Dear Friends,
Please forgive my tardiness in introducing our next three speakers.
Two have already posted, and the third waits in the wings.
You have met GK vanPatter of NextDesign Leadership. Many of you
already know GK through his on-line NextD Journal. If you do not, you
will find it at
http://nextd.org
GK VanPatter is an internationally recognized figure in the field of
understanding design and innovation architecture. He specializes in
creating strategies, tools, and organizations that enhance
adaptability and innovation. Together with Elizabeth Pastor, he
co-founded Understanding Lab Inc in New York to pioneer the
application of understanding as an instrument for growth and
innovation in knowledge creating companies.
GK has more than twenty-five years of design leadership experience.
He has consulted to such global companies as Pfizer, EDS, General
Motors, IBM, Morgan Stanley, BMW, Marriot, HP, Bristol-Myers Squibb
and many more. He was an early advocate of extending the reach of
design into business transformation, strategy development, and
organizational innovation.
Before building Understanding Lab, GK was a Scient Fellow and
Co-Founder of Scient's Innovation Acceleration Lab. In collaboration
with Elizabeth Pastor, he designed and directed all aspects of the
Innovation Lab including its strategy, organization, environments,
and award winning cross-disciplinary skill-building programs. GK's
consulting work takes him into the terrain of what he calls
"B4Design," a term he coined to describe the landscape of strategic
complexities that must be untangled before design can begin.
GK has received numerous awards for his work. If you have attended
such events as Doors of Perception, Vision Plus, or the Design
Management Institute Conferences, you have probably heard him speak.
GK holds a Master of Science Degree in Communication Design from
Pratt Institute in New York and an undergraduate degree from the
School of Architecture at University of Manitoba. As a young
practicing architect, he became convinced of the need for better
tools to enhance strategic problem solving and cross-disciplinary
collaboration. This has remained his passion and the central focus of
his work ever since.
GK's interest in the future of design leadership led to the
NextDesign Leadership Institute. The Institute has three primary
focus areas: NextD Education, NextD Research and the NextD
Conference. Since launching in May 2003, The NextD Journal /
ReReThinking Design has attracted hundreds of subscribers around the
world. In the fall of 2004, NextD will hold its first conference --
ReRethinking WHAT + HOW -- at Art Center College of Design in
Pasadena, California.
Maria Fernanda Camacho is also well known to most readers of
PhD-Design as the founder of the Design for Development list.
Maria earned an MA in Design Leadership at Middlesex University. She
also holds degrees from the Elisava Escola de Dissen y Packaging in
Barcelona and the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana of Bogota
Today, she is principal of Camacho & Asociados, a consultancy working
with innovation, strategy and design. Her clients include such firms
as CIDEIM, Foundation Carvajal, Frutaroma, Manitoba, Dulces del
Valle, Tecnoquimicas, Carpak, Lavapark, and Enfoque Mundial.
She has also been a consultant to many regional development projects,
as well as an educator, researcher and head of the industrial design
department at Icesi University.
As a designer, she has managed design, development, implementation,
and management of the Intranet Organization Charts for British
Petroleum Colombia, and she has been a design manager for the Royal
Mail in London
You can learn more about Maria's work and projects at
www.camachoassociates.com
Our next speaker will be Michael Biggs.
Dr. Biggs is well known to many of us as the founder and guiding
force behind the research into Practice conference series. He is also
Associate Dean (Research) for Art and Design, and Reader in Visual
Communication at the University of Hertfordshire. Michel has degrees
in both fine art and philosophy, and has been a senior research
fellow in philosophy at the University of Bergen, around the corner
and up the coast from me.
Dr. Biggs's principal research interests are the uses of images as
bearers of meaning, the relationship of images and texts, and such
visual languages as music notation. He specialized in Wittgenstein's
use of images and the philosophy of language.
Michael Biggs is well known as a Wittgenstein expert. He recently
re-edited Wittgenstein's published works for Blackwell and Routledge,
and he served as graphical consultant for the new electronic edition
of Wittgenstein's manuscripts [Nachlass] at Oxford University Press.
The UK Arts and Humanities Research Board, The British Council, the
University of Bergen, and the European Union have funded his research,
As a research tutor, Dr. Biggs has been involved in developing
doctoral programs in art and design in the UK, he and has contributed
to many national and international conferences on the subject. He has
experience supervising and examining traditional and practice-based
PhDs in the UK and Europe, as well as working with the PhD by
published works. Michael leads the Centre for Research into Practice
at UH.
You can learn more about these projects - and the next R2P conference -- at
http://www.herts.ac.uk/artdes/
Apologies to all for my delay in these introductions.
And now,
Welcome, GK!
Welcome, Maria!
Welcome, Michael!
--
Ken Friedman, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Leadership and Strategic Design
Department of Leadership and Organization
Norwegian School of Management
Visiting Professor
Advanced Research Institute
Faculty of Art, Media, and Design
Staffordshire University
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