schedule of events

Monday, September 21

DAY 1: Customer, Research & Introduction to Empathy Interviews

On Monday, September 21, at 5:00 PM, join us for our Innovation Week kickoff.

• Keynote Kickoff
  • Presenters: Hazel Swayne, Senior Experience Learning Designer, Hyper Island
  • Description: Hazel is obsessed with innovation + education. Hear her story of how she left the agency life, found Hyper Island, and how she travels around the world to learn and share education innovation.
  • Skills gained:
    • Hear how Hazel broke into education start-ups and built her brain while inspiring others
    • Learn more about D+B and the week ahead

Register here starting 9/6 for 5:00 - 6:00pm ET

• Designing your Ross Experience
  • Presented by D+B
  • Description: What does your first year at Ross look like? Using MBA2s as your “customers” we’ll go over how to conduct customer and empathy interviews, synthesize findings, and affinity map observations.
  • Skills gained:
    • Empathy interviewing
    • Journal mapping

Register here starting 9/6 for 6:15 - 7:30pm ET (note there is a 40 person cap)

Tuesday, September 22

DAY 2: Ideation & Discovery

On Tuesday, September 22, at 5:00 PM, we'll cover the following topics:

• Problem Solving at Ross (30 person limit)
  • Presenters: D+B, FitX, Climate Tech Fellows, Ross Core Curriculum
  • Description: How do we take a customer-focused problem, and begin to ideate solutions? Current Ross MBAs who have already solved problems will come in and give some research / background onto the issue they were facing without divulging what their solution was. Participants will then ideate solutions for these challenges using various problem-solving frameworks and shareout at the end.
  • Skills gained:
    • Customer focused problem statements
    • Brainstorming tools (affinity mapping, dot voting, etc)

Register here starting 9/6 for 5:00 - 6:30pm ET

• Unlocking the Creative Process with John Michael Schert
  • Presemters: John Michael SchertJohn Michael Schert has consulted for clients such as Google, The James S. and John L. Knight Foundation, Chicago Booth, the City of Boston, and Soho House.
    • John Michael Schert has consulted for clients such as Google, The James S. and John L. Knight Foundation, Chicago Booth, the City of Boston, and Soho House.
  • Description: How can we spark creative leaps in individuals and teams to help us thrive in ambiguity? In this session, social entrepreneur and former American Ballet Theater dancer John Michael Schert will choreograph a dance in real-time to embody cutting-edge leadership techniques.
  • Skills gained:
    • Not your everyday creative exercise

Register here starting 9/6 for 7:00 - 8:00pm ET

Wednesday, September 23

DAY 3: Prototyping & Wireframing

On Wednesday, September 23, at 5:00 PM, we'll cover the following topics:

• Adobe 101
  • Presenter: Adobe
  • Description: After understanding your user problem, and beginning to ideate solutions the next step is to build your prototypes and wireframes and then start testing them in user groups. The goal here is to invite experts who work for Adobe to run this workshop, and share best practices
  • Skills gained:
    • Adobe Creative Cloud
    • Prototyping

Register here starting 9/6 for 5:00 - 6:30pm ET

• Wireframing Basics (capped at 30 people)
  • Presenters: D+B, Tech Club
  • Description: Work with Tech Club and D+B to design an early prototype product from end to end
  • Skills gained:
    • PM marketing strategie
    • Defining MVP features
    • User personas

Register here starting 9/6 for 7:00 - 8:30pm ET

Thursday, September 24

DAY 4: Storytelling

On Thursday, September 24, at 5:00 PM, we'll cover the following topics:

• Storytelling your next pitch deck
  • Presenter: Root Consulting
  • Description: The final step: how do we convince our stakeholders, investors, and leadership to invest in our design, idea or product? How do we design our pitch decks appropriate to our audience? Join Root Consulting as we learn the art of storytelling our ideas, and bringing it all together.
  • Skills gained:
    • Master powerpoint skills
    • Storyboarding

Register here starting 9/6 for 5:00 - 6:00pm ET.

• Data Analytics & Visualization: Intro to Tableau
  • Presenter: Slalom Consulting
  • Description: Dashboards have taken the form of reporting (and for good reason). As designers, we know we need to create visually appealing dashboards for our customers. How do we design a dashboard, and which metrics are even important
  • Skills gained:
    • Tableau
    • Data visualization

Register here starting 9/6 for 6:00 - 7:00pm ET.

Friday, September 25

DAY 5: Design & Creative Careers: How we did it

On the final day of Innovation Week, September 25, at 9:00 AM, we'll cover a lot of ground:

• Keynote: My journey to Prophet | 9:00 AM - 9:45 AM ET
  • Speaker: Joe Chavez, Senior Associate; Moderated by: Amirah Aziz, D+B Co-President
  • Description: Joe knew one thing: he wanted to be a marketing leader. Hear his story of how he went from google and found his perfect fit at Prophet.
• Workshop: How to case for creative careers | 10:00 AM - 10:30 AM ET
  • Speaker: Announced soon
  • Description: It's never too early to prepare for interviews and master the elusive case interview! Join fellow MBA's for a crash course in casing and interviewing for creative careers. They will share tips and advice on approaching a business case, making logical assumptions, dealing with numbers, coping with ambiguity, and taking creative leaps.
• Fireside Chat: How to land the job | 11:00 AM - 11:30 AM ET
  • Speakers: MBA2s
  • Description: Join us for an informal fireside chat with MBA2s who've successfully navigated interviews for design thinking, innovation, product, and creative roles. In this session, you will gain a better understanding of the recruiting cycle, anticipate common application mishaps, and get inspiration on how to design your own career path.
• Design Careers: How we broke in
  • Tenative Speakers:
    • Bidnam Lee, R/GA
    • Matt Brady, Innosight
    • Arshan Ahmed, Ideo
    • Ben Ewy, Carhartt
    • Stephanie Gloria, Future Work
  • Description: Hear from Ross alums and other leaders on how they broke into design-focused careers
• Entreprenurship: How we stayed the course
  • Speakers:
    • Amir Salehzadeh, A+G Digital
    • Eddie Tejeda, 18F
  • Description: Get a 1:1 conversation and learn more about roles, companies, and path to success

Register here starting 9/6 for all day events starting at 9:00am ET.