In 1900, Andrew Carnegie quietly declared that his “heart is in the work” – that he had found an endeavor worth pursuing, and that he would passionately follow-through on that endeavor until it was complete. We interaction designers feel that passion on a daily basis, as we’ve found ourselves at the heart of industry, policy, and culture. Our endeavors are worth pursuing and we approach them with the whole of our hearts. We build the artifacts and frameworks that support engagement, that keep us entertained, aroused, engaged and productive. We are building the culture we live in, and we possess the capability to enable massive change in an increasingly fragmented and tense world.
This talk examines our ability to affect change at the intersection of experience, behavior, meaning, and culture, and will emphasize our responsibility to approach our work with philanthropic enthusiasm that would make Carnegie proud.
Jon Kolko is an Associate Creative Director at frog design, and the Director of Austin Center for Design. He has worked extensively in the professional world of interaction design, working around complicated technological constraints in order to best solve the problems of Fortune 500 clients. His work has extended into the worlds of consumer electronics, supply chain management, demand planning, and customer-relationship management, and he has worked with clients such as AT&T, HP, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Ford, IBM, Palm and other leaders of the Global 2000. The underlying theme of these problems and projects was the creation of a solution that was useful, usable, and desirable. His present research investigates the process of Design, with a focus on Design Synthesis and the creation of meaning.
Kolko’s present work is heavily influenced by his prior role as a Professor of Interaction and Industrial Design at the Savannah College of Art and Design, where he was instrumental in shaping the Interaction and Industrial Design programs. He is the Editor-in-Chief of interactions magazine, published by the ACM.
Kolko is the author of Thoughts on Interaction Design, published by Morgan Kaufmann, and the forthcoming text tentatively entitled Exposing the Magic of Design: A Practitioner’s Guide to the Methods and Theory of Synthesis, to be published by Oxford University Press.
