Business Leaders, Top Thinkers and Design Visionaries to Speak at Industrial Designers Society of America’s 2011 International Conference in New Orleans, Sept. 14 - 17

DULLES, Va., June 10, 2011 – Why is community important in design? It’s because today users play a bigger role in design by helping to define the process of creating products and services. Keynotes drawn from top thinkers, business and industry leaders will investigate the impact of community on design at the Industrial Designers Society of America’s (IDSA) 2011 International Conference set in New Orleans from Sept. 14 to 17. This year’s theme, “Community: You, Me, We.,” will examine the importance of community across multiple layers of design by exploring emerging social issues, studying ever-shifting consumer behaviors, investigating new tools, venues and models with which design is conceived, developed and executed.

The conference will follow three tracks: “Attitudes & Behaviors,” “Methods & Means” and “Community as Context.” Selected from a wide range of leading companies and organizations, keynotes include:

Clay Shirky, author, associate arts professor and distinguished writer in residence at New York University (opening keynote)
Tom Bassett, CEO, MindSwarms
Andrea Chen, co-founder and executive director, Social Entrepreneurs of New Orleans
Allan Chochinov, partner, Core77
Tom Gerhardt, co-founder, Studio Neat
Elizabeth Goodman, Ph.D. candidate, University of California, Berkeley, School of Information
Ben Kaufman, CEO and co-founder, Quirky
Grant McCracken, research affiliate at the Convergence Culture Consortium (C3), MIT
Margaret Gould Stewart, director of user experience, YouTube/Google
Aaron Zinman, co-founder, Empirical LLC
Yancey Strickler, co-founder, Kickstarter
Arnold Wasserman, principal, Collective Invention
Scott Wilson, founder, Minimal

“Nothing fuels debate like strong opinions, good food, good music and alcohol—New Orleans has all four,” said conference chair Tad Toulis. “Join us this September for IDSA’s 2011 International Conference!”

For a complete list of topics, speakers and information, visit
http://www.idsa.org/2011internationalconference.

The conference’s current sponsors include Autodesk, Eastman Innovation Lab, Core 77, Fast Company and Teague.

About IDSA:
Founded in 1965, the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) is one of the world’s oldest, largest, member-driven societies for product design, industrial design, interaction design, human factors, ergonomics, design research, design management, universal design and related design fields. IDSA produces the renowned International Design Excellence Award® (IDEA) competition annually; hosts the International Design Conference and five regional conferences each year; and publishes Innovation, a quarterly journal on design, and designBytes, a weekly e-newsletter highlighting the latest headlines in the design world. IDSA's charitable arm, the Design Foundation, supports the dissemination of undergraduate scholarships annually to further industrial design education. The organization has more than 3,000 members in 27 chapters in the U.S. and internationally. For more information, visit http://www.idsa.org.

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