Nathan Shedroff is the Opening Speaker for Big Design 2013

Your opening keynote speaker for Big Design 2013 is Nathan Shedroff, who is a serial entrepreneur, innovator, speaker, author, teacher, and sci-fi fanatic. Nathan was an Interaction Designer before there was a term for it.

These days, he runs the MBA in Design Strategy at California College of the Arts. This program combines the latest tools, processes, and approaches to business and leadership, design thinking, sustainability, and integrative thinking into one comprehensive program. It has nerd written all over it (and we love him for it).

Recently, Nathan watched about two years of sci-fi films. He was doing research for a book that he co-authored with his friend, Chris Noessel. The book is from Rosenfeld Media. It is called Make It So: Learning From Sci-Fi Interfaces

Design Inspiration from Sci-Fi Films

While you might think it is a no-brainer that designers get inspiration from science fiction films. It is really more sophisticated. It’s not just a matter of:

“Open the pod bay doors, Siri. Oops, I mean, HAL!”

In 1988, Nathan has the ideas to do a book on what designers could learn from sci-fi films. It many years to research (and watch) all those films. Nathan and Chris only started to work on seriously in 2007.

It had always occurred to Nathan that interesting interfaces were depicted in SciFi films and television but it wasn’t until Star Trek: The Next Generation that he saw regular and thoughtful explorations into more than the arrangement of buttons on a panel. Each week, he saw new, interesting ideas that build on several decades of foundation. In the film world, interfaces were becoming similarly more considered and original.

What You Will Get From This Talk?

Aside from some thoughtful (and fun) examples, you will come away with a framework for how SciFi and Design are influencing each other. You won’t know everything in just one hour, but you learn a bunch of the lessons Nathan uncovered during his research. You will learn the thing:

How SciFi turns-out to be a legitimate process for designing and developing.
Ways the Pentagon and many corporations use it in their research and development.
See relevant examples from sci-fi film on how designs were created.

In many respects, Design is fiction already. Ironically, much of business development is a fiction (until you start to develop it).

You are going to love this talk! Get your tickets today.