Mickey McManus

Mickey McManus, IDSA | Maya Design Inc.

Mickey McManus is president and CEO of MAYA Design, a technology design and innovation lab that specializes in making complex technology products easier to use. He leads a team of cognitive psychologists, engineers, and designers. They call what they do “Taming Complexity” because they believe that powerful, complex technology is only valuable if you can make it effortless and intuitive to use. MAYA’s work in pervasive computing has been featured in the Harvard Business Review and the Wall Street Journal.

Mick was co-founder of Elan Communications. He grew the company from 4 people to 35 people in four years with over $50 million dollars in revenue and in 1999 saw the consultancy break the top ten largest agencies in the region.

At Elan, Mick managed the concept, design, and production of the Olympic Rendezvous pavilion at the 2000 Summer Olympics. The center drew more than one million visitors.

Mick's design awards include CES awards for innovation, Addy Awards, the AIGA Communications Show Judge's Choice Award, and multiple Exhibitor Awards. His work has been published in Fast Company, Harvard Business Review, The Wall Street Journal, Innovations, Graphis, and Space magazines.

His mentors were the first US students of Laszlo Moholy Nagy from the famed Bauhaus School. He lived and worked in Milan, Italy and studied under the architect Maurizio Morgantini. He has a BFA in Industrial Design, Magna Cum Laude, from the School of Art and Architecture at the University of Illinois.

Mick has lectured on design for the Economist, the IDSA and at the New Millennium Seminars in Seoul. In addition, he was a plenary speaker at the World Healthcare Technology Conference and keynoted at Harbor Research’s Smart Services Forum.

He spends his free time working to inspire the next generation of creative thinkers, most recently at the Westinghouse Science Honors Institute, a program that educates high school students about science and technology.

For more information about Mick and his company Maya Design, Inc.