Thompson Joins PDMA Corporate Board of Directors to Improve Member Experience

Congratulations to Jeff Thompson, Aesynt Director of Innovation Programs, who will serve on the PDMA Corporate Board of Directors as the Vice President of Member Experience.  Jeff has been extremely active with the Pittsburgh Chapter for the past four years, serving as Chapter President, Vice President of Programming, and Director of Marketing as well as a member of the Corporate Advisory Board.  In his new corporate role, Jeff's primary objective will be to strengthen and grow the organization's membership to enhance the impact within the product development community.  Jeff believes that bringing together academics, practicing professionals, and service providers is the best model to accelerate and improve innovation and product.  He also recognizes that the local chapters play a key role in the international organization and are an important part of the value delivery.

Learn more about the Corporate Board of Directors.

www.pdma.org > About > Board of Directors

Hybrid R&D - The Path to Breakthrough Innovation Webcast on May 1st

 Join the May 1st webcast and Innovation Management Ecosystem full-day workshop this Fall

The May 1st PDMA Webcast, Hybrid R&D - The Path to Breakthrough Innovation, is part of a innovation workshop that Mark Adkins, founder and president of Smart Hammer Innovation and Pittsburgh PDMA Board Member, has developed over the past several years. 

During this webcast, Mark will discuss the emerging organizational concept Hybrid R&D that shows how breakthrough innovation can be achieved by building an organization based on: 

• A mission to create entirely new product categories
• Restructuring a traditional R&D group to include the role of commercial managers
• A Stage Zero process which is critical to filter and promote breakthrough ideas 

If your idea-to-launch process is so refined that breakthrough innovation ideas may not be advanced, or if all available funding is committed to core products, this is a webcast you won't want to miss.

To learn more and to register for the May 1st webcast, visit smarthammerin.com or log onto the PDMA Website.  

Full-Day Innovation Management Ecosystem Workshop This Fall 

This coming Fall, Mark will be hosting a full-day workshop where he will cover the major components of an Innovation Management Ecosystem including the Portfolio Management, Idea-to-Launch, Ideation and Resource Planning processes. 

Watch your email, or find us on LinkedIn http://bit.ly/PDMAInnovate and Twitter @PDMApittsburgh for more details on the full-day workshop and other PDMA events.  

A Message from the PDMA Pittsburgh Chapter President - April 2014

We started our 2014 programming slate in January with a screening of the documentary Design and Thinking.  It was a great event, and it's a topic that really epitomizes the PDMA community.  We are a collection of practicing professionals, academic researchers and service providers who look to combine empathy, creativity and rationality to solve problems and drive innovation and strategy.  Our Chapter is a platform for connecting, sharing experiences and exploring new thinking, and we encourage individuals, teams and organizations to join PDMA to become a part of this knowledge base. 

As a member, you get discounts on all Chapter events, and we have some excellent Innovation Forums planned for the coming months.  Topics include hardware accelerators, the power of adjacency, additive manufacturing and hybrid R&D. Please check your email and our Chapter website for dates and times.  Our Programming Committee does an outstanding job of bringing relevant content and some of the most notable industry experts to our area, but much of what they do is guided by input from our Chapter Community. Every good product developer knows the value of lending an empathetic ear to the voice of our customers, so we want to hear from you! Next month you will receive a survey via email asking for feedback about our Chapter and the events we offer.  Please take a few minutes to share your thoughts.  What are some of the topics you are interested in?  How important is networking?  The results will help shape our events and other programs in the months ahead. 

As a volunteer-driven organization, we attribute our success to all the outstanding people who support our events and give of their time and talent to make our Chapter a valuable resource for product development and innovation management.  I am proud to part of such a great organization and offer my sincere thanks to our board, our members and our guests.  I look forward to seeing you at our June event. Until then stay connected through our website, Twitter and LinkedIn.  Also feel free to contact me directly at randyr@ballydesign.com to share any and all things Pittsburgh PDMA! 

   

Randy Rossi

President, PDMA Pittsburgh
President, Bally Design 

June PDMA Pittsburgh Innovation Forum Focuses on Growth Strategies In Your Backyard

Join us June 3rd at Shadyside Courtyard Marriott

The June Innovation Forum - The Power Of Adjacency: Growth Strategies In Your Backyard, presented by Mark Carr, Managing Partner at South Street Strategy Group - will be held on June 3rd at the Courtyard Marriott in Shadyside. 

Identifying and exploiting new opportunities for growth is a constant point of tension for companies. Yet in this never ending quest for growth, many business strategists fail to see the opportunities that are right in their backyards - customer or capability adjacencies that are very natural extensions of their current strategies. An adjacency-based approach to growth has the benefit of leveraging business assets that already exist, but it does come with risks. For example, strategies that are too far afield from your core offerings - and thus with weak linkages - are likely to fail.

In this presentation, you will hear best practices in embedding an innovation culture into an organization through a structured approach of defining, scoping and exploiting adjacencies that can build a long-term pipeline of opportunities for growth. You will walk away from this session being able to: 

• Apply several methods for leveraging adjacencies in your own organization
• Understand how to evaluate and prioritize the best adjacencies for growth
• Identify the key issues required to succeed with adjacencies and the risks to watch out for
• Learn from case studies that demonstrate how a successful adjacency strategy can be developed and implemented.  

Register today! 

Watch your email, or find us on LinkedIn http://bit.ly/PDMAInnovate and Twitter @PDMApittsburgh for event updates. 

Thank you to our sponsors! @Kennametal @KoppGlass @BallyDesign @CarnegieMellon @newhazlett @MadeinSWPA @DraegerNews #amgresearch

Thank you to our sponsors! @Kennametal @KoppGlass @BallyDesign @CarnegieMellon @newhazlett @MadeinSWPA @DraegerNews #amgresearch