Customer Expectations, Implications on design discussed during 2nd Annual CMN Breakfast Event
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CUSTOMER EXPECTATIONS, IMPLICATIONS ON DESIGN DISCUSSED DURING SECOND ANNUAL CMN BREAKFAST EVENT
Prominent Thinkers from Worlds of Business, Design and Technology Gather to Debate Requirements of Today's More Sophisticated Consumers
WATERTOWN, MA March 5, 2003 -- Corey McPherson Nash (CMN/ http://www.cmndesign.com), an award-winning integrated design firm providing branding, advertising, print and interactive services, yesterday hosted its second annual breakfast event, "Are Your Customers Becoming Too Smart: How to Innovate and Differentiate When Customers and Competitors are Upping the Ante." The event featured a panel discussion comprised of George Colony, founder, chairman and CEO of Forrester Research, Christopher Meyer, vice president and director of the Cap Gemini Ernst&Young Center for Business Innovation and Christopher Pullman, vice president of design for WGBH television; the panel was moderated by Alan Webber, founding editor of Fast Company. Panel participants discussed a number of issues surrounding today's more sophisticated consumer and how advances in design and technology require businesses to respond more creatively, faster and more nimbly to heightened expectations.
"This year's event, like the one we hosted last year, prompted some provocative discussions around the customer experience and the role design plays in enhancing that experience," said Andrea Naddaff, CMN partner. "We at CMN believe design will continue to play an increasingly important role in ensuring cohesive brand identity for companies across multiple channels."
Issues discussed during the event included what makes for good and bad design, what customers expect design to deliver and the role of design in today's business climate. At the heart of the discussion was the panel's perspective that design is a key component in a customer's successful brand experience and, consequently, that design can't be treated in isolation but must rather be viewed and integrated across an organization's function, service, the client's expectations and the overall brand experience. Additionally, the group discussed the increasingly strategic importance forward-thinking organizations are placing on design in terms of its impact on overall branding.
About the Panel Participants
George Colony As founder and CEO of Forrester Research, George has become one of the most recognized analysts in the world of technology. During George's 24-year career, he has focused on helping executives at $1 billion-plus companies use technology to drive revenue, profit and market share.
In addition to leading Forrester, George actively watches and analyzes changes in the worldwide software, networking and computing industries. In 2001, he coauthored a groundbreaking report on the X Internet - the executable and extended Net that will replace the Web and revolutionize how companies work with their customers and partners.
This year, George attended and participated in his second World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. In 2002, George advised the White House on the Department of Homeland Security's IT strategy. He is also a featured speaker at Forrester Forums - including the Technology Leadership Forums held in the United States and Europe. George's analysis is often quoted in The Wall Street Journal, The London Times, The Economist, Wired, BusinessWeek, Forbes and The New York Times.
Christopher Meyer Christopher Meyer is a vice president and the director of the Cap Gemini Ernst&Young Center for Business Innovation. The Center is charged with identifying the issues that will be challenging business in the future, and defining responses to them; as director, Chris is responsible for establishing the Center's research agenda. His own current research interests include the development of a New Theory of the Firm, the implications for management of new discoveries in complexity and self-organizing systems and the development of the "connected economy."
Chris is an authority on the evolution of the information economy, the innovative use of information, and its impact on strategy, shareholder value, and "informationalization" of the firm. Chris established the BIOS Group, Cap Gemini Ernst&Young's initiative to develop complexity-based solutions for management. He has more than 20 years of general management and economic consulting experience. With Stan Davis he co-wrote BLUR: The Speed of Change in the Connected Economy (Addison-Wesley, 1998), FutureWealth (Harvard Business School Press, 2000), and It's Alive: The Coming Convergence of Information, Biology, and Business (Crown, 2003).
Christopher Pullman Since 1973, Chris Pullman has served as Vice President for Design for WGBH, public broadcasting in Boston, which supplies about a third of both the PBS prime time schedule and associated Web sites on PBS.ORG (the largest .ORG in the world). He and his staff (which has grown from 5 to 50 during his tenure) are responsible for the visual personality of WGBH, as expressed through the design of its on-air titles, credits and animation, promotional and sales support, classroom materials and interactive media.
WGBH has always recognized design as a business asset, and in 1986, the company was honored with the Design Leadership Award from the American Institute of Graphic Arts recognizing the station's contribution to "the advancement of design by application of the highest standards, as a matter of policy, to all its visual communications."
Chris has been a member of the Board of the Design Management Institute and the Corporate Design Foundation, reflecting his interest in the relationship between design and business. He has also served on the national board of the American Institute of Graphic Arts, and the American Center for Design. International Design Magazine included Chris in the first list of the I.D. Forty, the forty most influential designers. In 2002 he received the AIGA Gold Medal, the highest individual honor awarded to a designer by the American Institute of Graphic Arts, recognizing "individuals who have set standards of excellence over a lifetime of work or have made contributions to innovation within the practice of graphic design."
Chris earned his MFA at Yale in 1966 and has taught there ever since. He has lectured widely to schools and professional organizations and has published articles on design for television that have appeared in CA, Design Quarterly, Critique and various anthologies.
Alan Webber Alan Weber co-founded Fast Company in 1993 as a different kind of business magazine designed to give people the tools they need to succeed in today.s world of work. Alan founded Fast Company after spending six years as the managing editor/editorial director of the Harvard Business Review. During his tenure at HBR, the highly acclaimed business magazine was named a finalist for the National Magazine Awards three times.
Alan went to the Harvard Business School in 1981 to serve as a senior research assistant and project coordinator on the auto industry in America. The project culminated in a book called Changing Alliances. In 1989, he was named a U.S.-Japan Society Leadership Fellow by the Japan Society of New York - which allowed him to travel to Japan for three months. Before going to the Harvard Business School, he served as special assistant to the U.S. secretary of transportation in Washington, D.C. Alan.s articles and columns have appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Alan has also appeared on broadcast outlets like ABC.s Good Morning America, CNNfn and NPR.s the Connection, discussing his ideas about how companies are adjusting to a new world of business. His book, Going Global, coauthored by Fast Company cofounder Bill Taylor, was published by Viking Penguin in July 1996.
About CMN
Now celebrating its 20th year of business, CMN provides thoughtful design solutions for branding, print and interactive communications for clients including Buckingham, Browne, and Nichols, Eastman Kodak, Clear Channel Communications and Cubist Pharmaceuticals, among others. With capabilities in print and interactive media, CMN analyzes and enhances brand equity throughout all applications. For more information, contact Andrea Naddaff at 617-924-6050 or email anaddaff@cmndesign.com