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Comments on the BBD Conference by Attendees

+'s

• Quality and mix of speakers - I think that the choice of international and local speakers was great. You didn't have to enjoy Tom Peters evangelistic delivery to see that he was a good choice first up. He stirred things up and got the thing going. I'd also guess that he encouraged non design people to attend. Tim Brown was an enjoyable, reasoned designer counterpoint. The local speakers were in no way secondary. There was quality throughout.
• Venue - appropriate quality and ease of access. The catering, staff and separation from public spaces was excellent I thought.
• Graphics, publicity and media coverage - all of a very high standard.
• Government - Serious support and participation by Government is to be applauded. Showing leadership to help grow business and our economy has to be positive. It helped to legitimise the Better by Design message.

-'s

• Delegates - It's difficult to involve business people who haven't already bought into the concept.
• Cost - Sadly to most of us, cost is an omnipresent issue.
• Attendance - I wasn't able to attend all of the break-out sessions. Often they all sounded interesting to me. I'd like to have seen them all!
• Rush - Some speakers presentations were rushed and the messages were compromised. Sean Plunkett did a really good job of keeping things moving but I wish he hadn't needed to.
• Exhibition - I'm not sure that this was totally successful although it was smart to cater into this space to encourage people to stay there.
• Coffee - The queue was always too long for the free real coffee!
• Numbers - It would have been great to allow a wider participation. Venues and managing larger numbers is obviously an issue but there were many more designers and their clients and potential clients who should have been there.

What went well:

• The conference was well organised
• The speakers were obviously well looked after.
• It all went smoothly.
• It appears that the business's that came learnt a lot
• Rod Oram's talk really told the story of the need to improve NZ's exporting capabilities.
• John Heskett gave a balanced view of the role of design in business.
• Personally I enjoyed all of the keynote speakers.

What could have been done better:

• The MC'ing...a bit erratic on the last day, but generally okay. There was one speaker who spoke far too long, I felt and should have been cut off at their allotted time as happened to other speakers.
• The PR was handled pretty well in terms of getting media coverage i.e. newspapers and TV. However there were an awful lot of people I spoke to who knew nothing about the conference, particularly business people. The medium to reach these people needs to be reviewed.
• There could have been a stronger weighting to the economic need to improve NZ's exporting capabilities. Rod Oram's talk I felt was the only one that I saw that really hammered the point home. Making the point over and over again to the point of being monotonous is sometimes the only way for people to sit up and listen. Most people only get it when it is possibly too late!
• The conference gave more weighting to the glory of design, there needs to be a better balance with the more humdrum design success stories. Small design impacts can have a massive influence. Michael Hill Jewellers is a case in point. The design decision to minimise their window displays to single presentations of their products, rather than having the whole jewellery stock on display, had a big impact. The 'U' shaped counter layout in their stores and the way they display the products on the counter have all been carefully thought through to increase their opportunity to increase sales. They design and manufacture their own jewellery. The net result is they have over a hundred stores in Australia now with the intention to open up another 1000 stores around the world over the next 20 years. That is example of design influencing the exporting sector. Pumpkin Patch is another example where the design of the clothes is taking off in Britain and now they are starting to expand in USA. The point is design adds value in many arenas not just in product design. These examples along with others need to be promoted. Business' need to see that design does not have to involve a lengthy process or have significant costs incurred in research and development. It will make the design process much more accessible to a wider variety of small to medium size business's who might otherwise feel that design is only for exclusive manufacturing markets.

What would I suggest doing differently next time.

• In terms of marketing, I would be promoting the conference through all the business organisations. I do not know what was done in this regard for the BBD 2005, but the promotion of the conference needs to have a louder voice in the business community around the country.
• In terms of marketing the conference, I would be seeking feedback from the business community to find out what their needs are. What would make them think they have to attend next time?
• Give greater weighting to the business side...John Heskett and Rod Oram spoke to that more strongly than anyone else.
• Can't remember, but what follow up has been organised after this conference? Is there a proposal for a road show around the Country? Is the road show going to have Rod Oram as one of the speakers. His talk gives a real economic reality...nothing like a bit of fear to galvanise people into action!
• Promote the audits more strongly.
• Promote alternative routes for business' to link up with designers, not just through the auditing process. The design directory is obviously one of the routes.
• Generate a greater awareness. Get a permenant column in Unlimited magazine promoting the value of design for exporting. NBR would also be a good magazine to have regular monthly articles as well. Monthly articles in all of the business magazines would add real weight.
  
  There was a European survey done recently about the level of design awareness in different countries. Britain had the top awareness in the whole of Europe (this was not a survey on the quality of design! Just how embedded is design into the general public's awareness), way ahead of Italy and other countries! NZ as a country of 4 million people I wonder as a percentage how we compare to Britain? We should strive to match Britain's level of awareness if not exceed it, which should not be too hard given the size of NZ's population.
  
  I occasionally do work with a group of people at the eCentre at Massey University's Albany campus. Most of the business working out of there are electronics and software designers, and all see product design as the plastic box at the end of the development process.
  
  There is a critical need to get the electronics industry to understand the principles of user based design, and the broader role of product design. I have two very good contacts in Enterprise North Shore and at the eCentre, they are happy to organise a seminar or series of workshops to spread the need for and the benefits of the betterbydesign message and the work of the design taskforce.
  
  It's one of those occasions where experienced designers should be using their contact and experience including some good case histories (and I have some very good ones) to get this group thinking about holistic product design and development.
  
  DINZ needs to plan a way to get the messages through to a targeted group of companies. We need to get good resource material (and a briefing...wouldn't want to say the wrong thing) to use for this.

Short Comments

"Reflecting back it was a whirlwind 3 days of ideas and inspiration. It has definitely given us the impetus to push our creative boundaries. I feel privileged and excited to be part of such a movement."

"Yes it was an incredibly stimulating week and I felt a turning point for the NZ design industry. I would like to think that as Tom Peter's so confidently said, that all strong brands have "Raving Fans"............... that we can now in turn create the same for our very own world of design in business! "Raving Fans"

There were many great speakers, and some quotables that touched me, were...... John Heskett, " Being simultaneously a creative and a business professional, should not be contradictory. Or.."Make design a national religion", ......be gasp worthy!

The event was excellent and indeed world class, and many thanks to the design taskforce, who gave birth to this initiative and who have driven it through. It felt great to be a part of it. This is the start of businesses understanding the value of design....my voice always.

PS I am wondering how the design mentoring programme and audits will filter back into other design consultancies, as once a client relationship is built through an audit, I can imagine, quite easily how it would continue! Has DINZ or the Taskforce thought this through? Very keen to know, or is there an intention to add others to the mentoring programme."

"Put succinctly, I was skeptical, now I'm a convert. I was always concerned that this would be another valiant effort, preaching to the converted, and to a large extent that's still true. 350 names on the published list, only 70 odd from manufacturers/producers, most of whom had already engaged with design. But what a brilliant conference, with excellent speakers both those from New Zealand, and the overseas lot. This was like a professional development programme for designers. I came away refreshed and inspired. Our challenge 9as designers) is to take the lessons from the conference to heart and deliver the design to clients so they too can spread the message that good design is better business."

Other Conference feedback

Content.
Mostly very good and relevant.
Oram and Heskett both tops.
F&P. Not a good example of long term committment to design. For many years up to mid nineties they used design poorly.
Relevance of Interior design to add value was overlooked. Especially at Retail level.
Overlaps between Swinn and Richards on Brand.

Organisation
Big picture excellent.
Filming and lighting excellent
Timekeeping excellent
Entrance signing poor
Plunkett was a bit cold and process focussed. Better interpersonal skills would have created more audience/speaker participation
Web site could have been better used during and post conference for twice daily updates.
Food uneven

Relevance to audience
Too few decision makers. The middle aged white men that populate our boards were missing.
Organisers and speakers should have been better informed about progress being made within the commodity corporates. eg Recent Fontera changes to brand strategy and senior marketing personnel. We demonstrated our ignorance as a profession in the wrap up discussion by not being better informed about those we criticise. ( eg Fonterra ) See NZ herald articles before and after conference.

betterbydesign organisation
Moon is a terrific role model for nz business. I am full of admiration for his commitment.
There is confusion in the market place ( business community ) about the link between theory and practice. Around what BBD can do for business. Audiences are unclear about the links between T&E and BBD. Better links to individuals within both organisations are needed. eg who am I communicating with? Who has sent the latest email from BBD to me? The BBD team have done a fantastic job but individuals make up the team. What are the link points between DINZ, T&E and BBD? There is confusion and unhappiness in the design community about the allocation of audit processes to qualified design/accounting companies As a profession we are not practicing what we preach. ( eg open critical appraisal of quality and experience ). For this process to have authenticity and withstand robust/independent business appraisal we must have strict design experience criteria against which and audit managers ( auditors ) must operate. ie What role do DINZ play in this process?

Summary
We have found a big increase in client buy-in to the commercial benefits of design from our existing and new customer base between October 04 and May 05. We have tangible evidence that the BBD programme and T&E support is producing tangible benefits to the NZ economy. Not just the design profession.

Final Comments

"At the end of the conference someone asked me if I was exhausted. I found myself answering, "Not at all - I feel full of energy, my feet are firmly tucked in the starting blocks and I am looking for the track." But there is no map for unknown territory...

At the end of the high-energy, challenging, visionary, optimistic opening session on Tuesday evening I gave Tom Peters some bad news - I told him he had exceeded my expectations. "Oh no!" he replied, "Anything but that!" (You had to be there ...) But after his Wednesday morning session I had well and truly OD'd on Tom. There is only so much wild, unsubstantiated, highly exaggerated generalisation a disciplined thinker can take. The understated, feet-on-the-ground presentation that followed from Fisher and Paykel's John Bongard was positively refreshing.

I did not experience the conference as the promised "boot camp". It was essentially a talkfest, but the quality and usefulness of the talk was very high. The most beneficial sessions were the breakout presentations and dialogue where frontline New Zealand practitioners shared their experience. I wanted to attend them all, so I look forward to getting more from the website.

The example of Kiwi knowledge that has resonated most strongly for me since the conference concerns design process. When Chuck Pelly showed the BMW design process the starting point was the idea. When Rick Wells and Mark Pennington presented the Formway design process they began with data which evolved as information, then knowledge and finally insight before generating ideas. It's a conscious process for generating what Tim Brown called "informed intuition".

How well we start has a major effect on how well we finish. The Better by Design conference got this new era of creating New Zealand leadership by design off to a great start. My dissatisfaction driver remains intact. There is much to continuously improve. But a modicum of congratulation to all involved is well and truly merited"