One thing leads to another and as I’ve learned from my friend Fabian there is no such thing to be called true ‘randomness‘ (in particular if you compare it to ‘unpredictability‘ ;-). So while I’ve had to report sad news about Zollverein School yesterday there is good news coming from our neighbours from the Netherlands in return.
Accordingly in search of developing sustainable business around creativity, design & the creative class in a geographic cluster that is confronted with structural change Eindhoven / NL, the former main centre of ‘Koninklijke Philips Electronics‘ has demonstrated that it can work. So those who know the Netherlands and their Design History a little bit better know that Eindhoven together with Delft forms the main axis of Design, Arts & Engineering. Beside this the annual Dutch Design Week has established itself as one of ‘the’ design events to go in the second week of October.
Part of this event and has been the ‘Hooked on Design‘ exhibition that took place last week and that incorporated a welcome event of the Dutch winners of the recently hosted Design Management Europe (DME) Award. This week Ingrid van der Wacht from Design Connection Brainport dropped me a note and pointed me to a brand new survey the DME initiative is conducting these days and facilitated by EURIB (for whom I’m regularly lecturing in the course of their Design Management and Brand Management programmes).
Here’s a snippet from their website:
“The Design Management Europe network partners have united efforts to prove that it is possible (and likely) to achieve business success through the strategic use of one of the most effective tools for innovation, creativity and business performance: design management.
We would like to challenge you to join us, by filling in a few questions about managing design in your business. These questions address key areas of design management such as awareness of the benefits of design and design management, the design process, the expertise involved, the planning and resources deployed in your design activities.
Your answers will be used for valuable research on European innovation and you will receive all the research results compiled in an extensive report by January 2009. And moreover, the first 500 valid completed questionnaires will be rewarded with the Book of Winners from the DME Award 2008.”
So hurry up, fill out the form and aim for a free book on the Winners from the DME Award 2008.
(Disclosure note: From this recent blog posting you will understand that the winning entry of my friend and business partner Erik Roscam Abbing will be included in the book as well. The poster entry Erik and his client Nlisis have submitted can be downloaded here.)
