In the interest of full disclosure, I’m the new President of IDSA and I’m one of the moderators for the Design in Asia forum on Core77. I’m active in both arenas because I find value in both. To me, Core77 and IDSA are very different entities that serve different purposes and appeal to different needs.
FWIW, IDSA is a 501 c(6) non profit organization.
I agree with a lot of what’s been written not just in this discussion, but in others as well. There are things that IDSA does that could certainly be better. Improvement is always an option. It’s very important to realize that IDSA relies heavily on volunteer effort at every level of the organization. I have a full time job running a consulting firm in Atlanta. The time I spend participating in IDSA activities and representing IDSA is time not spent working for my clients, building my business or focusing on my family life. My ongoing 7-year kitchen renovation is a testament to that. It takes a LOT of energy, enthusiasm and effort to run a successful Chapter and provide dynamic events and meaningful content, particularly at the local level. It’s also a fairly thankless task, which is unfortunate because the people who put forth the effort do so for the entire design community and they do it because they have passion for design.
There are a lot of things that IDSA does that happen quietly and without a lot of fan fare. Often, these things simply can’t be duplicated by Core77. The infrastructure, global connections and gravitas just isn’t there. On Core77, we are primarily designers talking to designers. At IDSA, we are designers talking to each other and to the business community, government entities and the education community. Here are a few things to think about off the top of my head:
The Okala Ecological Design Curriculum: The Eco-Design Section and the IDSA staff wrote a grant proposal and received $92,000 from the Environmental Protection Agency to develop a curriculum on sustainable design. Volunteers (Philip White, Steve Belletire & Louise St. Pierre) worked tirelessly to make this happen. The result is amazing – and free for you to download (http://www.idsa.org/whatsnew/sections/ecosection/okala.html ) More than 40 design programs across the U.S. and Canada are now using this curriculum. This means a better education for our students, more environmental awareness and knowledge of proven, sustainable ideas for material selection and manufacturing processes. The curriculum is a living entity as well. Even though it’s only a couple of years old, it’s already being updated to match the new EPA standards. As designers, we all benefit from this. Our economy and our environment benefit as well.
The Eco-Design Section also maintains a list of tools for practicing professionals: http://www.idsa.org/whatsnew/sections/ecosection/professional.html
Legal Protection: The Design Protection Section of IDSA serves as the silent guardian of intellectual property rights and design patent litigation in the U.S. They continually monitor cases before the courts in the US and they routinely file third-party, friend of the court Amicus Curiae briefs on behalf of IDSA in order to maintain the legal protections that we need as designers. IDSA pays for the filing fees and supports this initiative. Again, we all benefit.
IDSA provides annual scholarships for undergraduate and graduate students.
The relationship IDSA has fostered over the last 19 years with BusinessWeek has arguably been the single most influential thing to happen to industrial design in my lifetime (I’m under 40). It opened the door to the business community and gave industrial design a credible voice in the Boardroom. It has allowed us to celebrate design success (IDEA, Designs of the Decade, The Design & Business Catalyst Awards, Making Innovation Work podcast series, etc.) in a very public way with the audience that employs us and comprises our client base. This relationship has made business aware of design and the value of design in ways never imagined previously. It’s one of the reasons our profession has grown so rapidly over the last 20 years. It’s also one of the reasons that designers are more and more frequently achieving vice-president and board level positions in the corporate world. We still have a long way to go, but the journey is getting easier every day. IDSA very actively fosters this relationship and other media relationships, diligently looking for opportunities to highlight design and spread the message about our role in the innovation economy.
IDSA communicates with government agencies – foreign and domestic – looking for information about design and contacts in the design community.
IDSA maintains relationships globally that provide business networking, advocacy and speaking opportunities for our members. Recent examples include Business of Design Week in Hong Kong, the design conference in Wuxi in November and the joint event held yesterday at the Swedish Embassy in Washington, D.C.
The Connecting 07 Congress, jointly sponsored by IDSA and ICSID, in San Francisco this fall will bring designers from across the globe to meet and participate in a global dialogue on design. The last time (1985) a world design congress was held in the US, the attendance was over 2,000. This year’s congress may well attract as many as 3,000 attendees.
IDSA and Core already collaborate on several things including portfolio reviews at every IDSA conference – regional and national. We are always looking for new opportunities to work together that will benefit the overall design community. It’s a good relationship. Many, many IDSA members are active on Core as participants in the discussions, as content contributors and as moderators. In many ways, we’re the same community, but like I said in the beginning, we serve different purposes.
For virtual community and the pulse of what’s happening – particularly with younger designers, Core’s the place to be. For integration with the business community and professional networking, IDSA is the place to be.