IDSA / ICSID Connecting Congress 2007: Day 4

November 7, 2007 | Levent OZLER

The last day of the conference was themed "Beauty + Bounty". Exploring relationships between aesthetics and business, the morning sessions started with the presentation from Stefano Marzano, the CEO and Chief Creative Design, the international in-house design group at Philips responsible for all design work within the company. Titled "Finding your Sculpture", his speech started with some images from Renaissance master Michelangelo, referred by Marzano as "beauty in its broadest sense". Talking about his journey that has started in Philips in 1991, he presented some glimpses of how his company strived to bridge the gap between "beauty and the bounty". For him, design with its unique interdisciplinary stand can provide authentic perspectives in "simulating affinity between two cultures".

The second presenter was world-famous Turco-Swiss designer, Yves Behar. Behar works with numerous high-profile companies such as Herman Miller, MINI, Sony, Targer and many others. He is also engaged in social responsibility projects such as "One Laptop for Child". Titled "Why and How", his speech addressed how Fuseproject established unique relationships with its clients and "the people". According to Behar, if something is not ethical it is not beautiful.

The third and arguably the most interesting presentation, of the morning sessions was from Sir Ken Robinson, an internationally recognized leader in the development of creativity, innovation and human resources. Sir Robinson argued that every individual is endowed with creativity but most are not aware of the hidden potentials. It is a big mistake to think that only "creative" can think and act creatively. This misconception is one of the most significant problems of today's organizations. Novel approaches should be devised and utilized to uncover such obscure potentials.

The last two sessions of the morning program addressed the important issue of design thinking.

The first speech, given by IDEO's current president and CEO Tim Brown, provided the audience with details regarding Brown's personal journey that transformed him into a design thinker. He claims that designers should become design thinkers in the ever challenging environment of contemporary world. The second presentation was from an academician, Roger Martin, the Dean of the Joseph L. Rotman School of Management, Toronto. Martin addressed the clashes between analytical thinking and design thinking in corporate environments. Innovative opportunities of a fruitful synthesis between those two mentioned styles of thinking should be the ultimate goal in any company who wishes to survive in the competitive market environment.

After an afternoon full of workshops, parallel sessions and educational presentations, Connecting 07 officially ended with IDEA Ceremony & Awards at Masonic Center. The details can be found at http://www.idsa.org/idea2007/index.htm