College of Design and Council for Design Excellence present

2008 Design Excellence Dinner

Click here for a printable pdf version of the Save the Date.

             April 10, 2008

             5:30     Reception

             7:00     Dinner and Speaker

             Cocktail Attire

You are invited to the 2008 Design Excellence Dinner benefitting the ASU College of Design Dean’s Academic Enrichment Fund, which supports student scholarships and college programs. The Design Excellence Dinner is one of ASU’s premier events and continues a tradition of bringing leading business experts to our design, planning, and real estate development community. Through this annual event, the college strengthens its relationship with our supporters, while providing additional resources for a quality design education to our students. Comprised of a dynamic grouping of disciplines—architecture, design studies, housing and community development, industrial design, interior design, landscape architecture, planning, real estate development, and visual communication design—the College of Design is at the forefront of the global, regional, economic, and environmental design questions that are shaping the twenty-first century.

             2008 Design Excellence Dinner

            James Elmore Endowment Lecture featuring

            James Surowiecki

Under the right circumstances, groups are remarkably intelligent and are often smarter than the smartest people in them.

James Surowiecki (bio-pdf file) is the foremost authority on how to harness the collective wisdom of your organization for competitive advantage. He has written a well-received book on the theory and practice of The Wisdom of Crowds—Why The Many Are Smarter Than The Few And How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies And Nations.

In The Wisdom of Crowds, Jim describes systematic ways to organize and aggregate the intelligence available in your organization to arrive at superior decisions—often better than those that individuals would make, even if they are “experts.” The book and Jim’s presentation are full of insights into how groups operate that are invaluable to business leaders. He also offers practical methods for leveraging people and technology to learn what you need to know and make decisions that really serve the organization’s goals.

Jim writes a twice-monthly financial column for The New Yorker that is typically pegged to current events and incorporates the kind of insights from economics, sociology, and business history that make The Wisdom of Crowds so valuable. He has written for a broad range of other publications on a wide variety of topics. His work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Wired, and The Wall Street Journal and other major publications. He wrote “The Bottom Line” column for New York magazine and was a contributing editor at Fortune.

Sponsorships

            Sustaining Sponsor           $25,000

            Maroon + Gold Sponsor    $15,000

            Gold Sponsor                      $10,000

            Silver Sponsor                    $5,000

            Copper Sponsor                 $2,500

            Individual tickets may be purchased for $200 per person.

Click HERE for online sponsorship registration. Please see Dinner Sponsorship Details page for more deatils of company recognition at each level of sponsorship.

Click HERE for individual ticket registration (page under construction, please call Sharon Haugen at the contact info below for more details).

Contact

For more information about attending the event, sponsorship benefits, or to purchase individual tickets please contact Sharon Haugen at 480.965.6384 or sharon.haugen@asu.edu. Click the links for information about the Council for Design Excellence or to see a complete list of dinner sponsors.

Location Details

J. W. Marriott Desert Ridge Resort and Spa

Grand Saguaro Ballroom

5350 E. Marriott Drive

Phoenix, AZ 85054

(north of the 101 off of E. Deer Valley Dr. between Tatum Blvd and 56th Street)

Map/link to Marriott Desert Ridge website