RIT’s Saunders College of Business Hosts New Product Development Forum, Nov. 9

Ron Smith is an award-winning product designer and customer experience strategist with more than 20 years of experience designing products for IBM.

Dan Touhey led the 2001-launch of the Spalding Infusion basketball, the first and only basketball with a built-in micro pump, and the best-selling basketball ever.

Smith, senior experience designer, IBM Corporate Brand and Values Experience, and Touhey, vice president of marketing, Spalding Inc., will be the featured speakers at the RIT New Product Development Forum on Thursday, Nov. 9, at Rochester Institute of Technology. Sessions on “Open Innovation: Case Studies and Evidence from Applied Research” will run from 8 a.m. to noon in the auditorium, B. Thomas Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences. Parking will be available in Lot J.

“Smith and Touhey will be addressing marketing and open innovation issues—how to ensure products are relevant to customers and how to launch ground-breaking product designs,” says John Ettlie, director of the Technology Management Center at RIT’s E. Philip Saunders College of Business, the sponsor of the event. Ettlie will serve as moderator of the forum, and also will speak on the impact of the worldwide Web on research and development.

The RIT New-Product Development Forum, a partnership between RIT faculty and local businesses, is designed to address applied-research issues related to the successful introduction of new products and services.

Registration is required; tickets are $100, with company discounts available. The cost is free for the RIT campus community and NPD Forum members. A continental breakfast will be served from 7:30 to 8 a.m. For more information call Molly Weimer at (585) 475-7431 or register on the Web at http://saunders.rit.edu/npdforum/.