Icon-o-Cast: a podcast by Lunar

The era of personalized medicine is upon us and this trend has important implications for how we think about patients. In fact, we need to be designing meaningful experiences for healthcare “consumers,” rather than “patients.”

In this talk delivered at the American Institute of Architects’ Future Care conference last month, LUNAR’s John Edson explores what the changing healthcare landscape means for experience design.

What are the key components that make a successful project and a successful client relationship? Clients come to LUNAR with a technical challenge or a creative problem but they really want some certainty about the process that will take them to a successful conclusion.

In this episode, LUNAR's Matt Durack and Robert Howard talk with Rob Tarbox of long-time LUNAR client Illumina, a company that applies innovative technologies for studying genetic variation and function. Listen for insights into how LUNAR has helped address Illumina's business challenges through a successful multi-year collaboration.

Sustainable design is entering a new phase as it moves from environmental activism to an approach based around a range of improved business processes that make a difference. Learn how designers can be leading participants in this shift by being aware of all of the concerns of the entire business.

In this Icon-o-Cast episode, Janaki Kumar of SAP joins LUNAR’s Robert Howard and Travis Lee for a discussion of Sustainable Design 2.0.

How can design play a role in helping overcome the challenges presented by television's new technologies and new business models?

As a follow-up to our recent two-part conversation with Intel's Brian David Johnson, Roman Gephard of LUNAR Europe and John Edson explore how design will play a role in defining the future of television. New options for the remote control may provide some clues, and of course there are other changes sure to come…

TV has been in a constant state of change in recent years, but the home invasion of VCRs and DVDs pales in comparison to the rate of change today. As ever-increasing options are available to consumers, how should companies decide what to design and build next?

In Part 2, Intel’s Brian David Johnson, author of Screen Future: The Future of Entertainment, Computing, and the Devices We Love, joins LUNAR’s John Edson and interface designer Ron Goldin for a conversation about designing the future of TV.

TV has been in a constant state of change in recent years, but the home invasion of VCRs and DVDs pales in comparison to the rate of change today. As ever-increasing options are available to consumers, how should companies decide what to design and build next?

Part 1: Intel’s Brian David Johnson, author of Screen Future: The Future of Entertainment, Computing, and the Devices We Love, joins LUNAR’s John Edson and interface designer Ron Goldin for a conversation about designing the future of TV.

In this new era of health care reform and rapidly advancing medical technology, how do devices—from band aids to robotic surgical equipment—get developed? Compared to consumer products, medical equipment development happens in a complex environment involving doctors, patients, insurance companies and governments.

To help unravel some of the mystery behind the creation of medial equipment, Icon-o-Cast brought together a few experts to explore how various considerations and constraints affect the creation of new medical devices. One commonly held belief is that new technologies are driving up the cost of health care. But are things really that simple?

The practice of industrial design has changed more in the past 10 years than in the previous 100. Gone are the days when designers engaged in "make pretty" exercises.

In this Icon-o-Cast episode, SF design leaders Allan Velzy and Charlie Sheldon join LUNAR's John Edson in a conversation about how the Industrial Designer’s Society of America in San Francisco is helping local designers thrive in this new world through IDSA’s innovative programs and events.

What are the key ingredients for starting a new beverage company and how can design play a role in launching a product in a super-competitive marketplace? What are the guideposts that guide a startup from pure invention, entrepreneurial drive and consumer preference?

In this episode of Icon-o-Cast, entrepreneur Albert Cahana talks with LUNAR’s Gretchen Anderson about the role of design in launching a new product.

How can design tap into our emotional wiring, stop us in our tracks and create responses in us? An exploration we did at Lunar, loosely based on Don Norman's Emotional Design, looked at how design can make us stop and think, stop and act, and stop and behold.

In this episode, Lunar's John Edson, Jeff Smith and Becky Brown talk about this last dimension -- the beauty dimension of "stop and behold" -- and how it turns out to be the most elusive power of design.

The architecture and construction world is years ahead of product design in terms of creating understanding, standards, alternative design solutions and the economic arguements for the value of sustainable design.

In this Earth Day Special, Lunar's Gretchen Anderson talks with green building expert Elaine Hsieh of KEMA about how building industries have embraced sustainable practices since the first Earth Day.

Computer game design is changing as games become more of a platform for play, creativity and collaboration and not just a challenge of skill and reasoning.

Lunar's Gretchen Anderson talks with Mike Khoury, a game designer at Maxis Software and contributor to the hot new game Spore, about changing approaches to designing the gaming experience and some surprising ways Spore's fans have taken the game in new directions.

The world's great museums have attractions that capture the imagination of visitors. The very best museums also design their experiences to connect with visitors in ways that may not always be readily apparent.

In this episode, Lisa Dunmeyer, project manager with BBI Engineering, talks with Lunar's Gretchen Anderson and Lisa Leckie about how visitors are connecting with the newly redesigned California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park.

BBI Engineering of San Francisco served as primary integrator of the audiovisual design within the new Cal Academy.

How do we orient creativity in the service of business stakeholders?

How does design create benefits for top-line growth and bottom-line profitability?

In this Icon-o-Cast episode, Lunar's John Edson chats with innovation guru Larry Keeley of the Doblin Group about the practice of innovation in design, its role in today's economic environment and perspectives on how innovation may have contributed to our current predicaments.

Larry is an innovation strategist, professor at the Institute of Design at Illinois Institute of Technology and president of The Doblin Group, an innovation strategy firm based in Chicago.

Joep Meijer, founder and president of theRightenvironment, talks about models for sustainable design at the Industrial Design Society of America's Digging Deeper event in San Francisco July 22, 2008. (Prefaced with a short interview by Lunar's John Edson.)

The evening panel discussion dug deep into the eco-issues designers face everyday to reveal building blocks for sustainable design.

Lunar engineers Robert Howard and Matt Durack discuss the product-development process and challenges associated with creating the Illumina iScan -- a sophisticated biotechnology instrument -- for long-time client Illumina. How do engineers and designers juggle the requirements of customers, manufacturers, marketing and service technicians in a context of fierce competition, development calendars, technology risks and other considerations? Listen and learn.

Lunar's Travis Lee speaking on sustainable design at the Industrial Design Society of America's Digging Deeper event in San Francisco July 22, 2008, outlines an approach for how designers can think about building sustainable design principles into their product work. about sustainable design. (Prefaced with a short interview by Lunar's John Edson.)

The evening panel discussion dug deep into the eco-issues designers face everyday to reveal building blocks for sustainable design.

Different materials provide different capabilities for designers and result in different experiences for consumers. Why do product designers use the materials they use? What's the "dream stuff" designers would love to use in the products they create? In this Icon-o-Cast episode, Lunar's John Edson talks with a gaggle of Lunar Design pros about materials used in products today and what will be coming tomorrow.

In a market economy characterized by commoditized products and global competition, how do companies gain deep and lasting loyalty from their customers? The key, argues author Steve Diller, is in providing meaningful customer experiences. In this episode of Icon-o-Cast, Lunar's John Edson talks with Steve, a partner at Cheskin Research and co-author of "Making Meaning: How Successful Businesses Deliver Meaningful Customer Experiences".

China has already become an important manufacturing center and, as the world's most populous nation, a coveted new market. China is also quickly becoming a global design center. Lunar's John Edson talks with Andrew Zee, manager of Lunar's new Hong Kong office, and Elaine Ann, founder of Kaizor Innovation, a strategic innovation consulting company specializing in China markets, about new directions for design in China.