Just finishing Roger Martin's new book, Fixing the Game, about how the gal and expectations markets need to be separated in order for businesses to run healthily. It's not only a great critique of modern economics and business but describes some of the core principles and actions for fixing the mess.

We're excited to announce a new book written by our faculty that represents the core thinking within our curriculum, why it's different, and why it's important in business education. Each chapter represents the approach behind one of our courses, often including examples of projects, required reading, and exercises. This 80 page, 9"x6" book is available for free both in print, as a PDF, and as an ePub. You can download the PDF and ePub versions yourself and contact us if you would like a printed copy (which we'll send to you).

Download:
• PDF
• ePub
• Request a printed copy (please include a mailing address)

We've begun to publish annuals of our program, including student work, descriptions of courses, work and profiles of our graduates. The 2010 Annual, documenting our first class of graduates, is now available. This 80 page, 9"x6" book is available for free both in print, as a PDF, and as an ePub. You can download the PDF and ePub versions yourself and contact us if you would like a printed copy (which we'll send to you).

Download:
• PDF
• ePub
• Request a printed copy (please include a mailing address)

Some of our students have begun to post videos of their presentations in our program's Teach us Something in 7 Minutes. This is one of the projects in our Live Exchange course that teaches communications and collaboration skills--not to mention public speaking skills. These presentations require the students to take a concept from their accounting or economics course and communicate them in a creative way to the audience--in only 7 minutes.

Information Night Tuesday, November 2, 2010
7 - 9pm
Timken Lecture Hall at CCA San Francisco Campus



Please join us for an in-depth look at our MBA in Design Strategy. Meet MBA Chair Nathan Shedroff as he introduces faculty and current students in an evening dedicated to public awareness of the design strategy program at CCA. Learn more about new trends in business education and why CCA 's innovative MBA program will give our graduates an edge in the new emerging global economy.

RSVP for this event »

Directions to 1111 8th Street San Francisco, CA 94107 » San Francisco campus map (PDF)

Tonight, Adam Lowry, one of the founders of Method spoke in CCA's Graduate Lecture Series. He shared insights into not only the history of the company and it's innovative products but how to they've created and maintained a culture of innovation and weirdness.

Amy Whitaker, one of our program's Economics instructors, staged a teach-in for Occupy Wall Street last week in New York City. She taught market economics to protestors--not so different than teaching economics (market and otherwise) to our students.

Advisor to the DMBA program and professor at Haas, Sara Beckman's interview in Innovation Management is a great discussion of Design Thinking and it's role in organizations. It's near and dear to how we approach Design Thinking within our program.

Today, two noted perfumiers came to class to expose out students to the structure and process of scents and train their noses just a bit. Yosh Han and Ineke Rühland, shared not only their experience and their own creative perfumes, but taught our students, through samples of raw ingredients, how scents are constructed.

This is part of our third semester course, Experiences Studio, in which we not only teach the process and dimensions of experience design but we try to deepen our students' own experiences in, and understanding of, their own senses.

Today, as part of our Experiences Studio, our students were fortunate to be part of a fantastic experience. Mattson, the USA's top food innovation firm (think of them as the IDEO of food), created an elaborate challenge for our students to meet. In just about an hour, there were to conceive of a new platform for frozen prepared meals, build prototypes of at least one variety, and present with any packaging or business model. We all worked furiously but it was one of the most interesting and fun prototyping experiences I've ever been a part of.





13 teams (all but one were pairs) created a variety of different easy-to-prepare frozen meals for a variety of eaters, from weight-consious families to first chef experiences for children to fast meals for busy professionals. They prototyped both kit parts and the final meals, many with several varieties of flavors.





We can't thank Mattson enough for the opportunity to innovate in, for us, a new domain.

This year, we're also implementing a buddy system as well as a mentoring program. All of our new students are matched with "buddies" in the second year of the program so they have someone to turn to for a student's perspective--especially for advice about homework, the best tools to use, etc.

Our new mentor program pairs our second year students with professionals within our larger community for career and professional advice. Some amazing people have volunteered an hour a month to mentor our students. If you're interested in becoming a mentor next year, please email us.

Today is the last day of orientation (we had one last week as well). Our 118 students are all off on their journey for the new year. As part of our orientation, and thanks to the advice from our students who completed last year, we've welcomed our students with an orientation kit of survival items:

• first sketchbook (we have them keep design journals for every studio)
• first (of many!) pads of Post-It™ notes
• highlighter
• two white board markers (the other must-have accessory in the program)
• a spork--even with a knife attached (we all have to eat)
• a pair of chopsticks (it is San Francisco, after all)
• a (dematerialized) thumbdrive with a PDF survival guide
• a great little book on the variety of design craft (since we're not a design program)
• quick reference card with the entire schedule for the year and important URLs
• welcome card with map and schedule

The past president of Presidio Graduate School when I graduated from there, Ron Nasher, was fond of saying "begin again" when people confronted a challenge that was insurmountable. Often, it's the only possible course in business or life, anyway.

Yesterday, we started the new year. While we're not at a point of insurmountable challenge, the term is still appropriate as the cycle for the year starts again. For the 62 new students entering the program, they start the journey others have made before but with a few modifications.

We have 118 students this year (our most ever), split between to different tracks. They come from 15 different countries (including Canada, Brazil, Mexico, India, Iran, Uzbekistan, Jordan, Germany, and Nepal) and 22 of them commute from all over North America.

They're off to a great start already and we look forward to their innovative ideas and energy this year.

We've used the book, Natural Capitalism, in our Sustainability Studio for several years, now. It's a fantastic, if shockingly illuminating, account of the business responsibility and opportunity related to all aspects of sustainability. The one complaint we receive from our students is that it seems "old," having been written and first published in 1999. Though the examples seem old, today, the points and learnings are just as relevant.

However, Hunter Lovins, one of the original authors of Natural Capitalism, and a friend of the DMBA program, now has a new book that serves as an updated version of her old book, both in terms of examples as well as points. Climate Capitalism still has the business-centric, sane, and optimistic call-to-action that Natural Capitalism had but with newer examples, figures, and metrics.

Any course on sustainability would be wise to include it and any businessperson or business student interested in improved economic performance, reduced risk, and emerging opportunities should read it regardless of whether or not you believe in climate change. In fact, one of the central messages of the book is that these strategies make sense--and money--because they are good business.

Climate Capitalism, by Hunter Lovins and Boyd Cohen

www.core77designawards.com/awards/design-for-social-impact

Spark Project Award Winner

Besides the DMBA team who an award in Core77's Strategy/Research category, another team placed as a finalist in the Design for Social Change category. Developed in our Sustainability Studio, SPARK is a way to connect people in defined geographic areas and create sustainable community by engaging human potential. People have lots of skills to share and need help learning new ones. Using this information to bring people together, it doesn't go wasted and, in addition, helps people better know their neighbors.

The SPARK system starts with neighborhood leaders or visionaries who introduce their community because communities work best when they are self-governing. SPARK matches skills and needs and rewards connections and sharing.

The student team consists of: Amy Gustincic, Shira Kates, Paula Kuhn, Alex Scott, and Arash Shirinbab.

www.core77designawards.com/recipients/design-play"

A team of our students has won an award in Core77's Strategy/Research category for a project they started in our Experiences Studio and continued in our Ventures Studio.

DesignPlay is Design Thinking for Children. It is an open-ended, foundational creative framework that builds on what children already do as they play. As they imagine, create and collaborate with others, DesignPlay helps kids understand that they can influence their environment. Their empowerment leads to change in their immediate environment and beyond.

The student team consists of: Ahmed Riaz, Susan Huang, and Jonathan Fristad. Two others who worked on an earlier version of the project: Eric Dorf and Chirapat "Mon" Vorratnchaiphan.

Annie Morhauser, one of the DMBA program's advisors and a trustee of CCA, will give a free lecture in UC Santa Cruz's Creativity + Innovation series:

Thursday, May 12, 2011 - 6:00pm
Media Theater, Theater Arts Center (UCSC)

Hear how Annie Morhouser took an art school idea and turned it into a multi-million dollar fine art glass empire (Annieglass) while maintaining the integrity of her craft. Learn how she made creativity and innovation the driving force of her artisan-run company in order to compete against multi-national corporations for the last 28 years. She tells the story of her success with disbelief, humor, and gratitude for a creative life.

This presentation is part of the series of free, public lectures in the Dean's Lecture Series entitled "Creativity and Innovation" (part of the course Art 80V: "Issues and Artists" taught by Associate Professor Lewis Watts). Arts Division Dean David Yager has selected nine speakers, all noted for their unique ability to bridge innovation and creativity within their professional career paths. The public is cordially invited. Admission is free. Parking $3.

DMBA Chair Nathan Shedroff features on the Designers Accord Sustainability in 7 video series. The Designers Accord Sustainability in 7 video series delivers a daily dose of design inspiration by today's leading sustainability experts.

Designers Accord - Sustainability in 7 - Nathan Shedroff from Core77 on Vimeo.

In what he deems "probably the fastest introduction ever" to systems thinking, Nathan Shedroff introduces systems as a context and a perspective. Among the six other points, he touches on resilience as the successor to sustainability--which Michael Sammet explored at greater length to kick off sustainability month. (Who knows? Maybe we'll be celebrating "Resilience Month" next year.)

The MBA in Design Strategy proudly invites you to the 2011 Venture Show showcasing the final work of our outstanding graduates. Our graduating students will be showing their final projects.

Saturday 7 May 2011
7-10pm
Timken Lecture Hall
1111 Eighth Street
San Francisco

RSVP: garmbruster@cca.edu

We're proud to announce DMBA Insights, a new student and alumni-run website of projects, articles, commentary, and inspirations--all reflecting our students' experiences and work from the program.