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" »

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?" »

Allison Arieff's commentary in the NY Times yesterday, Designing Through a Depression, has spurred a nice conversation about the role design plays in both the causes and the recovery from an economic downturn.

Perhaps, the most important design project of the next decade will be to redesign the economy for a post-consumer model and experience. As some of the commenters have pointed-out, we can't have a lot of hope for longer-lasting products when the market still rewards continuous turn-over and replacement. We need wholly new models and while this isn't the usual domain for designers, it puts design skills to good use. We need collaborations between enlightened and daring economists as well as designers.

That's what the DMBA program is focused on: changing the conversation towards the real challenges for the future. One of the most influential places where design and business meet is in the imagining of new models for both.

Designers are optimists, at heart. We look toward the future and everything we do is aimed at making an improvement in some way: in someone's life, in a process, in a product, in the world, etc. Unfortunately, we aren't always successful. What we create may miss the mark but, more often, we're not able to convince others of our vision, whether it's our clients or our peers within a company. Designers are often naive about the way businesses and other organizations work and get frustrated when others don’t see what we do.

Continue reading "Business is the Future of Design" »

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)

Because so many people wrote us that, essentially, they had "just discovered the program" and really wanted to apply, we've reopened registration only for the first two weeks of February. So, you all have until the end of day on Friday the 13th to apply for Fall of this year. Good luck.

Several of the students currently in the DMBA program are publishing blog entries about their experience in the program at Triple Pundit...

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 conversations with the program's advisors and faculty, the question inevitably comes-up "How is this program different from all of the other MBA programs out there?"

The short answer is that we're building a unique program with a focus on design and innovation principles core to every class. In addition, sustainable business is a focus of the program since it represents the future of business, both for-profit and non-profit (more on that later).

Continue reading "Design is the Future of Business" »