Lunch Seminar: What Can Design Do for You?

To bridge the gap between business and design, AIGA San Francisco will present a lunch-time seminar that will explore how “design thinking” can help your company reach its goals. Design thinking has been defined as a process for practical, creative resolution of problems or issues that looks for an improved future result. Unlike analytical thinking, design thinking is a creative process based around the “building up” of ideas.

The seminar will feature a moderated panel of experts who have expertise in design strategy and provide “design thinking” to their clients. When registering, please choose from one of three lunch choices.

• Mesquite turkey w/bacon [mesquite turkey w/ applewood smoked bacon, sharp chedder, basil aioli, red onion, lettuce and tomato]
• Chicken Athena [grilled chicken, with feta, roasted red peppers, and sundried tomato aioli]
• Waldorf salad [Vegetarian - sharp vermont cheddar with veggie waldorf salad]

Moderator:
Jay Ganaden serves as AIGA SF’s Business Outreach Chair and Treasurer. He’s a Connector from Gladwell’s Tipping Point, a relentless networker at AIGA events, and will probably invite you to his hundreds of connections on LinkedIn. Jay also started the unofficial AIGA SF Facebook group and makes random updates to it for fun.

Panelists:
Tom Dair is co-founder and president of Smart Design, a strategic global design consultancy specializing in product development, interactive experiences and brand communications. As Practice Leader for Smart Design’s Insights and Strategy discipline, he has pioneered methods that inform the design process through understanding user behavior and perceptions, business factors, and technology trends. Working with companies such as Samsung, simplehuman, Johnson & Johnson, Starbucks, Sony, Cisco, Kellogg’s, and Clorox, he has helped establish strategic initiatives leading to successful product introductions and profitable results for his clients. Tom has been granted 19 patents to date, won numerous awards, and his designs have been included in various museum collections. On the topic of design Tom has presented at conferences for Frost & Sullivan and International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) and he has been featured on CNBC, and in articles for The Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, and the New York Times.

Alonzo Canada is a principal of Jump Associates, a growth strategy firm based in San Mateo. He has particular expertise in integrating business strategy, design and consumer insights to create compelling experiences for ordinary people in markets around the globe. At Jump, he has been instrumental in helping the leaders of Fortune 100 high tech, CPG, automotive and media companies craft new solutions for driving growth and increase their innovation impact inside their organizations and in the world. Alonzo is the former creative director of RoundArch, a CRM solutions firm spun off from Deloitte Consulting. Alonzo built and led the firm’s design practice, helping Fortune 500 clients to translate their technical capabilities, business objectives, and brand strategy, into an online presence that uniquely met the needs of its customers.

Aaron Pou is co-founder of Autograph, and a Los Angeles native who trained as a photographer for several years before moving to New York in the November of 2001 to pursue his ambitions. It was there where he found his true calling – art direction and graphic design. Upon finishing at the top of his class at Parsons/The New School for Design in 2006, he quickly landed a design position at a high profile brand consultancy with offices in NY, London and Glasgow. It was that international design approach which gave him his contemporary view of the world. In 2007, Aaron moved back to the west coast to be closer to family and branch out onto his own. Partnering up with Donerik Dela Cruz in April 2008, they formed an art direction house called Autograph. Working closely with adidas, Electronic Arts and Making Of, Autograph continues to create new brands and help existing brands communicate more effectively.