What does it take to be entrepreneurial in the design professions?  How are designs responsive to diversity, environment, and behavior marketable commodities?  What characteristics of individuals, firms, and organizations make them so successful?  What lessons can designers learn from Google and its innovative work environment?

This course equips design students with tools to make them more effective leaders in the profession and to become more influential citizens whose work can have a significant impact on society.  Students will conduct case studies, missions, objectives, strategies, and business plans of award-winning individuals, firms, and organizations.  They will analyze entrepreneurial qualities of award-winning:

• High-tech firms, such as Google, where the design of the physical and social work environment promotes highest possible levels of creativity and productivity while meeting the needs of an increasingly diverse, global workforce.  Google has experienced its meteoric rise in large part due to its innovative physical and social work environment.  This will provide students with a special opportunity to learn from a 21st century success story.
• Social entrepreneurs, such as Jack Sim, President of the not-for-profit World Toilet Organization, listed among the “Heroes of the Environment 2008″ in Time Magazine‘s October 6, 2008 Global Issue, and Cameron Sinclair, founder of Architecture for Humanity.
• Individuals, firms, and not-for-profit organizations integrating environment-behavior research into the design fields whose work has had a major impact on improving spaces and places around the world. Entrepreneurial environment-behavior researchers have engaged in successful careers by applying their findings to the design professions, resulting in award-winning environments.
• Individuals and firms initiated by diverse, underrepresented architects and designers (women, African-Americans, Asian-Americans, Latino-Americans persons with challenges) whose work has had a major impact on improving spaces and places for economically disadvantaged and culturally diverse clients.

Over the course of the semester, we take multiple field trips to visit entrepreneurs, have guest lectures visit our class, and personally interview interesting entrepreneurs from all over the country. Our projects are located under their own tab, with a brief background of who they are, a link to their personal website, and some comments from our class about what they learned.