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Spring 2009 Liu Lectures in Design at Stanford University

David Goligorsky — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 02:19:13 +0000

poster design by Andreas Brændhaugen
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I’m really excited to present the lineup for this Spring’s David H. Liu Memorial Lecture Series in Design. All talks will begin at 8pm in building 320, room 105. Every lecture is free and open to the public!

Andy Spade will be speaking on Wednesday, April 15th. Spade had over a decade of experience with top advertising agencies Saatchi & Saatchi, Kirshenbaum Bond & Partners, and TBWA/Chiat/Day managing accounts with companies such as Coca Cola, Evian, Reebok, Lexus, and Coach. He’s the branding and marketing man behind Kate Spade and Jack Spade (the companies that he and his wife created.) He has also been tapped to design the experiences of a number of companies including Delta’s Song Airlines and J. Crew retail experiment The Liquor Store. Spade’s latest project is Partners & Spade. It includes a highly conceptual retail experience in downtown Manhattan. Beyond all these business ventures, Spade is heavily involved in the art world. He is a patron to emerging artists, co-owner of a gallery, and curator of several exhibitions. Spade’s projects merge emotional branding, experience design, brilliant collaboration, and always a touch of surrealism.

Dr. Jonathan Cagan will be speaking on Monday, May 4th. Dr. Cagan is a co-director of the Masters in Product Development program at Carnegie Mellon and also the co-director for the school’s Center for Product Strategy and Innovation. He has the title of Barrett Ladd Professor in Engineering in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University and holds appointments in the School of Design and Computer Science. He has expertise in product development and innovation methods for early stage product development. Both his design methods and computer-based design research have been applied in a variety of industries. Dr. Cagan is the author of two books: Creating Breakthrough Products (co-authored with Craig Vogel), and The Design of Things to Come (co-authored with Peter Boatwright and Craig Vogel). He has consulted with a variety of small and large companies in diverse areas on product development, brand strategy, and strategic planning. He is co-founder and chief technologist of DesignAdvance Systems, Inc., a company focused on developing CAD software for the early synthesis processes. Cagan teaches New Product Development at Carnegie Mellon and runs executive training sessions in small and large companies.

Alex Wipperfürth will be speaking on Thursday, May 21st. Wipperfürth is a partner at Dial House in San Francisco. He is the author of Brand Hijack, and the upcoming The Co-Creation Myth and The Fringe Manifesto. Dial House is part think-tank and part creative hot shop. The client list is diverse: from fringe (Napster, Doc Martens, Pabst Blue Ribbon, Jones Soda, Red Stripe, Altoids) to cutting edge (Current TV, New Yorker Magazine) to blue chip (Diageo, IBM, P&G/Clorox, Toyota, Coca-Cola). Projects range from innovative strategy, innovative research, meaningful creative expressions with DIY production to brand innovation. In earlier work, Wipperfürth had interviewed actual cult members and people in “consumer cults” (like Apple or Harley-Davidson fanatics) and made fascinating insights about their similarities.

Gary Hustwit’s “Objectified” film

David Goligorsky — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 19:16:45 +0000

Gary Hustwit, the director known for his documentary film on the Swiss typeface, Helvetica, has just released a first glimpse of his latest work. He’s spent considerable time interviewing product design’s heads of state and put together Objectified.

I’m especially inspired because in just 90 seconds of preview, there were a few familiar faces. David Kelley, a co-founder of IDEO, is an alumnus from my graduate program and is a major part of the Stanford Design program and d.school. We have had the pleasure of visiting his incredible home, which was designed by Ettore Sottsass, and saw the garage, which houses part of his collection of fantastic vehicles. Bill Moggridge is another co-founder of IDEO and is lauded as a founder of interaction design. He’s the author of a book on the subject and we’ve had the honor of his company over beers in the courtyard in front of our workspace. I can’t wait to see this film.

Bruce Nussbaum on product testing in the marketplace

David Goligorsky — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 02:01:20 +0000

So Google just released a beta version of their Chrome browser without offering software for Mac OSX and Linux users. That fact was the content of my previous post. This is one major example of companies doing their product testing in the marketplace. The trend of early adopters as unpaid software testers was one of the major messages in BusinessWeek innovation writer Bruce Nussbaum’s interview with David Armano of Critical Mass (no, not the overly-political and generally-counter-productive bicycle thing.)

If you don’t have time for the whole half-hour interview, jump to 18:08 for the discussion of product testing in the marketplace.

Interviews on Innovation

David Goligorsky — Sat, 31 May 2008 14:39:58 +0000

Experientia, a blog on user experience, links to some interviews by a Spanish innovation network called Infonomia. I suppose they’re not exactly interviews because the videos are cut so that the dialogue is reduced to the interviewee’s response. But it is no matter.

In the interview with Alberto Alessi, we learn the background of Phillipe Stark’s virus-shaped juicer. Apparently, Alberto Alessi asked him to design a serving tray in stainless steel and two years later he was given a lemon juicer in aluminum. [Note bene: I have never been a fan of Stark’s work but have always respected his ability to gain such wide recognition for it. My regard for him became somewhat more positive when he actually apologized for all his work!]

There is another brief video featuring Tom Kelley, general manager of IDEO and author of the fantastic and highly recommended books, the Ten Faces of Innovation and the Art of Innovation. He discusses the shift towards client collaboration in the problem solving algorithm. Kelley also describes staffing using a film-making analogy, saying that a brilliant project, like a brilliant film, can only happen with the right people. A great film is made by scouring the world for the appropriate people, not using personnel as a commodity.

…and I must add, Tom Kelley is a phenomenal speaker! How engaging and confident!

Tom Waits auto-interview

Christian Eager — Thu, 22 May 2008 03:20:18 +0000

Tom Waits asks himself the tough questions:

Q: What’s the most curious record in your collection?
A: In the seventies a record company in LA issued a record called “The best of Marcel Marceau.” It had forty minutes of silence followed by applause and it sold really well. I like to put it on for company. It really bothers me, though, when people talk through it.

Q: Tom, you love words and their origins. For $2,000…what is the origin of the word bedlam?
A: It’s a contraction of the word Bethlehem. It comes from the hospital of Saint Mary of Bethlehem outside London. The hospital began admitting mental patients in the late fourteenth century. In the sixteenth century it became a lunatic asylum. The word bedlam came to be used for any madhouse- and by extension, for any scene of noisy confusion.

Q: What is a gentleman?
A: A man who can play the accordion, but doesn’t.

via Coudal