Doing Design Research on the 2010 LIFT Conference

Next week, myself and colleagues Elizabeth Roche, Eleanor Davies and Till Grusche (from our Munich and Amsterdam studios) will be at the LIFT conference in Geneva, but being there with a twist: we'll be doing research on the conference itself! Specifically, we'll be doing design research - using a variety of techniques including ethnography, some provocations, and attendee self-reporting - to gather insights about how well the conference is serving attendee needs. We'll also do a frogThink ideation session with some of the attendees to generate new concepts for improving the conference experience.

The LIFT organizers are interested in how design research can provide a perspective on ways to even further improve the already successful LIFT conference, which has been running since 2006. This year over 1,000 attendees are coming, and frog is a premium partner. We'll be looking at things like how attendees navigate all the different sessions and topics, attendees' ability to network and meet new people, and the conference venue and facilities.

We'll give a presentation on the last day of the conference to summarize our findings.

Should be a very interesting and enjoyable experiment!

AVP of Marketing Strategy Adam Richardson is the author of Innovation X: Why a Company’s Toughest Problems are its Greatest Advantage. His book is the manual for leaders looking for clarity about the emerging challenges facing their businesses. You can follow Adam on Twitter @richardsona.