Carolina Student Design Competition

The official announcement of the first Carolina Student Design Competition has been posted. Students at universities in North and South Carolina are eligible to participate. Winners get prizes and the opportunity to present at next year's Innovate Carolina conference in Charlotte. I'm the coordinator, as mentioned in the announcement, so if anyone has questions, shoot me an email.

Carolina Student Design Competition

How do aspiring product designers in the Carolinas win acclaim as innovative designers, not to mention prize money? By winning the first Carolinas Student Design Competition, sponsored by Carolinas PDMA. More details coming soon, but the contest winners will present their designs at the Innovate Carolina 2011 conference in Charlotte on April 15.

The Innovate Carolinas 2010 in April of this year at the UNC Kenan Flager School of Business was attended by over 120 professional product designers, product managers, executives, and university faculty. That's a pretty good audience for a winning college design team.

Prepping for the NPDP test

I'm doing a self-study course for the New Product Development Professional (NPDP) certification. There is no test prep material like there is for the PMP test. Fortunately, there's a reading list that's not too extensive and the books and articles are easily available if you have access to a good library. Many of the books and articles are real classics in the field.

Some people think certifications are a waste of time, but I've gotten a lot out of studying for them, and then trying to apply the knowledge.

Innovate Carolina 2010: review

I attended the Innovate Carolina conference yesterday at the Kenan Flagler business school at UNC Chapel Hill. (Full disclosure: I was on the conference committee.) The sessions were excellent. The best part of a small conference like that is the chance to talk to the speakers and attendees. I collected cards from people I'll be talking business with in the next few weeks.

By the way, if anyone wants to work on next year's event, please contact me.

Innovate Carolina 2010

The Carolinas Chapter of Product Development and Management Association is organizing the Innovate Carolina conference on April 10 at UNC Kenan Flagler Business School. I'll be there.

Transcending Products - Offering Experience Design & Strategy

PDMA Carolinas Chapter is hosting an event this Thursday called "Transcending Products - Offering Experience Design & Strategy." You can register by visiting the web site.

PDMA: Cultivating product development careers

I went to an excellent panel discussion titled "Cultivating product development and management careers," hosted by PDMA Carolina Chapter. The panelists represented a wide range of companies. They had a lot of good advice for people trying to get into new product development, or those already doing NPD trying to move up.

After the panel discussion the panelists and attendees broke into groups and brainstormed on some of the topics that were raised during the panel discussion. Good event. Pictures of the event were posted online. Click on View CJ's Gallery, then select the product development careers gallery.