I just attended the “Better World: Accelerating Lab to Market Innovation” conference hosted by MIT’s Enterprise forum. What had me thoroughly entertained—on the edge of my seat, actually—was the unexpected turn in conversation.

I’ve been to enough of these events to know that MIT leans toward the quantitative and analytical side of discussions. And in this case, with speakers like David Berry of Flagship, Alex Pentland, PhD MIT, and Iqbal Quadir of Legatum Center MIT, all indications were pointing to a deep, fact-based, analytical discussion. What happened, however, was entirely different. Our own Devorah Klein and IDEO’s designer Beto Lopez, who were also on the panel, captured the full interest of the audience when they pointed out—in the context of sustainable design—that human interactions can be purposefully designed. When connected to consumer values, human-centered design can inspire and promote behavior change, which, in turn, can encourage early and mass adoption of products and services—consumer, medical, industrial and otherwise.

All the panelists began to build on the point, with David Berry leading the charge. “When it comes to developing Joule, our company that is focused on creating a process to convert solar energy into a liquid fuel,” says Berry, “leveraging design so that we create a user experience that’s readily adopted by consumers is core to our success.” So, while Joule has plenty on its docket—raw science and technology development to name a few big ones—design is deeply embedded in its language and goals.  

The momentum continued, and by mid-way through the panel discussion the conversation was fully focused on the value of design in the innovation process and in creating and building businesses. Along with understanding the economics, technology and market of their business, entrepreneurs are increasingly assigning high value to understanding the functional, social and emotional connections their products make with consumers. The bottom line: Design, in its broadest sense, is becoming a well-accepted strategic tool for business, even in the most technical-based environments and companies.

Swine Flew with panel at the conference.

For those of you who were never a Boy Scout, the Pinewood Derby is a competition in which contestants build a small wooden car to race on a 40 foot track against other cars of the same approximate size and weight. The goal is to work within the parameters of the rules to build the fastest car.

Several years ago, the IDSA (Industrial Designers Society of America) decided to sponsor a derby car race for designers at their annual IDSA National Conference in Pasadena. The response was overwhelming as designers and engineers entered dozens of impressive cars that would lie, cheat and creatively steal their way to the finish line.

Since that first race in 2004, the competition has raged on, with designers from all over the country fielding extraordinary cars. For this years IBM Unlimited Derby held at the IDSA conference in Miami, Continuum approached their participation in the race in a new way. Rather than trying to create the fastest car, the team decided to create the most memorable car. To accomplish this, we started by brainstorming themes that would be relevant to what’s going on in the world.

The planet is currently going through a financial crisis that hasn’t been experienced in eighty years. We’re all being forced to pinch pennies and find creative ways to save money. At the same time, worldwide concern is high around health threats like the swine flu. Continuum took these themes and turned them into a statement of hope, a piggy bank car called Swine Flew.

The generous contribution of the IDSA audience.

Throughout the four-day conference, the attendees were encouraged to add their spare change to the piggy bank. This served two purposes. First, each coin made the car slightly heavier, and consequently, faster. Second, Continuum offered to multiply every contribution by 10 and donate the final amount to design education.

The Swine Flew pit crew members, Jung Tak, Damien Vizcarra, and Kevin Young (many thanks to the non-traveling crew of Jake Childs, Rich Ciccarelli and Bruce MacRae) have returned from the IDSA National Conference and are proud to bring home the award for Fastest Car in the Gravity Weight Class as well as the award for Most Fun.

We’re also proud to say that the generous contributions of the IDSA audience helped Swine Flew raise a total of $1,274.40 for design education.

The crew members are proud to bring back two IBM Derby awards.

I was recently on Broadway—not in the latest production of West Side Story—but at the Hudson Theatre for The Green Event.  The two-day conference brought together textile industry stakeholders—suppliers, buyers, designers, and regulators—to share ideas for developing eco-conscious practices across the board.

I had an opportunity to participate on the “Creating Green” retail panel alongside Marks & Spencer’s veteran cotton expert, Graham Burden.  I shared Continuum’s insights about the consumer perspective on sustainability, sparking a conversation about the need to consider the demand–side of the sustainability equation.  My talk followed an excellent keynote by Andrew Winston, author of Green to Gold and founder of Winston Eco-Strategies.   Mr. Winston spoke passionately about the business case for sustainability, citing numerous examples of companies that had achieved true competitive advantage by identifying upside opportunities or eliminating downside risks in this space.

Ian Yolles, a co-founder of the novel sustainable clothier, Nau, was one of the most compelling voices at the event.  He explained how he and a few friends (ex-execs from Nike and Patagonia got together in 2005 to create a new form of “business activism” by founding a company on the ideals of sustainability and social responsibility.  Their corporate bylaws turned the traditional clothing retail model on its head in a number of ways, including: mandating the use of more sustainable materials and processes (for example, recycled PET soda bottles become recyclable polyester garments), providing a 5% donation of sales to non-profit philanthropy (to be specified by customers at POP) and selling directly to customers through an assortment of low-impact retail outlets (both the internet and their novel store-meets-internet “webfronts”).
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Fellow Design Strategist Sean Brennan and I recently participated in an IDSA event entitled Next Up: Sustainability After the Trend. Hosted by the burgeoning Rhode Island chapter, it was an intimate gathering of the area’s design professionals, educators and students housed in the new atrium of the Peerless Building in Providence.

Sean and I presented Colorblind, Continuum’s consumer-focused project on sustainability. Many in the audience had historically been focused on the latest and greatest in green product innovation. Yet Colorblind placed consumer needs squarely in their sightline. It was a perspective that resonated, reminding us that real change will happen only if sustainable designs are created not with other designers in mind but the average consumer.

We were followed by Emily Pilloton, founder of Project H Design, and Meaghan O’Neil, founding editor of TreeHugger and editor for Planet Green. While Meaghan shared a wide range of green design innovations collected in the TreeHugger archives, Emily’s first slide pictured the gold-painted plastic trinkets that she vowed never to design. With hints of the passion you’ll find in her manifesto, Emily managed to impart the do something imperative that clearly drives Project H to address social issues around the world through design innovation.

Indeed, that was the spirit of the evening. Conversation topics in the forum discussion that followed ranged from the future of green design to the value of professional collaboration. Ecolect’s Materials Petting Zoo topped off the night on the rooftop amid local brews, gourmet pizza, and great conversation. Overlooking the sparkling city with so many engaged designers, it was easy to be optimistic about what’s next. So, let’s do something!

I’m a few weeks behind but have been letting all I saw at ICFF fully soak in and am finally ready to report. This was an odd year, I thought. Unlike the strong and new themes that emerged last year, 2008’s crop felt a bit more mild-mannered, honest, retrospective. It lacked some of what I interpreted as bleakness last year, and I appreciated the positive, straightforward quality to the work I saw.

Among the things I noticed were:

• A hyperactive take on craft. DIY is far from new, but the – shall we say – enthusiasm with which I saw designers embrace it was notable. Embroidered wood chairs, popsicle stick lamps; it was just shy of a ceramic ashtray to bring home to dad for Father’s Day.

• Wood love. Sure, wood’s been around for a while, but it made quite a showing this year. The wood radio has been a popular and extreme example, but there was also plenty of end grain to be ogled in chairs, headboards, lamps, credenzas, calculators…My favorite was actually a hefty wood coffee table coated in silver. It’s taken a lot of flack for immodesty of concept and price, but my feeling is this is just two years ahead of the curve. They’re so far over wood, it’s metallic.

• Muted colors. That hot pink keeps sticking around, if only to keep Karim from needing a new wardrobe, but the colors that caught my attention were not so eye-popping, namely flat grays, moderate purples and a putty here or there.

• The big reveal. Lots of furniture was unabashed in sharing details of its construction, from leather chairs that took their form from simple perforation patterns, to more literal examples of exposed screws, joints or actual construction materials.

• My long shot is what I’ll call global localism. This is a thin thread, but I have a hunch it’s worth commenting on. When two of the big guys cross brainstorms, something may be happening. Tord Boontje showed Witches Kitchen at Artecnica, a reinterpretation of South American cooking vessels. Meanwhile on the glam side of the aisle, Tom Dixon added to his spectacular repertoire of lighting with a series of beaten copper pendants with a sort of Moroccan mid-century flair. First-world fabu but for me the shapes had that we-love-the-(rest of the)-world vibe of Paul Simon in the 80s. We’ll see what comes of it.

On Thursday of last week, I returned from what turned out to be one of the most inspiring experiences of my short professional career: South by Southwest Interactive. Every year in early March, SXSW unites an eclectic group of Web 2.0 entrepreneurs, CEOs of multinational advertising agencies, design gurus, marketing execs, and social media mavens.

First of all, I wish I had this beforehand. But, like any other SXSW newbie, I tried to jam as much I could into the four days I had in Austin.

I had heard nothing but rave reviews for SXSW going into it, but was still totally blown away by the content of the conference and the SXSW community in general – imagine the Web 2.0 geek version of Band of Brothers (and sisters). There was this really interesting mixture of creative energy fused with technological know-how buzzing around the city throughout the entire week. I felt like everyone I talked to was working on some incredible project and I was just trying to soak it all in.

I attended the conference with a colleague, Sarah Ingraham, and our original plan was to blog the entire event live. This turned out to be impossible. There was simply too much information to absorb and too many people to interact with. But, here are a few initial takeaways from the four days I spent in Austin.

New Finds
Backpack – Developed by 37signals, this handy little tool was my virtual notebook throughout the conference. It allows you to create pages, lists, and notes in a really clean, simple online environment. I’ve also found myself using it as a tool to stay organized day to day.

Twitter – Twitter helps its users answer one simple question, “What are you doing right now?”, and broadcasts that answer to a person’s followers. For a simple explanation on how this works check this out. This was the highlight for me in terms of new social technology – everyone was on it. Throughout the conference, SXSWrs were “tweeting” back forth on panels and speakers in real-time. It was pretty amazing to watch (and later participate in). Want to get all of the latest updates from trackchanges? Follow me on Twitter @mikearsenault.

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