Letter from the Board of Directors

Greetings IA Institute!

As Director of Events and Marketing, I am charged with the responsibility of planning and executing the IDEA Conference. As you may or may not know, this year’s IDEA Conference is being held in Toronto, Ontario, Canada at the MaRS Centre, largely due to the enthusiasm and evangelism by Mario Bourque and Matthew Milan. Mario has been one of the guiding lights for the IDEA team as we’ve been exploring the best possible ways to put on the best possible conference in Toronto. I’m proud to say that I feel like we’re very much on the right track!

There are many other folks to thank, as well. Will Evans, Brad Simpson, Jonathan Knoll (Yoni) and Michael Leis have really stepped-up and helped us put together the new www.ideaconference.org website that we’re really proud of, and as members of the IAI, you should be, too. I’d be remiss if I did not also recognize the efforts of Greg Corrin, Abby Covert and Dennis Schleicher, who have all been putting in efforts to help escalate the level of professionalism of the IDEA conference.

I am extremely proud of what we’ve put together as a team—from very detailed and professional collateral materials to provide to our speakers to the sponsorship prospectus, every item has polish and shine, and speaks volume to where we’re headed.

We’ve identified an outstanding speaker line-up with some great names you know and love, and some new ones you may have yet to hear of. All of them are going to help us better understand aspects of social design and experience design on September 15-16, 2009, with a pre- conference workshop hosted by EightShapes on September 14th.

IDEA is an affordable, high-impact conference, and we look forward to seeing you there! IDEA is happening within a few days of the Toronto International Film Festival, and it is advised to book hotel rooms as soon as you can in order to ensure you can have a room for the conference.

We’re having a lot of fun working on the IDEA Conference—there are many other opportunities to volunteer within the IA Institute, and we’re always happy to help great people find the right projects. Please contact volunteer[at]iainstitute.org for more information.

See you at IDEA in September!

Sincerely,
Russ Unger
IA Institute
Events Director

Previous Letters:
June 2009
February 2009
December 2008
November 2008

This page was last modified on June 22, 2009 09:25 AM.