CONFERENCE XD: UX STRAT
Upon hearing the news that our Master of Design Innovation Program (MDes) would be partnering with one of the most talked about UX conferences in the nation, UX STRAT, we were humbled and ecstatic to have personal access to such an incredible three-day event.
Diving into a little about us and our mission, the MDes Program promotes design as an economic and innovative force. Design Strategy is an emerging discipline that helps firms, businesses, established companies and startups determine what to make and do, why to do it, and how to innovate contextually, both immediately and over the long term. This process involves the interplay between design and business, a strategic mix of qualitative and quantitative methods. By learning to balance empathy and understanding, critical thinking and analytical skills while maintaining contextual immersion and skillful communication, we aim to emerge from this program able to guide and lead multidisciplinary teams.
The collective grouping of diverse and innovative minds that work towards making clear, purposeful change is what fuels and excites all of us here at MDes. We are eager to talk to and hear from such a high caliber of speakers and attendees at UX STRAT who practice this collaborative design approach every day.
UX STRAT’s mission is to help design leaders find the smartest way forward in a period of time in which emerging technologies will fundamentally change the ways that humans interact with devices and each other.
As part of our annual MDes bootcamp, a three day workshop in Vermont that kicks off the school year, we conducted in depth research on the speakers who will be presenting at UX STRAT 2018, parsing the niche areas of expertise and distilling their fields of work in addition to how they align with the MDes program. We found an interesting synergy of UX, new tech, and business and strategy (See figure 1 below).
Not only that, we began mapping the complexities of the design and Design Strategy roles developing in our industry’s collective lexicon today. You should look forward to a further analysis in a series of articles to follow where we’ll contextualize speaker’s stories and unpack what we have learned!
“ UX STRAT is thrilled to partner with The Master of Design Innovation (MDes) program at MassArt to run the UX STRAT USA 2018 conference. The MDes program, which is preparing the next generation of innovators to lead organizational and social transformation at corporations, nonprofits, educational institutions, and entrepreneurial ventures, is perfectly aligned with our own mission.” — Paul Bryan, UX STRAT Masterclass Organizer
