I attended the first ever “Day in the Life” design conference at Maryland Institute this Saturday and while I think it has some potential I left unimpressed. It was somebody’s first attempt (I'm not sure who the organizer was) at putting a conference together so I will cut them some slack and probably give it another shot next year. But it has a long way to go.
The first mistake the organizers made was having a conference at 8am on a Saturday morning, I mean WTF were they thinking? If you want people to come to a new event you need to pick a friendlier time or have it during normal business hours so they have an excuse to get out of the office. I also noticed a lot of the attendees were students, and late April is a horrible time for them as they are gearing up for finals. I got the impression from the kids I talked to that the conference was either extra-credit or required for them and it most cases the only reason they were there.
The speakers were hit or miss, but that is to be expected at these things. Having attended HOW and AIGA conferences in the past I’ve learned that break out sessions are at best a 50/50 shot and it’s always smart to sit by the door so you can discreetly sneak out before a bad speaker puts you to sleep. I attended 1 session about social media and another about the business of design.
The social media session with Marisa Peacock was excellent. I’ve always been a bit skeptical about social media marketing but she gave it a lot of credibility. By the end of the hour she had left us with lots of tips about how to use Twitter effectively as well as ways improve upon our blogs to make them more Google friendly. She also gave us a ton of online resources for analyzing Twitters effectiveness.
Unfortunately I can’t say the same for Meg Touborg’s ‘Business of Design’ lecture. It was way off the mark and didn’t really talk about the design business at all. I felt like I was being coached to take out a loan and start a publicly traded corporation vs. getting tips on how to build my freelance base. She wasn’t a terrible speaker just a poor choice by the committee. She had no design experience and all her clients were in the ten million and up range. Not appropriate for the audience at all, especially with all the students in the room.
After lunch there was a panel discussion supposedly on the Value of Design lead by Bridget Sullivan, from Towson University. She’s not the most exciting speaker and she seemed to keep rephrasing the same 2-3 questions about branding over and over again. Coming in at an hour and twenty minutes this part of the conference was just way too long. People started heading for the door after about ½ an hour and that’s really the length it should have been. I should have sat closer to the door.
I didn’t stay for the ‘creative jam session’ afterward. It was a long day and I felt the breakfast and 1 hour lunch was more than enough time for awkward networking. There was supposedly an AIGA Blend Happy Hour at Red Maple(not sure why they chose such a horrible venue 2 miles away when there are bars literally across the street) but there was no way I was sticking around for that long. I ended up opting for a trip the famed Mt. Royal Tavern with a few other heads I already knew instead.
Hopefully this is just a starting point - Baltimore really could use an annual event like this for it’s design community, but there needs to be a lot of improvement if they want it to take off.
FINAL NOTE
I was really disappointed the Robert Gillespie and myself were the only people there representing University of Baltimore. I can sort of understand the lack of Grad and Undergrad students as the timing was horrible, but where was the faculty presence?
A design conference takes place practically on the campus and not a single one of them can be bothered to show up? What does that say about their commitment to the field? No wonder certain professor's relevance is constantly questioned.
