RIT Partners with MIT to Produce Teleconference on Successful Business Design
Using design to better serve customer needs results in business success. The Business Edge teleconference explores this concept through a live satellite broadcast featuring video case studies highlighting the successful use of design in business.
The teleconference will be broadcast from MIT in partnership with Rochester Institute of Technology’s Educational Technology Center from 7-9 p.m. on April 24. ETC will show the teleconference free of charge to the RIT and Rochester community in building 6, auditorium A205.
ETC produced and shot all the teleconference’s video segments in Boston, Washington DC, New York City, Philadelphia, Connecticut and upstate New York. ETC’s director David Cronister and senior producer and editor Kris Kemp will direct the broadcast from MIT’s television facilities in Cambridge, Mass.
"This broadcast will go out to an international audience of universities and corporations involved in business and design," says Cronister. "It’s a good showcase of the production facilities at RIT."
The two-hour program includes interviews with CEOs, senior executives and designers, providing an inside look at corporate design practices at top corporations widely recognized for excellence in design:
- Acela, the design and promotion for Amtrak’s new high-speed train
- Humanscale, producer of the new Freedom Chair
- IBM, branding and product development in a revitalized design program
- OXO International, producer of Good Grips line of products
- SEI Investments, the office environment: an instrument of cultural change.
"I’m a passionate believer in design. I’ve always felt that design functions as the important first signal to customers. If you think about it, it’s really one of the most tangible manifestations of your brand," says Abby Kohnstamm, IBM senior vice president. "It’s important to remember that design is evolutionary…and it should be considered constantly throughout the strategic development of both your brand and your products."
A panel of experts will host the Business Edge, providing live commentary and responding to viewer questions via e-mail. Panel members are Steven Eppinger, professor, Sloan School of Management at MIT; Lee Green, director of corporate identity and design at IBM; Barbara Richardson, executive vice president of Amtrak; Alan Webber, co-founding editor of Fast Company; and moderator Peter Lawrence, chairman of the Corporate Design Foundation.
Subjects covered will include product development, design of the workplace, corporate culture and identity, and how attention to design has resulted in corporate success. The program is intended for groups of executives and designers as well as students and faculty from business and design schools.
The Business Edge teleconference is produced by the Corporate Design Foundation in collaboration with Rochester Institute of Technology's Educational Technology Center and Bailey Design Group. The Corporate Design Foundation received a $75,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to create the teleconference.
Chris Bailey, a 1980 RIT photography graduate, is president and partner of the Bailey Design Group. Bailey, Cronister and Peter Lawrence, chairman of the Corporate Design Foundation, first worked together during a similar lecture series, the William A. Reedy Memorial Lectures, which ran at RIT from l978 through 1997.
"I always thought it was great when I was an RIT student to see what was going on in the ‘real’ world, not just the academic world. The goal of this teleconference is to bring in the best from the professional world who are using design from a strategic perspective. Part of my interest in being involved in this project is to maintain a gateway back to educational institutions that get what employers need and prepare people for their careers," says Bailey.
"One of the highlights of this project was the wonderful production partnership ETC established with the Bailey Design Group, the Corporate Design Foundation and MIT. We look forward to continuing such endeavors with this partnership in the future," says Cronister.