Another proof that Open Peer-to-Peer dynamics are spreading in Design comes from the Design Management Forum 2007, 9-10 November, Cologne. This event is about design as process and tool (and therefore not results) for better business, and this year the focus is on Communities, Co-Creation, Web 2.0, Social Networks.

Small, medium-sized and large enterprises need to respond to these developments. They need to design both their structures and decision processes and their planning, development and design processes in a new way which includes their customers. How can we make this happen? What are the possibilities to design the co-operation between enterprises and customers? Hierarchies are already dissolving in enterprises, and being replaced by interlaced structures. At the same time responsibilities grow for everyone. The 4th Design Management Forum discusses the role and limits of design in the context of these new challenges and debates solutions for sustainable innovation and design strategies.

Here’s the program (in German).
Unfortunately, the whole website is in German (and I don’t speak German) and most of the presentations will be held in German, but here you can download a short presentation in English

Just take a look at the workshops that will be held at the conference:

1. Design as an Initiator of new business fields?
Jens Krause from the Institute of Integrative and Comparative Biology of the Leeds University (Great Britain) will clarify what we can learn from current research on social network architecture with animals and humans and apply this to restructure organizations.

2. Customer Co-Design
Users in the computer game industry have become designers and decision-makers. Thomas Zeitner, managing director of Electronic Arts in Cologne, will present examples and existing possibilities of ”customer co-creation”.

3. Explorative user Research
Clemens Marek, director of ergonomics at the Ford plant in Cologne, will reveal how findings from a systematic acquisition of insights of user behaviour and characteristics affect the planning, development and design in the automobile industry.

4. Integration of communities in design processes
Today, communities exist everywhere and cover every aspect of human activity. For television programs they have been a decision parameter for a long time. Axel Beyer, director of the television entertainment at the WDR Cologne, will report on his experiences with the phenomenon ”community building“, based on examples from television entertainment programs.

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