Marc Rettig, Fit Associates
Marc Rettig is principal of Fit Associates, LLC. Fit's intention is to lead, nurture, connect and create with conscious organizations for the greatest impact for the common good. Fit's industry client list includes Nissan, Comcast, Whirlpool, SAP, Microsoft and Philips/Respironics. Increasingly Fit is turning its attention to work in sustainability, local development, and other issues whose scope exceeds the reach of any single organization.
Marc's 29-year career has been guided by an interest in people, systems, communication, anthropology and the power of design. After a first career in software systems, he has spent fifteen years as a designer of projects, interactions, products, services, experiences, and transformations. He has taught both lecture and studio courses at Carnegie Mellon's Graduate School of Design (where he was the 2003 Nierenberg Distinguished Chair of Design) and the Institute of Design, IIT in Chicago.
Marc served as Chief Experience Officer of the pace-setting user experience consultancy HannaHodge, where he was responsible for the firm's user-centered process, team culture, and research initiatives. He was a Director of User Experience at Cambridge Technology Partners. Prior to that he was a consultant with seeSpace, VP of Design for Digital Knowledge Assets, and a Senior Architect in Andersen Consulting's Advanced Technologies Group.
Marc has an undergraduate degree in Anthropology and Linguistics, and completed requirements for a Master's in Computational Linguistics at New York University. He frequently speaks and conducts hands-on workshops in industry and academic settings around the world. Marc currently serves on the advisory boards of Sustainable Brands, UXNet, The Interaction Design Association, and Rosenfeld Media, and is a Contributing Editor to Interactions magazine.
Talk: Making an Impact
Design research has value when it makes an impact on teams, organizations, products and services, people, society, and the world. Marc Rettig will tell stories, covering diverse organizational cultures in different industries and project stages, of research efforts that explicitly reached for engendering the greatest impact they could. The stories show that having impact is not simply a matter of better reports, presentations, or workshops. It requires attention to internal relationships, alignment of research with the larger corporate intention, a “we’re all in this together” point of view, and a long-term (pre- and post-research) commitment to seeing the work through until the impact is made.
Workshop: From Data to Difference
Despite decades of progress, in most organizations the impact of design research on strategy, products, organizational culture and society falls far short of its potential. In this time of dramatic change and critical global issues the stakes are higher than ever. It is time to measure our work not only by degree of insight, but by degree of impact. This requires researchers to pay increased attention to internal communication, facilitation, and collaboration. For each of us, this means a willingness to grow as leaders and influencers. It means playing a role in guiding the journey of the team. And it requires a personal journey as well, opening yourself to seek not only growth in your craft, but growth in your ability to influence, guide, collaborate with, and lead others. Fortunately, the tools we already have in hand are useful for this work.
In this workshop we will discuss how the work of design researchers can be aligned with an intention have a positive impact within and through organizations. Our focus will be less on research itself than on the manner and context in which researchers conduct their practice. Drawing from his own practice and the literature of “facilitating transformational change,” Marc will introduce frameworks for mapping the web of relationships and activities in which design research takes place, and show how to use them as tools for increasing the impact of design research projects (and in the long run, for achieving a better integration of research with the whole of a company’s efforts). Attendees will practice applying the frameworks to their own work situation.
Video
Marc Rettig on Making an Impact, IIT Design Research Conference, 2009 from IIT Institute of Design on Vimeo.
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