RIT Hosts New-Product Development Forum, April 12

“New products are from Mars and new services are from Venus. For years we have blissfully lived in a development world that assumes new products and services were more or less the same. We are here to set the record straight,” says John Ettlie, director of the Technology Management Center at Rochester Institute of Technology.

Ettlie, Madelon and Richard Rosett Chair in RIT’s College of Business, will serve as moderator and speaker at the RIT New-Product Development Forum on Wednesday, April 12. Sessions on “New Products vs. New Services: Unbundling the Differences,” will run from 8 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. in the B. Thomas Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences auditorium. Parking will be available in Lot J.

Speakers include Douglas Duke, technical manager, Pratt & Whitney, United Technology Corp; Ron McAlpine, manager electronic commerce construction technology, Ingersoll Rand Company; Charles Craig, vice president of science and technology, Corning Inc.; and Tom Delaney, Bank of America.

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. “Services are different and we intend to show, with the aid of our most qualified speakers, that it is time we took careful account of these and other differences that make every successful new offering unique,” Ettlie explains.

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 8 to 8:30 a.m. and lunch is scheduled from noon to 12:45 p.m. For more information call the Center at (585) 475-7431 or register on the Web at www.cob.rit.edu/npdforum.