December 2007: Roger Martin on "Design Thinking: The Next Competitive Advantage"

December 20, 20075:00 to 6:30 pmAccelerator Centre295 Hagey Blvd., Waterloo[Map]Everyone is invited to this free event. If you plan to attend, please RSVP to Wanda Eby at Communitech so we can gauge attendance and plan for an appropriate room at the Accelerator Centre. We’re thrilled to announce that Roger Martin will pay us a visit on December 20. Roger is Dean of the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto and a renowned speaker on the application of “design thinking” to business strategy. For a taste of his ideas and contributions to the field, dig out your back issues of Harvard Business Review, download this PDF of Roger’s article in Fast Company, or browse the results when you search for him on BusinessWeek.

Design Thinking: The Next Competitive Advantage

Two fundamental kinds of thinking co-exist and often collide in business organizations: analytical thinking and design thinking. Both have their places, but as organizations grow, analytical thinking — which focuses on exploitation and refinement of the current state of knowledge — often crowds out design thinking, which pushes knowledge forward and creates new possibilities. To benefit from design thinking, a business needs to understand how analytical thinking and design thinking differ, why and how they come into conflict, and how to create an environment which encourages design thinking to flourish.

May 2008: User Experience Design at Microsoft (rescheduled from Nov/07 and Feb/08 – whew!)

November 22, 2007
February 21, 2008
Delayed until May 2008 as we’re likely co-hosting an event with Microsoft
5:00 to 6:30 pm
Accelerator Centre
295 Hagey Blvd., Waterloo
[Map]

On November 22 February 21 Whew, okay, sometime in May we welcome Qixing Zeng from Microsoft Canada. Qixing is a User Experience Evangelist with Microsoft, so she’s well-placed to give us the dirt on how Microsoft is thinking about UX these days — and how that might affect the work we do as well. We’ll nail down the exact topic of Qixing’s talk as the date approaches, but in the meantime here’s a general introduction from her.

User Experience Design at Microsoft

How is Microsoft changing its culture from engineering-driven to Experience First? What is the design model at Microsoft? Microsoft software now spans from standard websites to rich interactive applications to desktop applications, and we interact with it on our TVs, phones, table tops, game consoles, and computers. How does Microsoft strive to create a seamless user experience across all these platforms — while enabling designers and developers to work more productively together? In my talk, I’ll share some insights and examples to answer these questions from my perspective as a UX evangelist within Microsoft. I’ll illustrate these ideas through real world design examples created on the Microsoft Silverlight and Windows Presentation Foundation platform.

If there’s a specific Microsoft UX topic you’d like to hear about, please feel free to contact me through my blog. I look forward to meeting you all in November!

In the meantime, here are some useful links:

• Microsoft Design
• Silverlight
• Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF)
• Expression Studio

(October 2007) Designing the User Experience: Unplugged

October 18, 2007
5:00 to 6:30 pm
Accelerator Centre
Meeting room #2
295 Hagey Blvd., Waterloo
[Map]

Event description

Designing the user experience for software requires understanding user needs and behaviors. However, only so much can be learned by asking direct questions of people. Designers can employ a variety of techniques and activities to quickly uncover user needs and influence their understanding of the functionality required — and of potential design solutions. Come participate in an informal, “unplugged” discussion in which we’ll collectively formulate a best-of-breed process for designing user experiences.

About the speaker

Sandra Loop brings experience as a UX designer for the Sybase iAnywhere Professional Services group. Sandra will facilitate the discussion using a real-world mobile application scenario.

September 2007: "UX ChitChat"

September 20, 2007
5:00 to 6:30 pm
Accelerator Centre
Meeting room #2
295 Hagey Blvd., Waterloo
[Map]
UPDATE: Location confirmed, we’re at the Accelerator Centre as originally planned.

Join us on September 20 for ninety minutes of fascinating, illuminating, edge-of-your-seat… chitchat. Okay, perhaps we’re over-promising somewhat here, but with your help we could kick off the season with an energetic bang. Navid and Robert will discuss plans for upcoming events and facilitate conversations on whatever topics are of interest to the folks who attend. From the variety of people who participated last spring, we know there’ll be no shortage of things to talk about; so instead of listening to a speaker tackle a single topic in depth, you’ll get a chance to spark conversations and hear what others have to say. Wrestling with a problem and want some ideas? Read something interesting and like to share? Come on out for some quality ChitChat.

Give us a taste of what you’d like to ChitChat about!

With some advance notice, we can pull together some supporting materials. So if there’s a topic that interests you, simply add a comment to this blog posting. That lets others see what you’ve suggested and voice their support too. Here are some examples of topics, to get you thinking:

• What’s up with people going crazy over Apple’s iPhone?
• I’ve been hearing about Design Patterns. Anybody using them?
• Tips for creating interactive prototypes
• Connecting design objectives with business goals

Please toss your ideas into the comments for this post. Thanks! Hope to see you on the 20th!

Let us know about topics or speakers you're interested in

Have any specific topics you’d like covered at one of our events? Know anyone you’d like to see make a presentation? Interested in presenting something yourself?

We’d love to know your thoughts on this. Feel free to leave a comment on this blog posting so everyone else can chime in with their responses too. Or, if you prefer a more private channel, fire an email to our coordinators Robert and Navid.

Kicking off the 2007-2008 season

It’s official, folks! We’re now affiliated with both IxDA and Communitech, have over 50 people on our mailing list from last spring’s events, and are looking forward to a season of monthly events beginning in September.

Our regular meeting time will be on the third Thursday of each month, from 5:00 to 6:30. Meetings will typically be at the Accelerator Centre. However, these details may occasionally need to change, so be sure to check this site for details about each month’s events.

All this plus more on our About page.