In 2011, I wondered how the increasing state of connectedness was going to impact us as people. How will it change how we interact with technology and how will a society that is data-informed evolve? Those questions prompted me to start the Roadmap conference — an idea which was slightly ambiguous, looking at the impact of connectedness on society. From Dropbox’s Drew Houston to Sequoia Capital’s Mike Moritz to Twitter’s Jack Dorsey — most of our speakers had spent a long time thinking about connectedness.
What emerged from the first edition of Roadmap was that design was the bridge that connected people and technology. Design was not just aesthetic beauty but more about creating continuous moments and experiences of joy by making technology productive. My long time colleague and creative partner, Katie Fehrenbacher joined as co-chair and together in the 2012 and 2013 editions of the event, we explored the evolution of design and its impact on our daily lives. From Tinder CEO Sean Rad to Instagram’s Kevin Systrom to font genius/giant Erik Spiekermann — everyone agreed that:
- All communication is going to be visual.
- And design is going to be in everything.
Those two core learnings led us to conclude about the invisibility of design — or invisible design — which is the core theme of Roadmap 2014. We have a stellar line up of speakers — too long to list. I am personally interviewing:
- Tony Fadell, co-founder of Nest (acquired by Google for $3.2 billion.)
- Evan Williams of Medium & Twitter.
- Yves Behar, founder of fuseproject and design-genius behind August Lock and Jawbone’s line up of products.
- Jeff Veen, co-founder of Typekit & Adaptive Path and a web design influencer.
- Gadi Amit, founder of NewDealDesign
Our long list of all star speakers include Matias Duarte of Google, KK Barrett, production designer who has worked with Spike Jonze on films such as Her; Simon Rogers of Twitter, my dearest friend Elle Luna, Julie Zhuo of Facebook, Jessica Hische. And to cap them all, we will have John Maeda for a much-in-demand encore, where he will share his thoughts, especially how working in Silicon Valley has changed how he views design and its impact.
We have changed our location this year to the lovely and fantastic new SF Jazz Center — a venue where creativity is center stage every day of the year. On November 18 & 19 (and a kick off event on the night of November 17), we will bring forth a different aspect of creativity in technology. Katie & I hope you can join us — I know I would love to see you all at the conference. (You can click here to register.)