Leading British companies are waking up to the benefits of designing products for the elderly and the disabled. This theme will be explored with businesses large and small during Design in Business Week ’99.
Hundreds of businesses will attend UK-wide events during Design in Business Week - now in its fourth year - for an impressive programme which involves organisations such as the CBI, DTI and PricewaterhouseCoopers.
The week - organised by the Design Council - aims to engage, motivate and enable businesses to use design in today’s economy to improve products and advance business processes. Highlights include a seminar exploring the growth of the ‘grey’ and disabled markets. Growing your Market Through Inclusive Design is a workshop including case studies from British companies, like Tesco who are beginning to incorporate these sectors’ needs into the design of everyday products and services - with impressive results.
Delegates attending this London workshop on 29 October will also participate in live briefs with leading designers. The workshop forms the first of a series of Design Council events called Designing our future which look into the trends driving change in business and society. To complement these trends, the Design Council will also launch a research website - DesignHorizons - providing everything from facts and figures to key contacts and design challenges.
The Design in Business Week ’99 opening event takes place at the BFI IMAX Cinema, London on the morning of 18 October, with three eminent speakers who will explore some of the challenges businesses face at the turn of the century. The speakers are John Kao - renowned lecturer and industry expert; Martin Hayward - Director of Consultancy at The Henley Centre and Charles Hampden-Turner - Senior Research Associate at the Judge Institute of Management Studies at Cambridge University.
The event is being broadcast to business audiences at regional Business Links in Durham, London, Hertfordshire and Bristol. An additional link to the Enterprise Zone website of the Business Link Network Company - will enable a wider audience to participate in interactive debates on some of industry’s hottest topics.
The message to organisations large and small is that design is an essential part of success for innovative companies. Design in Business Week pulls together some of the most influential business organisations today to offer advice, discuss issues and share ideas.
If the nature of your organisation is to succeed Design in Business Week ’99 has something to offer you. As we approach the millennium, here is an opportunity to build on current organisation strengths and turn design knowledge into practice.
