IDSA HQ

2020 MISSION

In 2019, much of our work at IDSA HQ was about setting ourselves down a path toward reenvisioning the IDSA membership experience for a new era. All of it is built around the core idea of Community + Content = Value. It’s a phrase I’ve spoken and written about in great detail during my two years as Executive Director, and it has become a foundational element of our strategic approach. This short statement is now embedded in everything we do at IDSA HQ and will continue to drive our thinking as we move forward.

Today, we find ourselves at the dawn of a new decade, and I remain very optimistic for the opportunities that lie ahead for us to bring expanded awareness, inclusion, progression and success to our beloved Society. Many of the goals the Board of Directors and I share for the future of IDSA center on celebrating the work of our community and creating unique opportunities for you as a member of IDSA year after year. The IDSA staff and the Board of Directors are working in closer harmony now than perhaps ever before. During a recent day-long workshop, we brainstormed programmatic improvements and envisioned new opportunities to prepare the organization for the growth that is surely to come. We’re excited to incorporate these ideas into our current offerings. I’m looking forward to a tremendous year ahead of us. The work we are doing now will further establish our place as the leading organization for industrial designers.

I am very thankful for the many of you who have continued to champion our cause and actively contribute to our community during this time of metamorphosis.

Centering on Community Regardless of membership status, a core tenet of IDSA remains to serve the profession as a whole and advocate for the impact we all believe industrial design can have on business, society and the lives of the people who use the products we create. According to the most recent data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are more than 40,000 industrial designers living in the United States. This community of thousands of designers represents the nucleus of IDSA.

By maintaining our focus on supporting the industrial design community and directing resources back to our membership, IDSA HQ has accomplished a great deal in just a few months. We have reengaged with dormant chapters and are working to establish new ones. As a result, we’ve seen increased activity and renewed energy around creating localized design events that build community and allow individuals to take proactive leadership roles. Every day we’re seeing more people in our community experience the value that real-life connections can offer. After all, personal one-on-one connections have long been the backbone of the IDSA experience. We are thrilled to have helped facilitate this resurgence in connections and can’t wait to see what comes next.

Elevating our Content Over the past several months, our media channels have seen considerable growth and increased engagement. This is due in large part to highlighting our members’ stories and keeping a close eye on the pulse of industrial design and related industries. Just as in the early years of our organization, we are working today to build a platform that collects from, centralizes and showcases one of our most valuable resources: you. You are at the forefront of our profession and you are actively driving its evolution. Thus, it makes sense that the content at our events, on our website, in print and on social media is pulled directly from the collective knowledge base of our membership and is uniquely tailored to best respond to the transforming needs of our profession.

The IDSA staff has been working diligently behind the scenes on a range of other content-related improvements. For example, we’ve made several adjustments to our website to improve navigation, content hierarchy and visual clarity. We also completely reworked our membership renewal communications, updating the language and processes to make renewing your membership much quicker and easier. These types of details are paramount to improving the interactions you have with IDSA and go a long way to create a delightful experience. You know as well as I do that designers love the details!

Experiencing Value The team at IDSA HQ is committed to providing frameworks and opportunities for you to engage with other design professionals and advance your career. Experience is a twoway street and requires active participation by you in order to thoroughly enjoy all the benefits IDSA has to offer. In this way, IDSA is dramatically different from the countless groups popping up on social media and other online platforms these days. It’s one thing to follow; it’s another to participate and connect directly with other members of your community. We believe it’s only through the act of participation that one can truly experience meaningful and lasting value.

One way we are working toward the goal of ensuring experiential value is through our current initiative to restructure our professional chapters to be city-based communities. For years, many of our professional chapters have represented large geographic areas with loosely defined borders (think Rocky Mountain, Northern Lakes, Mid-Atlantic). In other instances, chapters like Texas or Florida are located within large states but lack a strong place to call home. We’ve been lucky to have strong leadership teams in these chapters who have done wonders to bridge these geographic expanses. However, the unfortunate reality is that it remains challenging for a distributed community of designers to truly connect with one another in (what IDSA considers to be) a meaningful way.

In 2020, you’ll begin to see changes that usher in renamed chapters and completely new chapters in cities all over the United States and internationally, with all IDSA chapters becoming city-based groups. We hope this will allow more opportunities for chapter leadership teams to meet and thrive by providing rich and meaningful content to their local design communities.

—Chris Livaudais, IDSA, Executive Director chrisl@idsa.org

In This Issue of INNOVATION Back in early 2019, I spoke with Mark Dziersk, FIDSA, on the phone for a little over an hour. We swapped IDSA stories, and he offered some advice on how I could best serve the membership as Executive Director. During the call, Mark also offered his resignation as Executive Editor of INNOVATION, a position he held on two occasions for a total of 10 years. Before we hung up, he provided a few pointers on the process of making INNOVATION and some ideas for improvements. I think this is indicative of many of our experiences with Mark. He was passionate about our Society and always ready to share his insights to help others. The Spring 2019 issue was Mark’s last as Executive Editor.

In this issue, a year later, our main theme delves into the complex and shifting landscape of medical device design with our guest editor, Tor Alden, IDSA. Tor is an accomplished designer with an expansive body of work in the consumer and medical design fields. He has curated an impressive collection of articles that reveal insights into the current and future medical design landscape.

We are also delighted to introduce a new article series for 2020 called “A Final Thought,” which is being written by Hector Silva, IDSA, and will cover a multitude of topics through the lens of design education and young professionals. Enjoy!

Editor’s Note: In the final days of finishing this issue, we are facing an unprecedented challenge with the global COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic. The staff and I, in close collaboration with the Board of Directors, are monitoring this situation on a daily basis and strictly following guidance from the World Health Organization (WHO) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Keeping our community safe is our utmost priority; therefore, many of our 2020 event plans are shifting as new information emerges. You can find the latest information on IDSA’s response to this rapidly evolving global pandemic at www.idsa.org/COVID-19.