In addition to readings and films to watch, we're encouraging our students to spend some time over the Summer carefully observing and sketching. Sketching is one of those critical communication skills that only gets better with practice. It's core to visual communication whether someone is drawing a picture, a diagram, or a system. Each week, we'll take a new theme and share the best of our sketches for comments and feedback but, mostly, the point is simply to loosen-up our wrists and arms and practice.

Hands
Shoes
Trees/Plants
Building in Perspective
People Shopping
Skyline
Landscape
Portrait
Animal
System
Self-portrait
Emotion (can be representational or abstract)

In addition to the reading list, we've also chosen a wide variety of 12 films to watch as a community in preparation for the coming Fall semester (and the beginning of the program).

The Apartment, dir: Bill Wilder (1960) Netflix Amazon
Who Killed the Electric Car?, (2006) Netflix Amazon
Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, (2005) Netflix Amazon
Blade Runner, The Final Cut dir: Ridley Scott (1982/2007) Netflix Amazon
How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, dir: David Swift (1967) Netflix Amazon
The Hudsucker Proxy, dir: Cohen Brothers (1994) Netflix Amazon
Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price, dir: Robert Greenwald (2005) Netflix Amazon
Why Wal-Mart Works; and Why That Drives Some People C-R-A-Z-Y, dir: Ron Galloway (2005) Netflix Amazon
An Inconvenient Truth, dir: Davis Guggenheim (2006) Netflix Amazon
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007) Netflix
The Yes Men, dir: Chris Smith, Sara Price (2004) Netflix Amazon
Startup.com, dir: Jehane Noujaim, Chris Hegedus (2001) Netflix Amazon

This Summer, we've chosen 12 books to read together as a community (though optional). Some are fun, some serious and, together, represent a wide variety of perspectives and ideas. While the students and faculty will be discussing these within our online learning system, we wanted to share the list with everyone in case they want to read along.

Gangs of America by Ted Nace, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, ISBN: 1576753190
Utopian Entrepreneur by Brenda Laurel, MIT Press, ISBN: 0262621533
As The Future Catches You by Juan Enriquez, Three Rivers Press, ISBN: 1400047749
Rainbows End by Vernor Vinge, Tor Science Fiction, ISBN: 0812536363
Built to Last by Jim Collins and Jerry I. Porras, Collins, ISBN: 0060566108
Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud, Kitchen Sink, ISBN: 0878162437
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand, Signet, ISBN: 0451191153
No Logo by Naomi Klein, Picador, ISBN: 0312421435
Free Lunch by David Kay Johnson, Portfolio, ISBN: 1591841917
The Opposable Mind by Roger Martin, Harvard Business School, ISBN: 1422118924
Why We Shop by Paco Underhill, Texere, ISBN: 158799044X
The Creative Priority by Jerry Hirshberg, Collins, ISBN: 0887309607

All are available at Amazon (just click the links)

As of this week, we have a full class of students to start in the Fall. Of the 90 applications we received, we accepted 38 and 31 have decided to come. That's an unprecedented yield of over 80%--more than any other program here at CCA. It's also one more than our plan so it may be a tight fit in the classrooms.

Our students come from a wide range of experiences and background--just what we had hoped for. About two thirds have traditional design backgrounds, including fashion, interaction, industrial, interior, and graphic design. The rest have a variety of business experience as entrepreneurs, managers, and leaders. We have a few international students joining us and expect about 5-6 to be commuting to the program monthly from around the USA.

We plan to enroll the class into our online learning system ASAP as we have a full summer of activities planned for them, including a summer reading list, film list, and sketching schedule. We'll be posting each of these in the next week or so.

Congratulations to this pioneering cohort!

Mass customization has been a "horizon" topic for some time but little exploration of what it means to product development or user experiences has been made, compared to the technologies explored to enable it--until now. Martin Gloeckle's master's thesis,
Unreadymades, is an insightful depiction of the possibilities and the dynamics of thoughtful, meaningful customization. There's also a nice interview with him here: Mass Customizaion Blog

The Office of Special Programs at California College of the Arts (CCA) has announced the launch of the Summer Institute in Sustainable Design. This two-week immersion program enables practicing professionals in design and other disciplines to come together to learn about and discuss cutting-edge green strategies and their applications in the realm of design. The first program in what will be an annual series takes place June 15-27, 2008, in Point Reyes and San Francisco. Details are available at www.cca.edu/sustainable

We've received an overwhelming response to our call for students to start the first class of students in this new program this Fall. In addition to the more than 70 applications, we're impressed by the quality and diversity of applicants applying to the program. Since we're only looking for a maximum of 30 students for the Fall class, it looks like we have more than enough to have a stellar group this Fall. We're almost through the acceptance process so we should be getting back to students soon.

A new IBM study reports that businesses that strategically support corporate social responsibility perform better and enjoy advantages.

As of this morning, DMBA program has officially received 60 applications so far! Given that we're only looking for 25-30 total for the program it looks, after less than 5 months, we've already found enough fantastic students to have a full program in the program's first year. Of course, we don't yet know how many are qualified but, based on the students I've interviewed over the phone and in person over the past months, I'm very confidently that we have some awesome students in this first cohort. We'll start the process of reviewing these applications and will be making the first acceptances in mid-February.

I think this is also more indication that these issues are resonating with people and that the time is right to be seriously addressing how design and business can better create change in the world, together.

I've given several lectures in the past 6 months on sustainable design and, in each one, there's always a question about "who is doing the more sustainable design in the market right now?" My talk at MacWorld today was no exception.

While there are many companies exploring and manufacturing products that excel in sustainable criteria, one of the most recognizable and easy-to-understand for people is Apple.

Continue reading "Is strategic design sustainable?" »

Because of CES last week and MacWorld this week, there were several articles in the business press discussing how computer and consumer electronics companies were planning to counter Apple Inc.’s dominance of their product categories. Apple’s success is now the model to follow for manufacturers of everything from music players and music download systems to computers, phones, even retail stores.

Continue reading "Is Apple's Design Dominance Threatened?" »

Potential students are often surprised--and relieved--that the DMBA program doesn't require taking the GMAT test. From the beginning, we felt that such tests often penalize those from design backgrounds that aren't, necessarily quantitatively-focused. In the same way that requiring a portfolio would put those with non-design backgrounds at a disadvantage, the GMAT test might have the opposite effect.

It's more work to evaluate people on the basis of their backgrounds, experiences, essays, and interactions, but we always felt it was also more accurate. Now, there's even some validation to our expectation that GMAT scores don't necessarily correlate to business success anyway. The GISMA Business School in Hannover, Germany just published the results of a study into just this.

The study found that while GMAT scores correlate well with quantitative performance in school, they don't correlate well with qualitative performance (such as innovation, leadership, cultural intelligence, etc.). These are precisely the skills that we fell most matter in business performance outside the program, in the actual business world. Furthermore, the report only compared scores to academic performance and not to actual success after business school.

As we get closer to the start of this program next Fall, we've found the need to adjust the planned academia calendar for the 2008-2009 year. There should be a new calendar posted to the program website soon that covers both the Fall and Spring semesters for this first academic year. Since the DMBA program uses a low-residency model, it has different needs. However, the new residency dates should fit well within CCA's normal academic calendar and, so far, clears all major national and religious holidays. The time between residencies varies between 3 and 4 weeks and the first residency of each semester starts after the normal start of CCA's semester.

It's likely, the new student orientation will happen on the Wednesday afternoon or evening before the first residency and this will be a mandatory meeting time as well. Luckily, students only need to go through it once.

Don't make airline arrangements yet, however. These dates are still 8 months away and may shift some.

I'm very happy to announce many of the faculty who will be teaching in this program. At the information night tonight, several will be on-hand to meet in person and their bios should be listed on the program website soon. All of them are incredible people and represent an amazing pool of talent, insight, and experience from a broad range of business and design backgrounds.

We still have a few more to finalize but I've got candidates already for the rest of the courses. As we finalize the curriculum and course syllabi, we may still move some things around (or change course titles) so keep in mind that this is all a bit fluid. However, by the time the program starts next Fall, all will be stable.

Design Innovation Studio: Raffi Minasian, CCA and consultant
Effective Communications: Linda Yaven, CCA and consultant
Managerial Accounting and Managerial Finance: Linda Sheldon, consultant
Market Insight Studio: Steve Diller, Cheskin
Leadership & Entrepreneurship and Culture and Ethics in Business: Sharon Green, Cal State University / East Bay
Sustainability Studio and Products, Services, and Experiences Studio: Nathan Shedroff, CCA and consultant
Strategic Management: John Foster, IDEO
Venture Studio: Bill Wurz, Stone Yamashita Partners
Law & IP: Brad Simon, Boalt Law School and PlayFirst

At the information night tonight, we'll be announcing some small curriculum changes. Two courses from the second semester are swapping with two courses from the third semester. These should be reflected on the rest of the program website this week or next...

Market Insight Studio > 2nd semester
Sustainability Studio > 2nd semester

Products, Services & Experiences Studio > third semester
Managerial Operations > third semester

This will allow us to introduce marketing and market research tools and skills earlier (which can only help) as well as sustainability frameworks and tools. It also allows students to, potentially, use the PSE Studio to begin development of their thesis project (if it fits the outline for this course) and gives students more experience with organizational details before taking the Operations course.

This is a great explanation of why sustainability is important. In 15 short minutes, it gives a great overview of the materials stream and the people, political, and health issues around it. It covers consumerism, the environment, toxic materials, politics, and labor, all in the context of economics without being strident or full or jargon.

http://www.storyofstuff.com/

This is an excellent article describing Target's internal interior design group and their work for clients outside the company.

Designs on a New Market Niche (Wall Street Journal)
4 October 2007
by Ann Zimmerman
online.wsj.com/public/article/SB119145487497048330.html

Our Design MBA program was just mentioned in the list:
images.businessweek.com/ss/07/10/1005_dschools/source/6.htm

This month's Fast Company Magazine devotes most of the issue to Design with some excellent articles: www.fastcompany.com/design/

A question I hear often now is: "what is the difference between an MBA and a Masters in Design or a Masters in Design Management?"

The latter two degrees are fairly common--especially in Europe--but the MBA is brand new and still rare (for now).

Continue reading "MBA vs. Masters of Design Management" »