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Friday, 2 November 2007 | Levent OZLER
4th Design Management Forum
9th and 10th of November 2007 in Cologne
Are there limits for Design?
The 4th Design Management Forum will take place at the property of the WDR in Cologne on 9th and 10th of November 2007. This year the event is concerned with the influences of new technologies on the life and working sphere of humans. Consumer behaviour is changing with great dynamics. The users of industrial products and services have become more critical and fastidious and would like to see their individual desires satisfied. They increasingly use new technologies in order to articulate their interests.
Small, middle and large enterprises must react to this development. They should design their structures and decision processes, as well as their planning, development and design processes in a new way and include their customers. How should this happen? What possibilities are available to design the co-operation between enterprises and customers? Already now, hierarchies are dissolving in enterprises, to be replaced by interlaced structures. At the same time responsibilities grows for everyone. The 4th Design Management Forum discusses the role and limits of design in the context of these new challenges, and debates solutions for sustainable innovation and design strategies.
Paal Smith Meyer, Creative Director at LEGO, will point out how planning and design processes can give birth to sustainable enterprise strategies, using the example of "LEGO Mindstorms". He will present four approaches, which subsequently will be made more profound by experts from industry and research. In following workshops the moderators will discuss, how their knowledge and skills can address challenges of the participants and answer questions.
1. Design as an initiator of new business fields?
Jens Krause from the Institute of Integrative and Comparative Biology of the Leeds University (Great Britain) will clarify what we can learn from current research on social network architecture with animals and humans and apply this to restructure organizations.
2. Customer Co-Design
Already for a long time, users in computer game industry have turned into designers and decision-makers. Thomas Zeitner, managing director of Electronic Arts in Cologne, will present examples and existing possibilities of "customer co-creation".
3. Explorative user research
Clemens Marek, director of the ergonomics at the Ford plant in Cologne, will point out how findings from a systematic acquisition of insights of user behaviour and characteristics affects the planning, development and design in the automobile industry.
4. Integration of communities in Design processes
Today, communities exist everywhere and to each topic. For television programs they have been a decision parameter for a long time. Axel Beyer, director of the television entertainment at the WDR Cologne, will report on his experiences with the phenomenon "community building", based on examples from television entertainment programs.
To round off the event, the internationally working design management consultant David Griffiths will summarize and evaluate the results of the 4th Design Management Forum. He will provide a prospect on the future developments and will comment on the perspectives, as well as the limits for design on the global market.
Place of the event
WDR Wallrafplatz 5, 50667 Cologne, Main Entrance Funkhaus, Conference hall 6230 / 6. Upper floor
Organizer
Brigitte Wolf Design theory, Emphasis: methodology, planning and strategy, Bergische Universität Wuppertal
Tony Strnad Director, production design, WDR Cologne
Frans Joziasse Director, PARK advanced design management, Hamburg
Please note: Most of the presentations will be held in German.
Contact
Prof. Dr. Brigitte Wolf, Design theory, Emphasis: methodology, planning and strategy
Bergische Universität Wuppertal, Department F - Industrial Design
bwolf  uni-wuppertal.de
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