http://blog.montie.com Helping Advance the Profession of Product Design in NC Wed, 03 Sep 2008 16:01:17 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en RTP Product Development Guild’s Second Annual Product Design Street Faire set for Sept. 13 MORRISVILLE, NC – The RTP Product Development Guild’s second annual RTP Product Design Street Faire will be held Saturday, Sept. 13, 2008 from 3 p.m. until 6:30 p.m. The faire will be held outside of the Guild’s ... http://blog.montie.com/2008/09/03/76/ BarCampRDU 2008 was a lot of fun. According to the official website (http://www.barcamp.org/BarCampRDU): A Bar Camp is an unconference where people interested in a wide range of technologies come together to teach and learn. Unfamiliar with the un-conference format? Here's the idea in a nutshell. Rather than having scheduled ... http://blog.montie.com/2008/08/05/barcamprdu-2008/ Today’s client generally wants a product that is economical to manufacture, elegant, and robust.  Robust products have an advantage in the market place.  This is especially true in this age of the easy accessibility to user reviews over the Internet. According to the Wikipedia, Robustness is the quality of being able to ... http://blog.montie.com/2008/04/09/what-is-a-robust-product/ If you are an entrepreneur and you have the eureka moment when you experience the flash of brilliance that leads to your new product idea, what do you do? Well, most people want to ask someone else’s opinion about how whether, or not, the product will succeed in the marketplace. ... http://blog.montie.com/2008/02/25/mum%e2%80%99s-the-word-non-disclosure-agreements-are-crucial-to-protecting-ideas/ By Montie Roland, RTP Product Development Guild Morrisville -- Our firm receives inquiries from inventors and early stage entrepreneurs fairly frequently.  We tend to break down incoming inquiries into four groups.  The first group is inventors.  Inventors are everyday people with an idea, but no organization to backup the idea.  Entrepreneurs ... http://blog.montie.com/2008/01/25/product-development-do-try-this-at-home/   Design, by it’s very nature, is an iterative process. The product design process begins with creating preconceptions. Those preconceptions are used to create a prototype. The prototype is then tested and the test results are evaluated. The evaluations are used to form new preconceptions and the ... http://blog.montie.com/2008/01/22/product-design-speak-101-linear-versus-iterative-design/ by Montie Roland, Montie Design Morrisville - Last week, I had the honor of being selected as a judge for an Interactionary Design Competition held by the Triangle chapter of the Usability Professionals Association (www.triupa.org). According to Scott Berkun (www.scottberkun.com), an interactionary is   “an experiment in design education. The ... http://blog.montie.com/2007/11/15/product-design-speak-101-what-is-an-interactionary/ The product development world, just like other industries, has its own language. One example of this “product speak” is the term product champion. Many products (and most of the very successful products) are driven by the vision of one person, or a small group of people. We call these people ... http://blog.montie.com/2007/11/08/design-speak-101-defining-a-product-champion/ Starting a Product Development Guild has been a journey that has lasted about two and a half years. The first two years were mainly discussions. The last five months have mainly involved laying the groundwork for the guild. We have now moved into a mode where we ... http://blog.montie.com/2007/10/13/guild-building-101-%e2%80%93-the-rise-of-expectations-and-elevator-pitches/ How to Price your New Product - Understanding Customer Value Do you deeply understand the value that your products & services bring to your customers? Do they? Two simple questions, and key input to your pricing strategy. Yet, most firms cannot answer them with confidence and support their answers with data. It ... http://blog.montie.com/2007/10/10/pdma-carolinas-event-on-thursday-oct-25th-in-rtp/ The term "fuzzy front" end is used by product design professionals to denote the product definition stage of the project. This important stage in product development is often neglected. In this podcast we'll talk about what the "fuzzy front end" is and why it is important. You can listen to the ... http://blog.montie.com/2007/10/03/fuzzy-front-end-a-critical-but-often-neglected-part-of-product-design/ by Tom Vass, Vice-President, RTP Product Development Guild The RTP regional economy has a unique set of economic strengths in technology innovation. The basic platform for ... http://blog.montie.com/2007/09/25/rtp-guild-proclaims-october-as-rtp-product-development-month/ by Montie Roland, President - Montie Design Product design in the RTP area is nothing new. Entities that vary in size from the smallest startup to the largest multi-national companies are engaged in a daily business of product development. These companies don’t practice the art and science of product ... http://blog.montie.com/2007/09/03/local-product-design-community-changes-at-home/ Hey All, I just wanted to let you know that our Grand Opening and Expo is coming soon.  Please take an afternoon out to enjoy good food, tour our new facility, and meet local product design/prototyping vendors.  The event is free. See you there. Montie ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Event: Grand Opening / Pig Pickin' / ... http://blog.montie.com/2007/07/07/grand-opening-pig-pickin-product-design-vendor-street-faire/ Morning Fellow Product Designers, I thought this event might interest many of you. Montie -------------------------------------- Event: "New Product Development in the Entrepreneurial Enterprise" Date: 14 Jun 07 Time: 6-8:30pm Networking & Registration 6 - 6:45 pm Presentation and Q&A 6:45 – 8:00 pm Pizza and drinks will be served Location: MCNC auditorium in RTP, NC Speaker: Bob ... http://blog.montie.com/2007/06/07/next-carolinas-pdma-chapter-event-with-bob-luddy/