers are looking for."
—John L. Guenther, LWS Industrial Design Competency Manager, Hewlett-Packard
More information
 
Improving Design Decision Making and Concept Evaluation
Jeremy Alexis, Assistant Dean and Professor, IIT Institute of Design
October 6-7, 2011, San Francisco, USA
 
"The emphasis on core principles made this seminar incredibly useful. It fed my understanding and set me up for informed and effective action."
—Philip Hartley, Senior Design Strategist, Smart Design
More information
 
Co-Creating Meaningful Brand Experiences
Dave Norton, PhD, Principal, Lead Strategist, Stone Mantel
October 27-28, 2011, Seattle, USA
 
"This seminar shed light on how to create meaningful brand experiences and differentiate those experiences from the old branding paradigm. I loved this seminar!"
—Allison Leeds, Art Director, AOL
More information
 
Design Research and the Customer-Driven Strategy
Darrel Rhea, CEO, 2nd Road, North America
October 27-28, 2011, New York City, USA (New session!)
 
"Darrel Rhea is an expert in design research and innovation. In this course, he presents a framework you can apply immediately to add more value to your company and customers. I highly recommend it."
—Jeff Herman, Senior Director, ebay
More information
 
Service Design for Business: Key Methods and Strategies for In-House Teams
James Samperi and team, Engine Service Design
November 3-4, 2011, London, UK
 
Comments from participants: "Great overall! I don’t usually give perfect scores but you really were excellent. Thanks and well done!" "I gained great insight, usable for my organization, both internal and external."
More information
 
Managing Creative Staff
Dr. Leonard Glick, Executive Professor, College of Business Administration, Northeastern University
November 16-17, 2011, Boston, USA (New session!)
 
In this engaging, interactive seminar, you’ll learn tools and techniques that can be used immediately to increase the effectiveness of your group.
"I learned a lot of tips that I will be able to apply in my day-to-day."
—Gabrielle Anctil-Martin, Project Manager, Studio Symbiose
More information
 
 

The Soul of Design Leadership

By Frans Joziasse, Founding Partner, PARK
DMI Review, Vol. 22, No. 3, 2011
 
Leadership is a word invoked by everyone from Boy Scout leaders to presidents. But what does it really mean to be a leader—and, more specifically, a design leader? Writer Deepak Chopra has suggested seven qualities that are characteristic of visionary leaders; here we see that they also apply to design leaders.
 
View complete article
 

Call for DMI Review Article Submissions
March 2012 Issue: Design Collaboration

What are the benefits of collaborative design? Co-design? Open design? What information and processes are necessary to support effective collaboration? What talents are best maintained in-house, and what contributions can consultants make? How does one find the right partners? How can designers and design managers contribute a "design thinking" perspective to broader corporate challenges? Please send article proposals by September 15 to editor@dmi.org.
 
 

DMI events

Global connections