Kudos to Paul Magee for his great job MCing and organizing the conference.

This is for the Car Lovers out there. Aaron started of by talking about the concept car and its place in car production, giving the audience a much better understanding of what a concept car is, and what it is for. Things got cool when he presented the Jeep Hurricane concept car.

This thing was designed to be the Ultimate Jeep.
Its got:

1. twin Hemi power plants
   
2. zero spin steering (all the wheels can rotate inward 45° to allow the Hurricane to spin around its center
   
3. crab steering (all the wheels can rotate in unison, allowing the Hurricane to move sideways or any other direction
   
4. 700 HP
   
5. A very light frame constructed out of space age materials

This is the Ultimate Jeep. There was one sticky concern, which, thankfully was vocalized during the question and answer period: What's the gas Mileage? Why isn't Jeep pursuing concept cars that are Green?

To their credit, Aaron did show a concept Jeep called the Treo from a few years back that ran on fuel cells. He also admitted that Jeep has no choice but to pursue Green technologies in the future.

Bruce is an inspiration.
He covered so much ground that I may miss a number of his points. To start, he makes it very clear that there are huge opportunities for designers. The state of the world economy right now requires risk, innovation and good design.

The points that really stuck.
1) The global design market is leading to a homogeneity of design. Do not try to compete in this market; diversity is key. It brings depth to life. Conclusion: design for a regional audience. Understand them, and make things solely for a specific location.

2) Do not fear Globalization. It will change how we do business, and it generates huge opportunities. These opportunities create room for designers, because designers innovate and take risk.

3) In the future, corporations will have a Chief Design Officer.

4) We should support China and help them succeed. (The trick is to make sure everyone in the world can be successful.) As China succeeds and attains more wealth, they will consume more, and open opportunities as a new large market.

There was a lot more, but leaving his talk it was clear that the future needs good designers who are willing to innovate, think globally and locally, and take risks.

The future for designers is bright.

Dan went from being a Director of Design to Chair of the Industrial Design Department at the Cleveland Institute of Art.

Why did he make this change? Because he loves design and was tired of the poor quality of design students coming out of American ID programs.

His focus:
Develop Knowledge supported by skills.

Prepare students to work at the highest level within their field of choice.

Have students engage in the community and take leadership roles.

Design is about creativity and innovation, which is teachable.

I am most impressed by the idea that design (and art) is a knowledge based endeavor. Training of Industrial Designers should focus on their ability to think and what they know. Granted, these have to be coupled to skills, but skill is there to express thought.

He has already started to implement this thinking at CIA's Industrial Design program. The success he and his students have already had are a strong indication that his thinking and message is dead on.

How do you know you are at a design conference?

The audience is full of people who listen AND sketch new ideas in their sketch books.

Chris Rockwell gave an insightful talk on how to successfully use Design Research.

I like his point that Design research is replacing Market research, and that Designers need to have closer access to the consumer and the end user of his products.

He also answered questions on ethics like a pro.

All in all, he was very insightful about a successful Design research process, and how to work within existing corporate culture.

Oh, and he understands the use of good video clips. His COPS knock off to demonstrate a design research results was a crowd favorite.

Anne is the Access Technology Director for the National Federation for the Blind.

Pure and simple, I was very impressed by Anne.

So far, she has had the best presentation. Here is a small blind woman, who through the power of her voice, her passion, and her sense of humor kept the audience engaged.

Anne talked about the Moral Responsibility of Technology Developers

Her main points:
1) the current state of technology should support better accessibility for the blind.
2) Inventions specifically for the blind have already changed the world.
a) the Typewriter
b) Optical Character Recognition
c) flatbed scanners
d) text-to-speech
e) First PDA is in brail
3) It is an economically viable thing to do. As our population ages, there will be more and more people with visual impairments.
4) If you are going to design with the blind in mind, involve blind people as early as possible.

Anne is clearly someone who cares about helping people, and she inspired the audience with her passion. (And with facts that logically support her passion.)

Automblox is the invention of Patrick Callelo.
http://www.automoblox.com

Damn these things look cool. I'm glad there are people like Patrick out there who are making cool things for kids. I'm also glad that people like Patrick are willing to give their time and share the lessons they have learned from their experiences.

In the end, he boiled it all down to the following lessons: (Given to him by someone else)

the 3 rules of success

1. be smart
   
2. be motivated
   
3. bring things to COMPLETION
   

Robert spoke about crossing the cultural gap. It wasn't what I expected: when people speak of culture, generally they discuss other countries and other habits. But Robert spoke about having to work with corporations and crossing over into other cultures.

His main points:
- If you are going to be successful in working with a client, learn to understand their culture; work through that understanding
- Going with the flow=failure
- Changing culture requires working with a lot of people (if you want to make the change fast)
- Inevitably though, changing culture is a very, very slow process
- Changing culture is always painful

He then when into a long breakdown of the difference between Apple and Dell cultures; you can imagine the rest.

The question I'm left with: Am interested in being someone who changes and affects culture, or do I want to be someone who goes with the flow?

continued...

My first session. Thomas Mulready discusses his creation, Cool Cleveland

Truth is, Thomas is one of the Coolest people in Cleveland. Why? because he really cares about Cleveland. This is a guy, who is really trying to make a positive change in Cleveland. His strategy? Use the web and e-mail, focus on informing people about the positive things going on in Cleveland.

Thomas is not a designer, so, you might ask, why he is talking here. Honestly, I'm not sure why he was chosen, but I'm glad he was.

1. He is not afraid to embrace information technology
   
2. He is really thinking through how to use it.
   
3. He is interested in real information, not flash, bells and whistles.
   
4. He really wants to do something truly good.
   

Just got the conference. Alas, I had to teach so I missed most of the day.

The Cleveland Institute of Art students were most helpful in getting me going. (Note: I am a CIA professor, so I might be biased.)

If you would like to show your gratitude to the helpful students, Go see their Spring Show on April 19, you can view it all day, starting at 9:30am. There is a recption at 7:30 in the evening.

Hi all, I'm Yianni. I'm the second person covering the Cleveland conference. Unlike Nate, I live in Cleveland, so it is just a matter of finishing work, jumping in my car and heading to the conference.

Weather in Cleveland has been great the past few days, and it looks nice today. (Granted, it's supposed to get cold tonight and possibly snow tomorrow.)

Like Nate, I will gladly field questions directly. yianni@yessios.com