The good news is we have a terrific substitute. David was planning to share how they redesigned the design function at Coca-Cola, so it seems quite appropriate to still talk about changing organizations. Peter Merholz, president of Adaptive Path, will be sharing 3 (Mostly) Difficult Steps to Becoming a Customer Experience-Driven Organization. Peter will focus on a few of the key steps that drive an organization’s ability to see experience as strategy.

It’ll be a highly interactive talk, so I ask you to sit up, get ready to share and state what you believe to be the way to change the mind of an organization.

— Brandon.

Attendee Dwayne King had the great thought about getting together for an informal happy hour on Sunday evening. We figure that’s an idea worth sharing.

Here’s the simple plan: if your interested, Dwayne, Henning, and I will be at Bar 888 in the Intercontinental Hotel around 5:30pm-ish. Drop by if you can!

— Brandon.

Monday afternoon from 2-5:30pm, we’re presenting you with a realistic but challenging business case to solve. In short, we’re asking you to put together the initiatives and direction of an internal UX group for the rest of 2009. And you must explain that plan in a form appropriate for a C-level executive.

Here’s the great part. We’ve invited five experts to lead five different workshops to help you solve the case. Each brings a different perspective and a different point of view. I encourage you to avoid the workshop that’s a familar way of working for you; seek out the workshop that stretches your approaches the most:

• Sara Beckman, Co-Director of the Management of Technology Program, Haas School of Business will lead the workshop Get Inside the Mind of Your CMO
• Scott Berkun, Author of The Myths of Innovation and Making Things Happen will lead Guerilla, No-Holds Barred, Possibly Illegal in 15 States, 
Tactics for Defining UX in Organizations
• Josh Levine, Design Strategist at The Matter Collaborative will lead the workshop Harnessing Collective Wisdom, The Power of Six Thinking Hats
• Michael Meyer, CEO of Adaptive Path leads you in Building the Business Case for User Experience
• Kate Rutter, Senior Practitioner at Adaptive Path will lead the workshop, Picture it! — Visual Solutions for Stagnant Organizations

I’m really proud of this super-strong line up and expect the workshops to lead to some of the most immediate and useful take-home learnings from MX. And if you’re  curious, here’s a peak at the case you’ll be asked to solve. I can’t wait for this to start.

— Brandon

Pre-conference Workshop: Sunday March 1 (Download PDF)

Day 1: Monday March 2 (Download PDF)

Day 2: Tuesday March 3 (Download PDF)

Now it’s time for a little orientation so you can get the most out of the two days. Here’s what you’ll need to know or do to get everything possible out of MX 2009:

• Get to know your fellow attendees in advance. One of the best part of MX is to meet and get to know people in similar circumstances to you. All you have to to is join the LinkedIn group for MX.
• Get in the right head space by diving into the books. We sent you three great read by three of our speakers: Scott Berkun’s Making Things Happen, Marty Neumeie’s The Designful Company, and Dan Roam’s The Back of the Napkin.
• Start sharing your ideas and expectations for MX. use twitter and the hashtag #MX09 to share ideas, ask questions, or give feedback; We’ll be watching.
• Know the schedule, know the format. Monday is about what it means to have experience as a strategy: we’ll hear from people who see it and do it, then get hands on practicing it with workshops. Tuesday focuss on what it take to get good experiences out into the world: the mindset, leadership, teams, and tactics.
• Be ready to take it all in. We’ll be video recording many of the session, sharing most of the slides and other content, plus taking graphical notes (here’s the graphical notes from MX 2008) so that you can focus on learning, sharing, and participating.
• And lastly, come talk to us at MX — we’re here for you. Henning, Brandon, and much of the Adaptive Path staff will be at the event ready to share ideas, swap methods, and push forward the discipline.

Looking forward to seeing you at MX!
— Brandon & Henning

Last year, Margaret gave a 45-minute talk on techniques for managing design teams. It was our highest-ranked session, so we asked her back to offer a 3-hour workshop that provides more opportunity for discussion, activities and feedback.

In this workshop you will:

• Learn about prioritization and project tracking
• Gain insight into career development paths within a user experience team
• Find out about performance management
• Discover how to tailor your own management style

Looking for tools and techniques to more effectively manage a user experience team? Or, are you a member of a team who is looking to understand your manager better? In this workshop Margaret Gould Stewart will share insights gleaned from managing user experience teams in a variety of settings. She will also tackle other tough issues, such as:

• Building a culture of constructive feedback
• Developing leadership within a team
• Effectively managing team dynamics
• Evangelizing user experience practices
• Managing stakeholders

Margaret will provide takeaway tools you can put to use right away or shelve for a later date. She will also leverage the experience and knowledge of the workshop’s participants, breaking into small groups so you can propose solutions for the big challenges that face both UX managers and members of UX teams. Finally, the workshop will end with a User Experience Manager panel, where veteran UX leaders from a variety of contexts will field questions from the audience about what makes a great UX manager and how you can get the most out of your team.

About Margaret Gould Stewart

Margaret currently manages the User Experience Team for YouTube, a subsidiary of Google.

Margaret has been a practitioner and manager in the field of User Experience for over 10 years. After graduating from New York University’s Interactive Telecommunications Program, Margaret consulted extensively with New York media companies such as the New York Times, Time-Warner, and Scholastic to develop many of their first forays into the Web.

She subsequently joined Tripod, Inc, the pioneering homepage building site and online community, in 1995 as its first Creative Director. Tripod was acquired by Lycos, Inc in 1998. Margaret served as Senior Director of Network Design and Integration for the Lycos Network.

In 2005, she joined Wachovia as its Web Usability Manager. She relocated to California in early 2007 to join Google, and has never been better fed. She lives in Palo Alto with her husband and three children.

Over the last several years, firms have become more attuned to the importance of customer experience. But the economic downturn puts new pressure on firms. In this environment, is customer experience still important? Absolutely. This talk will explore why customer experience remains important in a recession and provide guidance on how firms can keep it on the front-burner during a recession.

——————-
Bruce Temkin

Vice President, Principal Analyst, Forrester

Bruce serves Customer Experience professionals. He is a leading expert in how companies build differentiation with customer experience through corporatewide strategies and initiatives. Bruce was instrumental in the development of many of Forrester’s customer experience evaluation methodologies and training courses. During his nine years with Forrester, Bruce has led the company’s financial services and customer experience practices.

His research focuses on the business strategies, operational processes, and organizational structures required to create and sustain superior customer relationships. Bruce has authored several Forrester Big Idea documents on customer experience: “Scenario Design: A Disciplined Approach To Customer Experience,” “The Customer Experience Value Chain,” and a new concept called “Experience-Based Differentiation.”

Bruce has extensive experience with technology-based business ventures, managing technology-centric efforts in both large and small firms. Prior to joining Forrester, Bruce was an executive officer at a couple of startups — including NetBroker, where he built one of the first Internet-based retail brokerage applications. Before those startup experiences, he held management positions at General Electric, Stratus Computers, and Fidelity Investments.

Bruce has been widely quoted in the press, including such media outlets as BusinessWeek and the Los Angeles Times. An accomplished public speaker, Bruce also has delivered keynote speeches at many events, including Forrester’s Consumer Forum, Finance Forum, Executive Forum, Technology Leadership Forum, and European IT Leadership Forum.

Bruce holds a master’s degree from the MIT Sloan School of Management, where he concentrated in business strategy and operations. He also holds a bachelor of science degree in mechanical engineering from Union College.

How can we design Coca-Cola for forever? How can we leverage design strategically to create love for our brands, innovation for our company and a more sustainable future for our planet? We will discuss how we’re re-designing the meaning, impact, role and future of design at Coca-Cola to create sustainable value.

——————

David leads the vision and management of design for The Coca-Cola Company. He began his career as a graphic designer developing identity systems and print communications and then focused on digital media with the rise and fall of the dot-com era. Following his interest in brand strategy, he went on to build a global brand consulting group within Studio Archetype, then Sapient in New York City. His experience spans between design to purpose and vision development to business strategy to brand-experience innovation. Clients have included the International Olympic Committee, UPS, Gucci, CNN, Cartoon Network, Bank of America, Caterpillar, United Airlines and AT+T. David has lectured over the last ten years as an adjunct professor and member of the Board of Advisors at Portfolio Center, a post-graduate design school in Atlanta. His work has been recognized by leading design and business publications including Communication Arts, AIGA, The Type Directors Club, The One Show, ADDY awards, Design Management Journal and The Industry Standard. He holds a BA in Mass Communications from the University of South Florida.

Jay Herratti, CEO of Citysearch, and Kate Rutter, Senior Practitioner
at Adaptive Path, will discuss the recent unveiling of the new Citysearch.com:
a more local, social and mobile site with innovations designed to provide users
with a new local neighborhood search experience. They will also discuss how
Citysearch leverages the overall user experience and what it’s like to be a
strong advocate of user experience as an executive, a strategist and a leader.
Citysearch is a leading online local guide and operating business of IAC
(NASDAQ: IACI). In his role as CEO, Citysearch, Jay Herratti has been charting
the growth of Citysearch’s web presence, its distributed local advertising
network and its mobile strategy.

Jay Herratti
CEO, Citysearch.com

Jay Herratti is the Chief Executive Officer of Citysearch, a leading provider of local search services and an operating business of IAC. In this role, he has been charting the growth of Citysearch’s web presence, its distributed local advertising network, and its mobile strategy. Mr. Herratti also oversees local search property, InsiderPages.com and Evite.com, the top online destination for invitations.

Mr. Herratti previously served as the Senior Vice President of Strategic Planning for IAC, where he worked with IAC’s senior leadership to drive key initiatives across the company’s 60+ interactive businesses. While at IAC, he also briefly served as interim CEO of IAC Advertising Solutions. Prior to that, Mr. Herratti served as the Senior Vice President of Strategy and Business Development for IAC’s TV and Web electronic retailer HSN. Before joining IAC, Mr. Herratti held the position of Senior Vice President of e-Business Strategy for Federated Department Stores. Prior to that, he held senior level positions with e-tail start-up boo.com, The Boston Consulting Group and GE Capital. Jay has a B.S. in Business & Management from the University of Maryland at College Park, and an MBA from INSEAD in Fontainebleau, France.

A native of Israel, Mr. Herratti currently resides in Los Angeles with his partner Daniel Taberski.

Kate Rutter
Senior Practitioner at Adaptive Path

Kate Rutter is a senior practitioner at Adaptive Path. During her ten plus years in the web industry, she’s honed her talent for bringing companies and customers closer together through smart strategies and inventive design. She actively embraces the term “specialized generalist.”

Kate’s diverse and intense interests are constantly taking her and her clients to new places — her background spans technology, marketing, interactive media, and business management. She’s worked with corporations, startups, and nonprofit organizations to help them grow, change and successfully chart new paths in ambiguous times and shifting markets.

Before joining Adaptive Path, Kate spent several years as a consultant focusing on web strategy and design. Prior to that, she was the Director of Business and Operations for The Crucible, a landmark nonprofit arts organization in the East Bay creative scene. During the bubble, Kate was Senior Director of E-business Development and Operations at Epicentric in San Francisco.

Past clients include: Travel + Leisure, Dice.com, Globo Networks, MICA.

Kate attended Wellesley College, where she received her Bachelor of Arts in studio art. She finds inspiration in a wide variety of subjects: Semiotics, textile arts, origami, code, urban design, fire, and other dangerous things. She is an active community leader as well as a formidable welder.