presented by David Schimmel, founder of And Partners (original description)

Find your passion

• people work with you because of you
• passion is magnetic
• make sure your passion is transparent

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presented by Jeni Herberger, co-founder of Big Fish Creative Staffing

• How do you solve your client’s business problem?
• Can you articulate how your work helped a client meet key goals?
• Can you present yourself as a strategic thinker?

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Debbie Millman, host of Design Matters, interviewed Michael Bierut, partner at Pentagram. (original description)

[this was an engaging interview, so I didn't take many notes as I was busy listening]

Three things he’s learned

1. Most clients are scared you’ll embarrass them and not listen to them: diligently listening will take care of a lot of their concerns
2. Let them tire themselves out
   • ala Muhammad Ali’s ‘Rope-a-dope‘
   • show them something to let them work their energy off, then pull out the better option
3. Understand the cast of characters in a meeting who have their own politics, agenda

Business Development: send out 15 copies of a favorite project

• 5 to the press
• 5 to current clients
• 5 to people you don’t know but think might be interested

presented by Jenn and Ken Visocky O’Grady, founders of Enspace Design and authors of A Designer’s Research Manual. (original description)

Design Research

• Qualitative and quantitative
• Primary and secondary sources
• Formative: at the beginning of a project to help define the problem
• Summative: at the end of a project to determine outcome strategies

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presented by Shel Perkins, author of Talent is Not Enough: Business Secrets for Designers. (original description)

• you need to have adequate startup capital to cover the first two years
• most start with savings and personal loans
• most only last about three years
• essential to work with a CPA
• because you’re self-employed, you need to make quarterly tax pre-payments

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