The College of Innovation and Design offers a variety of opportunities to learn outside of the classroom. Attending the Annual NeoCon Conference in Chicago in June of 2019 was one of them! NeoCon is one of the most important events in the commerical design industry, and attracts thousands of visitors to the historic Merchandise Mart (The Mart) in downtown Chicago.  

Our team arrived a day early and by a struck of luck, and a few text messages, got to meet up with Master's of Innovation Design (MID) alumni Jake Conrad who helped us arrange last-minute tickets to the Chicago Cubs vs St. Louic Cardnials Baseball Game! With good food, a Cubs win, and some time to bond with the group, I would say our first night in Chicago was a success.

 

The following morning, we arrived at the Mart early to attend private tours of Herman Miller, KI, and several other showrooms at NeoCon. Besides seeing the innovative designs various companies were launching for the 2020 season, we paid special attention to display types, pitch style and how each company differentiates themselves in the market. For example, many vendors manufactured chairs but no two were alike in form and each design highlighted solutions to different problems. 

Steelcase Education’s Product Manager, Mark Walters, was kind enough to give us two hours of his time to give us a detailed tour of their showroom and specific products meant for innovative classroom settings. He shared a ton of details about the process used by Steelcase to design, manufacture, and market their products. 

 

 

Outside of the conference, those enrolled in the ID 506: Leadership for Innovation course each had a chance to practice organizing and leading a group by planning an activity for each day of the trip. In addition to each member drawing their assigned day at random, each had a specific amount of money their activity could not go over, ranging anywhere from ‘free’ to $30. Events ranged from visiting a pop-up concert in a park in downtown Chicago, to getting “the best pizza in town” as a group. 

 

 

To wrap up the trip, our team got an exclusive tour of mHUB, a makerspace in downtown Chicago with over 270 members who have launched 648 products as of January 2020, by Development Specialist, Jeremy Borchardt. mHub provides resources, mentorship, and access to manufacturing for members innovating in areas such as robotics, energy technology, smart buildings, medical devices and so much more. We got a sense of the similarities and differences between it and our own makerspace, GoCreate, on campus, and count ourselves lucky to have such a space so close to home.