BACE Blog

DMI Conf. Overview

October 27, 2009 by Mel Lim | business, conferences | 0 Comments

Overview
This is my second DMI event. The first event I attended in SF was so fun, I simply could not miss this annual conference.

Plus my husband, Joe and I haven’t been to Boston and this would be a great opportunity to see the city.

This annual DMI Annual Conference 34, was located at the Marriott Cambridge, organized with the Collaborative Initiatives at MIT. There were around 150 attendees from over 15 different countries, representing leading professionals, consultants, and educators from organizations such as Businessweek, Capital One, ConAgra Foods, Fidelity, Legrand, Nike, Pitney Bowes, RISD, Sony, Boeing, and Vodafone. (Oh, and of course, me, Mel Lim, representing herself and all other small business owners and independent consultants out there.)

The three day conference was filled with great speakers.
Day 1:
Joe Ferry, Head of Design, Virgin Atlantic Airways
Alan Webber, Author, Rules of Thumb
Selena Griffith, Senior Lecturer, University of New South Wales

Day 2:
John Maeda, President, Rhode Island School of Design
Dev Patnaik, Founder & Principal of Jump Associates
Lorrie Vogel, GM of Considered Design, Nike Inc.
Agnete Enga, Co-Founder, Femme Den & Senior Industrial Designer of Smart Design
Michael Conard, Research Scientist
Michale Schrage, Fellow, MIT Sloan School of Management
Ben Fry + Casey Reas

Day 3:
Stephen Randall, CEO LocaModa
Dori Tunstall
Beth Comstock, Senior VP of GE
Thomas Kurmel, Colonel (Retired) Medical Service Corp. U.S. Army
Watts Wacker, Futurist of FirstMatter LLC

I have mixed reviews for this conference. Maybe it’s because I had enjoyed my first conference in SF so much, that I found this one to be somewhat “cold”. Well, the weather, was indeed brutal for someone like me who likes 90F weather. But it was also the crowd. I found that in SF, even though there were a ton of ivy league alums, people were nice, engaging, open and HAPPY. Could it be the West Coast versus East Coast culture? I also noticed that the crowd here had a hard time asking simple questions. Funny, how the constant theme through out the conference was about “simplicity” and yet the average person at the conference took 50 huge words to ask a question that can be summarized in 10!

And this conference got me thinking about waste and sustainability. Like all trade shows or conferences, I am always very observant about the waste that we humans produce in a short amount of time. Do we really NEED to use 20 sheets of paper for ONE simple assignment? Is there a better way to relay an assignment or a message? Maybe we should question our consumption habits instead.

Regardless of the mood, like many DMI’s seminars/ events, I walked away with TRULY valuable lessons and information that I can apply to my wide range of projects, share with my clients and fuel my business.

Now, let’s dive into the hot topics and cool designs I witnessed during the conference.