Latest Posts...

by Erin Jacobs
Beyond the tangible work we construct as individuals and in groups, is an emotional being connected to learning experiences in very unique and personal ways. Though most of us grow up thinking it’s the logical and concrete things that validate us as successful human beings, it’s actually the emotional being that makes anything and everything we know come to life. The DMBA graduate program embodies this perspective, but for me, the experience only actualized itself once I learned to embrace it.
Working in teams is no easy task, especially when members have just met. Deciphering personalities is challenging enough without the added pressure of trying to excel in a graduate program. In school, the pressure is on. Our work must be perfect if the professor is to assign the respectable grades high-performing students desire. Having recently graduated from undergraduate studies at UCLA, it is logical to think that professors only know us for what we turn in, for the tangible things we produce. We think it’s up to us to make sure that everyone in the group is meeting expectations and working with high standards in order to receive desirable grades. After all, the work of the group directly reflects each individual and how the professor will perceive us.

Read Full Article » Discuss This »

by Jennifer Pechacek
For the past 7 years—through a very challenging journey—I have been groomed within a professional context to provide leadership in project and team management working within architecture, planning and urban design. Communication techniques and skills are imperative to leading teams through the development of multiple projects. Communication helps sustain the outcome and so becoming a better communicator is of particular interest to me. LiveE as a course is designed to address the significance of “effective communication” within professional practice.
I chose to go back to school to break down my “me house”. Attending the dMBA program at CCA has presented me with the opportunities to free my hindered mind, engage in provoking thoughts, provide space for self-reflection and time to question my true self, as I see myself—not just in terms of how others view me. The pressures of professional business practice consistently remind me to remain “strong” and to never reveal my fears. However, during this first semester of dMBA I saw how I own my image. Returning to school has given me the wonderful opportunity to start a difficult conversation with myself.

Read Full Article » Discuss This »

by Erica Frye
The business world has started to recognize something I’ve thought for a long time — designers have exactly what it takes to be great leaders. Here’s why:
We turn vision into reality.
Arguably the most powerful design skill (and the most underestimated, even by designers) is the ability to take abstract concepts and express them tangibly through visuals, messages, and models. We’re innovative at heart, and we bring the new and unusual to life in inspiring ways and show people things they couldn’t have imagined themselves.
We play well with others.
Designers work well independently, yet we also have the emotional intelligence and curiosity it takes to thrive in collaborative groups. We welcome input from those who will show us different perspectives, give us inspiration when we are stuck, criticize us when we can no longer see clearly, and push us to improve our work in ways we cannot achieve alone.
We see the big picture.
The best designers have a broad understanding of history, culture, and people, which gives us the perspective needed to see the long-range vision and give it context. We explore connections between unlikely things and weave those threads together into compelling stories that resonate.
We sweat the details.
I’ve never met a good designer who wasn’t obsessed with details! That level of attention can seem over-the-top, but consistent details are what provide the depth necessary to build up an idea and turn it into a rich, seamless experience.
We take work personally.
Regardless of what people say it’s rarely “just business”, especially when your business is creation. We are passionate about ideas, and the emotional investment we have in our work drives us to improve and learn constantly.
We are committed to sustainability.
Designers are on the front lines of the green revolution, perhaps because we have designed, built, and packaged so many wasteful things. Through communities like the Designers Accord, we are using our unique position to make a positive impact on the world.

Read Full Article » Discuss This »

by Erica Meade
Many studio art majors at my undergrad institution had negative feelings about the business world. The common thought was that the corporate machine was stocked with money-hungry egomaniacs, representing everything wrong in this world and the inverse of the motivations and goals of an artist. That’s somewhat of an exaggeration, but nonetheless, “commercial” and “corporate” were bad words in the art studio.
In one of my harshest critiques, I was told that some of my work was too commercial and that I should get ready “to go to Madison Avenue” or “design greeting cards.” I was upset, but more than that, I was confused. My goals as an artist were – and are – to express my ideas to a wide audience, make people think about what they see, and perhaps even influence change. So what’s wrong with art that is applicable and accessible to a broad audience? Why does commercial appeal equal the death of true art? And how are those two things mutually exclusive?
Towards the end of my college career, I wondered what my life would be like if I were a traditional professional artist. I imagined that I’d be struggling to get gallery representation, living in a tiny studio apartment in Brooklyn, yearning for my big break as I waited tables or worked retail. The starving artist persona seemed like an ineffective way to get my ideas out in the world and make a difference. So I looked into other outlets for creative expression and found design.

Read Full Article » Discuss This »

by Henry Liu
Every morning prior to work, we’re faced with a flurry of decisions pertaining our office wardrobe. What shirt am I going to wear? Do these pants go with those shoes? Are these socks even matching? Face it, these fashion decisions reflect who we are in the office, they’re what make us unique. Appearing proper to our superiors and peers may provide us a sense of security, but there are times where stepping forward to offer the contrary opinion delivers something more valuable than adhering to the norm.
If you’re like me, you’ve probably sat in countless meetings listening to your boss make statement after statement while you offer continuous affirmation to every request and whim. As you glance around the room, you may even notice your peers doing the exact same thing. What the meeting really needs is the presence of a corporate jester to challenge the leader’s unilaterally accepted dispositions.

Read Full Article » Discuss This »

Mattia Nuzzo
So I just got this water bottle. Pretty cool, right? It definitely took me a couple weeks (maybe months?) to find it among the Siggs and Klean Kanteens out there. While it does meet most of my requirements – portability, aesthetics, drinkability – I began to wonder what the image of myself armed with such an overdesigned water holder might present to people.
I initiated my search for the coolest water bottle I could find by doing just that: typing “coolest water bottle” into Google. I came across articles about the need to ensure that the container was BPA-free, and how the Siggs actually don’t call out the composition of the interior lining of their bottles. After a bit more research I threw caution to the wind and ordered a shiny new Sigg from Amazon. Unfortunately after receiving it I couldn’t help but be a bit disappointed. It just seemed too “meh”; too pragmatic. Back it went, and after returning to my “cool” search results I happened upon the Kor One.
The website hosted by Kor has all the trappings of a brand that’s trying too hard – a blog, a flickr page, videos, etc. All this for a water bottle. I can’t help but question if the identity they seem to be so carefully crafting actually gets in the way of the piece’s primary role as a utilitarian object. The bottle’s cap contains a slot for customers to insert images or tags provided by the company, with cheesy slogans like “Better Me, Better World” (what does that even mean?). Still, it was the best overall design I’d seen so far, so I went ahead and plugged in my CC info and patiently waited the 5-7 business days.

Read Full Article » Discuss This »

By Mei Lan Ho-Walker
I must confess I thought a communications class would be a piece of cake. I would read some books, practice public speaking and viola! instantly emerge as an ‘effective communicator’.
I was dead wrong. The class LiveE was a mental bootcamp that turned my world upside down. It rocked my core – in a good way. I often questioned what we were doing, from the paper airplane exercises, to writing about energy leaks, to reading a book called Difficult Conversations. I went through the motions because I was unsure of where we were going. There was a level of ambiguity that made me very uncomfortable, and I couldn’t see the big picture.
The moment of clarity came when I realized there was no predetermined end result. I essentially surrendered myself to myself and making this shift made all the difference. I embraced the ambiguity as an opportunity to define what I wanted to learn. It wasn’t about the professor, getting good grades, or coming up with the right answer, it was about me.
This class became a personal journey in developing my own sense of self to help me navigate, communicate and succeed in the situations I found myself in. I was and still am building this self-knowledge or what I call the ‘me muscle’.
I had this idea of what a good communicator was supposed to be based on expectation of others. But this experience revealed that effective communication begins from within. This ‘me muscle’ represents the driving force helping me make decisions, build confidence and gain control. Through practice and reflection, we can all develop our own sense of style.
To help keep my ‘me muscle’ in shape, I’ve compiled a list of daily exercises. It’s hard work, but remember some pain is good. It means you’re building muscle.

Read Full Article » Discuss This »

by Vinitha Watson
Through the Live Exchange course, I gleaned a deep understanding of the human experience through communication. At the onset of the class, we didn’t dive straight into a business focus, but we first focused on ourselves as individuals, employees, friends, partners, and citizens.
As we studied our own psyche, I became fascinated by how modern day corporations address the needs of their consumers much like we as individuals relate to each other. This idea really sunk in when I arrived home after a long day at school, to find an unexpected package on my doorstep. To my surprise it was a box of chocolates from a local chocolatier who I usually turn to for gifts during the holidays. This unexpected gift not only created a thoughtful gesture, but was a strong reminder of the quality of their chocolate. What’s common between individual interactions and how a company’s persona interacts with their customer boils down to trust, frequent interactions, and a perception that the product communicates the consumer’s identity to the outside world. Corporations are now able to peel back the social onion through developing meaning and reality through a consistent “voice”.

Read Full Article » Discuss This »

by Kathryn Hautanen
As a person new to the sustainability conversation, it is somewhat difficult for me to understand the dialogue. Terms like green, sustainable, organic and greenwashing are being tossed around as if everyone is in agreement as to what these terms mean.
Last year I was at the West Coast Green Conference in San Francisco especially to see Michelle Kaufmann’s mkLotus™ house. As I was leaving, a guy in a gorilla suit engaged me in a conversation and he was very animated by PG&E’s “greenwashing.” He was clearly upset and all I could think was – what is “greenwashing” and is it good or bad? The only thing that was coming to mind was Tom Sawyer and the whitewashing of a fence – not exactly evil. He was frustrated that I wasn’t hearing him and getting outraged at PG&E, and I was frustrated that I couldn’t understand him.

Read Full Article » Discuss This »

By Adam Dole
Many of today’s top companies are so fixated on what their competition is doing, that they often forget to focus on their single most important competitive advantage; their strengths! In the current economic climate, companies need to stop focusing on the competition and start getting back to what they do better than anyone else. Using their strengths to create a competitive advantage might sound obvious, but focusing on the internal measures of excellence that come naturally is surprisingly too often the first thing that gets overlooked or brushed aside.
Natural strengths tend to hang around and show up whether you like it or not. As a result, spending any time trying to suppress them, or believing that your weaknesses will ever out-perform your strengths will rarely provide the same value or return on investment that spending that same time playing to your strengths will. So why fight it? Knowing how to play to your strengths might just be the one way out of this economic crisis.

Read Full Article » Discuss This »

by Sara Kozlowski
This fall, I joined the inaugural cohort of CCA’s DMBA program as a fifteen-year veteran of the fashion industry. In Innovation Studio, I joined forces with four other DMBA pioneers and embarked on a semester long journey to develop solution areas for our chosen domain of “packaging”. We tenderly christened ourselves as Team Swill and went straight to the business of seeking to build a better water bottle. Our research quickly evolved into the study of urban potable, drinking water. Humbly, I’ll share a few glimpses at the evolution of our journey and a particular “aha” moment.
Access: Others have succeeded in building a better water bottle but what about the fountain?
Early on in our quest to build a better water bottle we learned that it already exists, in fact several of them do. The real problem is access. In an urban sprawling city like SF blessed with good free clean drinking water, one would think this resource would be exploited. Sadly, one could walk from The Haight to SOMA and still not find a drinking fountain. Enter a public building, school, museum, or shopping mall and you might get lucky. Once you find it, filling your Camelbak can be a hassle as most fountains are designed for direct mouth to fountain access. Try to fill your vessel from a fountain that wants to be drunk directly from and you end up with a bottle that is at best half full.

Read Full Article » Discuss This »

by Ingrid Dragotta:
To many, the words “teamwork” and “collaboration” seem to be synonyms but, in my experience, these formations play out differently in several meaningful ways.
Let’s start with how a team functions or dysfunctions. The Webster definition of “teamwork” is “work done by several associates with each doing a part but all subordinating personal prominence to the efficiency of the whole.” That may be what teamwork is supposed to be, but it rarely works out that way.

Read Full Article » Discuss This »

bu Jason Hui
I once took a class that began every day with a 15 minute brainstorming session. We used two different methodologies. The first was object oriented brainstorming: take any random object, like a spoon, and come up with as many different uses in three minutes as possible…a signaling mirror, a disciplinary tool, a shovel for gnomes. The second was word oriented brainstorming: take any word, like “cop,” and come up with as many different words as possible…like copy, cope, Copernicus, copa cabana.
Brainstorming is well known as a technique for generating creative ideas.* However, through the DMBA program at CCA, I’ve realized that brainstorming is not only a creative process but is also a tool that can be used to reinforce effective communication techniques in any team. The rules of brainstorming require participants to suspend judgment and separate the critical process from the creative. The true power of teams does not revolve around varied skill sets, but rather in effective communication and the ability to share ideas openly. Beyond ideation, the brainstorming process builds trust, the foundation of good teamwork.

Read Full Article » Discuss This »