Leading by Design Fellows Information Night: Nov 11 2010
Fun and Play at Work: Nov 13 2010
Teach Us Something in 7 Minutes: Nov 20 2010
Guest Speaker and Book Signing: Brian David Johnson: Dec 11 2010
Guest Speaker: Douglas Gayeton: Dec 18 2010

Save the dates and stay tuned for more information on these events.

Design Strategy MBA Students, Linda Yaven, Faculty invite you to

Teach Us Something in 7 Minutes
Saturday, November 20, 2010.
7 - 9:30pm
Timken Lecture Hall at CCA San Francisco Campus


Directions to 1111 8th Street San Francisco, CA 94107

Thurs, November 11, 2010.
7 - 9pm
Florence and Leo B. Helzel Boardroom at CCA San Francisco Campus



"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." - Albert Einstein

Agile leadership. Design-led innovation. Adaptive resilience. These are the hallmarks of a new approach to solving the complex challenges we face in the world today--to create a more profitable, sustainable, meaningful 'tomorrow'. The Leading by Design Fellows Program deepens the capacity of senior professionals and businesspeople to imagine, lead and accelerate business innovation and social transformation. Meet Fellows Program Director Susan Worthman along with faculty and current Fellows and learn how this dynamic, 6 month executive leadership program equips you with the fresh thinking, tools and experiences to design a bold, breakthrough future for yourself, your organization and the world.

Rsvp to fellowsprogram@cca.edu

Fun and Play at Work presentations.

Sponsored by MBA in Design Strategy..
Saturday, November 13, 2010.
7 - 9:30 pm.
Timken Lecture Hall at CCA San Francisco Campus.
Directions: to 1111 8th Street San Francisco, CA 94107.

MBA in Design Strategy students from the Red Cohort perform scenarios from their Leadership in Design course, demonstrating how specific companies can integrate play into their strategies to promote better results.

The DMBA student body is pleased to announce the official launch of the 2009-2010 Student Annual. This student-led initiative is a true testament to effective leadership and cross-discipline collaboration; core components to the DMBA learning experience. The DMBA at CCA is the first and only program of its kind and we could not be more proud to be a part of such an avant-garde initiative. Join us on Thursday, November 18th for an evening of discovery, dialogue and of course...drinks, that introduces this powerful collection of work and the students behind it. Preliminary event information is provided below. Stay tuned for more details in the coming weeks.

Event Details:
What: Annual Launch Cocktail Party
When: Thursday, November 18th 6:00-8:00pm
Where: The Nave @ CCA's SOMA Campus, 1111 8th Street, San Francisco, Ca 94107

Register here: http://thedmbastudentannual2010.eventbrite.com/

Curious about the DMBA program? Read an excerpt authored by program chair and founder of the DMBA, Nathan Shedroff.

"Two years into the MBA in Design Strategy program, and with our first graduates finished and out in the world, it´s possible to start gaining some perspective about this program and the world around it. When we started building this program in 2007, we knew there was interest and need from talking with many companies and organizations about what kinds of people and skills they could not easily find. At the time, it was more intuition than anything else that led us to focus on the interaction of Design (and, with it, design thinking and design processes), Sustainability (and systems thinking), and Business (particularly new approaches to management, leadership, and economics). We were the only program to publicly state a focus across these otherwise (and historically) distinct domains-and we still are.

The hunch has turned out to be worth having followed. In the last three years, the business world has increasingly explored its fascination with design thinking. Moreover, the need for new economic models has been fully realized across multiple sectors, and, as the workplace becomes increasingly complex with the addition of new social norms and attitudes, the need for new approaches to "managing" people and expressing leadership has become abundantly clear.

In tandem, the design world is increasingly losing its aversion to "business" as it realizes its potential to create and affect change in the world. Design as a field is reaching a new level of maturity, losing its prior impatience, as designers are able to witness tangible changes (and their related opportunities) embodied more quickly.

Furthermore, sustainability issues have also become increasingly of interest to the business and design worlds. Business leaders and designers are readily embracing the opportunity to engage through this new lens. This was a failing in the past and why it sometimes seems like little has been accomplished in the last 30-40 years of the "green" and sustainability movements.

In our new Fellows program, we are teaching a Systems Strategy Model that shows the overlap in operating principles for multiple organizational domains as a way of showing the intersections of opportunity.

The intersection represented at the heart of this model is unprecedented. It shows how seemingly disparate domains are aligning philosophically around the same principles and, in so doing, provide a basis for mutual understanding and collaboration that has never before been seen. Chief among these is Systems Thinking, but along side are the ideals of stakeholder engagement and customer-centricity. The business world describes these slightly differently (in terms of customer loyalty and value, service models, etc.) but they are entirely compatible with how the design world articulates customers (or users), and the need to design systems. Of course, this kind of cross-sector analysis of stakeholders is not new to the sustainability conversation, except for the design process providing a better route to successful change and a new context for value creation.

This kind of cross-sector thinking is not only reinforcing of Systems Thinking, it has the potential to enable domains, organizations, and individuals to align more quickly and deeply, in order to develop and deploy more successful solutions. The Design Strategy MBA program is at the forefront, defining, shaping, and exploring this intersection, and our students will be better prepared to take advantage of the opportunities inherent in this growing overlap between powerful domains.

As the program grows (we´ve doubled in size starting Fall 2010), we continue to attract a more diverse student body, faculty, and community. Increasingly, we are joined by those with finance and non-profit backgrounds. Our aim is to add to our community conversations and create and share these perspectives and tools so that all of our community can use them to create more positive change in the world.

That is our ultimate aim and the reason why this program has come into being."

Nathan Shedroff

Wondering what the future of television will be like?
Brian David Johnson, Futurist and Director, Future Casting, Interactions and Experience Research, Intel Labs and author of the book, SCREEN FUTURE: The Future of Entertainment, Computing, and the Devices We Love, will be book signing and will be speaking about where the future of television is going. His work is called "future casting" -- using ethnographic field studies, technology research, trend data and even science fiction to provide a pragmatic vision of consumers and computing. Along with reinventing TV, Johnson has been pioneering development in artificial intelligence, robotics, and using science fiction as a design tool.

Saturday, Dec 11, 2010.
7 - 9pm.
at CCA San Francisco Campus
Directions to 1111 8th Street San Francisco, CA 94107

Curious about what's inside the DMBA program? Read how former Levis executive and CCA professor Tim Smith is taking core components from both systems thinking and design strategy to inform students about how choosing the right process will lead to more impactful business solutions.

Process Leads to Impact

Tim Smith is an Assistant Professor at the California College of the Arts. He teaches Business Models & Stakeholders in the spring semester and Operations & Systems in the fall semester. He has over three decades of experience working for socially responsible companies in the areas of Merchandising, Product Marketing, Strategic Planning, Market Research, Business Development, and Sustainable Development. During his years as the Merchandise Manager of Fashion Jeans for Levi Strauss & Company and as the Senior Director for Shaklee Corporation, he helped achieve higher efficiency and profitability along with stronger competitive positions. The key to these achievements was applying the processes of deep customer interaction, systems thinking, and prototyping.

The MBA in Design Strategy program at the California College of the Arts is unique and effective in developing leaders who embrace innovation and sustainability to manage today's complex business environment. For example, the Brand Strategy course teaches students about professional processes and techniques of building, transforming, and managing brands. In the Operations and Systems course, students learn about processes such as supply chain management, quality assurance, process design and improvement, service ecology management, facilities, and human resources. Students master professional design tools in Innovation Studio and hone their communication, negotiation, and leadership skills in the Leadership by Design course.

The Student Annual is a magazine designed by current DMBA students that illustrates and documents the students' skills, including examples of projects from various courses. The genius of the Design Strategy program is how it fosters collaboration among students to strengthen their skills while still encouraging individuality and creativity. Readers will gain insight into how students learn processes and seek out opportunities to develop alternative scenarios that are innovative, necessary, profitable, and sustainable.

Understanding and applying process to various situations and opportunities leads to impact. Prototyping based on meaningful research and strategic thinking (systems thinking) helps to remove uncertainty and ensure the desired outcomes. Impact comes from designing technologically appropriate and socially responsive solutions to offerings of products, services, and experiences. Process leads to impact when all stakeholders (customers, communities, and investors) have been served and the world is better off socially, environmentally, and culturally.

We are honored to announce Douglas Gayeton speaking to us on,
Saturday, Dec 18, 2010.
7 - 9pm.
at CCA San Francisco Campus.

Douglas is a media pioneer, photographer, artist, and the author of the book Slow: Life in a Tuscan Town. He will be discussing his photographic still and his latest project, A Lexicon of Sustainability.

Directions to 1111 8th Street San Francisco, CA 94107.

The DMBA student body is pleased to announce the official launch of the 2009-2010 Student Annual. This student-led initiative is a true testament to effective leadership and cross-discipline collaboration; core components to the DMBA learning experience. The DMBA at CCA is the first and only program of its kind and we could not be more proud to be a part of such an avant-garde initiative. Join us on Thursday, November 18th for an evening of discovery, dialogue and of course...drinks, that introduces this powerful collection of work and the students behind it. Event information is provided below.

Event Details:
What: Annual Launch Cocktail Party
When: Thursday, November 18th 6:00-8:00pm
Where: The Nave @ CCA's SOMA Campus, 1111 8th Street, San Francisco, Ca 94107

Register here: http://thedmbastudentannual2010.eventbrite.com/

Curious about what's inside the DMBA program? Read how a group of current DMBA students collaborated to design and produce a collection of unique perspectives and sample work that embodies the future of business and design leadership.

Elysa Stein Soffer and Amina Horozic, the editors-in-chief of the Second Student Annual, are currently completing their final year of the DMBA program. They both recently relocated to San Francisco from Philadelphia and Los Angeles, respectively. Elysa joined Hot Studio as a User Experience Architect and works with the Designers Accord to promote sustainability in design. Amina is an Industrial Designer at frog design.

We are beyond excited to launch the Second Student Annual for the California College of the Arts Design Strategy MBA program. And although our program is no longer considered brand new, the work in this Second Student Annual marks several firsts. For example, the Class of 2009 has graduated, the Class of 2010 has progressed to their second and final year, and the Class of 2011 has begun the program anew. As a result, the work you will see showcased in the Student Annual represents the first comprehensive look at a fully operational program. Inside these pages, we have curated a number of thought-provoking pieces designed to provide our readers with an unfiltered look into the inner workings of our DMBA experience. In the Annual's pages, we hope you will be inspired, challenged, delighted-and perhaps galvanized-to join us by taking a fresh look at leadership, communication, process development, and the art of decision-making.

Join us as we celebrate and mark the official launch of the Annual this Thursday, November 18th from 6PM-8PM in the nave of the California College of the Arts campus in San Francisco.

This is not business as usual. This is DMBA.

Amina Horozic and Elysa Stein Soffer
Editors-in-Chief

Last May California College of the Arts launched the Leading by Design Fellows Program, a highly immersive and creative graduate-level certificate-based program for senior professionals and business managers who want to accelerate and deepen their capacity to innovate, solve complex problems, and lead positive change to shape the future.

The program's first cohort, under the leadership of Director and lead faculty Susan Worthman, came to a conclusion in November with students presenting their final projects over several days in the San Francisco campus boardroom. By the time the final project had been presented, the success of the Leading by Design Fellows Program was undeniable.

The pioneering cohort of 23 participants met at CCA's San Francisco campus over a six-month period for monthly two-day residences (Friday-Saturday). Among the group's professionals were left- and right-brain thinkers alike whose backgrounds ranged from nonprofit to corporate to educational to technology. Collectively, they represented diverse professions: artists, designers, documentary filmmakers, educators, entrepreneurs, financial executives, marketing executives, technical engineers, sustainability leaders.

Upholding the program's core goals, students' final projects illustrated design thinking and process by using new principles, frameworks, tools, and strategies to accentuate more meaningful and sustainable business fundamentals and leadership.

Nathan Shedroff, program chair and founder of the DMBA, was the Keynote Speaker at the OTIS College of Art and Design in Los Angeles earlier this August. At the OTIS 2010 Convocation, Nathan spoke on teaching to Sustainable Practices in Art and Design