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Home > DMI Publications > DMI News > Past eBulletins > December 2008

December 2008 eBulletin

Facing/Changing – Changing/Facing REALITIES
Design/Management Europe 13 Conference
April 1-3, 2009, Milan, Italy 
La Triennale di Milano, Design Museum

Conference Co-chairs:
Lucia Chrometzka, Future Concept Lab
Guido Stompff, Oce-Technologies B.V.

Let’s get real: The world of business is changing dramatically. Every day, we’re confronted with news of a roller coaster economy, environmental concerns, and corporate pressure to succeed. Every day, we confront constantly evolving challenges that affect our roles as design leaders. What will have the biggest impact on our lives and work? How can we manage, meet, and change the future?

Facing/Changing – Changing/Facing REALITIES will look squarely into key realities, how to face them, and how to change them:

• Economic realities
• Sustainability realities
• Systems and complexity realities
• Corporate culture realities

Join us as we get current, get equipped, and get connected. The speakers, discussions, and workshops will explore how design management can evolve and step forward to provide key business leadership for today’s changing realities. Open your mind and come to face—and change—the realities of our times.

La Triennale is an intrinsic part of Milan’s cultural and economic life, and will provide an inspirational learning environment for the conference. For more than a decade, DMI has explored the best in design management thinking in Europe, and 2009 will be no exception. Through structured presentations, focused group discussions, and an exploration of Milan’s top design museum, this is the place to be.

Registration is now open for Design/Management Europe 13. Register before January 9 and save! Please check www.dmi.org/european for updates on speakers and the program in the coming weeks.

	Optional pre-conference seminar: Design Research for Product and Service Innovation With Darrel Rhea, CEO, Cheskin Added Value March 31-April 1, Milan, Italy Register for both the seminar and the conference and save!

New DMI/Allworth Press Book:
Building Design Strategy: Using Design to Achieve Key Business Objectives
Edited by Thomas Lockwood, PhD, DMI President; and Thomas Walton, PhD, Editor, Design Management Review

Coming this January, an important new book will be released offering innovative insights on using design as a strategic resource. Building Design Strategy is the first in a series of three books that DMI will co-publish with Allworth Press.

Based on articles from the Design Management Review, the editors have gathered wisdom from more than 25 international experts, including CEOs and presidents of major design firms, brand managers, and professors of design. This first-hand knowledge is combined with fascinating case studies of corporations such as Procter & Gamble, Caterpillar, Microsoft, and Target to present the role of design as it relates to corporate strategy. This insightful blend of theory and practice explores the different types of design and the benefits of implementing strategy in design.

Building Design Strategy can be preordered through popular online bookstores. The other two books in the series will be Corporate Creativity: Developing an Innovative Organization, and Design Thinking: Integrating Innovation, Customer Experience and Brand Value.

"If you are looking to better understand why design strategy is an emerging business imperative, this is the place to begin."—Jerry Kathman, President/CEO, LPK

DMI Around the World

During the past year, in addition to hosting international conferences in Singapore and Paris, DMI strove to advance design leadership, design thinking, and design management around the world through presentations, juries, meetings, and publications.

This past June, DMI President Tom Lockwood keynoted the Conference International Design Québec, held in Montréal. The same month, he participated in the invitation-only Helsinki Design Lab hosted by SITRA (Finnish Innovation Fund). In September, Lockwood was the keynote speaker at the Design=Innovation conference in Poznan, Poland.

Lockwood represented DMI as a jury member in several international design competitions, including the Design Management Europe (DME) award; the red dot design award; the Australian International Design Awards; and the APCI (Agence pour la Promotion de la Création Industrielle) Observeur du Design 08 Prize.

The Barcelona Design Center twice hosted DMI’s Design Value for Business Executives workshop, geared towards providing business leaders an introduction to design management, as well as the DMI seminar, Designing Future Competitive Advantage.

The latest issue of DMI’s peer-reviewed publication, the Design Management Journal (see free sample article, below) is the result of an ongoing collaboration between DMI and Korean Institute of Design Promotion (KIDP). The issue presents papers from the Managing Design in Global Environments Conference, held November 2007 in South Korea.

Video Available for REMIX Conference

Complete video is now available for all presentations from REMIX, DMI's highly-rated 33rd Annual Design Management Conference, held in October in Ogunquit, Maine. The video includes all thirteen presentations and incorporates presentation slides, a total of twelve hours of content. The video is available to both conference attendees and to all DMI members as a key member benefit. The video is made possible by the generous support of Microsoft.

DMI Review Download of the Month
Creating the Right Environment for Design
By Julian Jenkins, Senior Consultant, 2nd Road, Australia
From the Design Management Review, Vol. 19, No. 3, Summer 2008

Without changes in a company's attitudes and processes, the investment in design may never pay off. Julian Jenkins identifies nine “cults” that thwart the commitment to this resource. He also outlines the qualities of a design-friendly culture and proposes seven steps design managers can take to help ensure that their contributions yield the most creative and beneficial outcomes.
View the article

Extra article from the Design Management Journal
Simply Complex: An Historical Perspective on Why Western Methodologies Do Not Always Align with Asian Branding Issues
By Selena Griffith, Lecturer, University of New South Wales; and David Tan, Brand Strategy Director, Maracas Inc.
From the Design Management Journal, Vol. 3, No. 2, 2008

Note: DMI's peer-reviewed publication, the Design Management Journal, is published on an annual basis and distributed to all Design Management Review subscribers and all DMI members.

This paper highlights the complexities of branding in Asia and identifies current Western branding theories and variations of the Western branding process that would best suit Asian brand scenarios. The authors enumerate factors of particular importance, which include belief systems and superstitions, historical considerations, political considerations, economic considerations, experience with modern branding and communications, consumer access to the brand message, business structure, and culture.
View the article