6.29.09 | Overall:
Perhaps a better reflection of seeing the glass half-full – as many
speculated on low attendance and open corridors – I was taken at
the energy and vitality of this year's show amidst the backdrop of
layoffs and slow movement in the industry. There was smart product to be
seen and many shared a sense of optimism directed toward next year's
market performance.
6.29.09 | Around July, 2007, Elizabeth Nickels, EVP, left her position as Herman Miller CFO to become president of Herman Miller Healthcare, replacing the retiring Charlie Varanian. On February 8, 2008, Herman Miller completed its acquisition of Brandrud Furniture, a healthcare furniture manufacturer based in Seattle, WA, with 2007 revenues of around $20 million; the terms of the purchase were not disclosed.
6.29.09| After a weekend filled with pre-NeoCon events and parties, it’s not easy
getting folks to commit to an hour-long lecture over lunch on Monday. But
a good-sized crowd did commit when the speaker is none other that Chicago
starchitect Jeanne Gang.
6.29.09 | When Barbara Dunn, FIIDA, Principal of Gensler’s Los Angeles office, was announced president-elect of IIDA’s Southern California Chapter, we all knew it would be an exciting year. She has always been known to bring people and good ideas together, while at the same time promoting the power of great design. The proof in her vision came at the organization's annual meeting during NeoCon at the Museum of Contemporary Art when IIDA announced the Southern California Chapter as the winner in the category of Large Chapter of the Year.
People >>, Prof. Associations >>
6.29.09 | Spring was not acting its age. The Sunday afternoon was gray-cold with a bone-brushing dampness. I sat in a high-ceilinged room of a lovely New England colonial house listening to a poet read from her new collection. The poems were lovely and tried to warm the air. I took particular delight in one line that tossed out the word “anemones.” I lost the rest of the poem as I thought, “What a great word. ‘Anemones.’
Ira Joe >>
6.21.09 | Our NeoCon WTF 09 was terrific. How was yours? Sure, we got rained on a couple of times, literally and figuratively, but that didn't dampen our spirits. (As our old First Sergeant used to tell us as we were doing push ups and jumping jacks after 3 hours in the rain, “You're not made of sugar; you won't melt.”) Crowds? You bet: We had to wait to get into Knoll, and then shoulder our way through, and that was true for Allsteel/Gunlocke, Global and many others, to say nothing of the impenetrable crowd waiting for a taxi about 5:00 pm during the refreshing Midwest downpour. (We didn't wait, but where are those Allsteel pedishaws when you need them?)
6.21.09 | Best of NeoCon is by far the most rigorous and most significant annual assessment of what is happening in general U.S. contract furniture product developments. Other competitions of general scope (i.e., excluding, for example, the Nightengale Awards in healthcare) in this area probably can be, and should be, ignored as mere marketing exercises.
Competitions and Awards >>, Product >>
6.21.09 | Allsteel and Ahrend are moving forward with their five-year alliance, but reshaping it in response to their experiences in the global markets in which they have been working together. The two companies will continue to partner closely on global opportunities – including those in the United States – supporting and servicing their respective global customers. They will no longer maintain their exclusive distribution relationship.
6.8.09 | izzy was once just a little start-up, a figment of Chuck
Saylor’s imagination that he somehow made come true. Somehow in a
very short period of time, less than a decade, this little bud turned
into quite an imposing and fragrant blossom.
Manufacturing >>, Product >>
6.8.09 | Some people are taking a very skeptical look at this year’s NeoCon WTF 09. They are called followers. Last week and this, officeinsight has provided a peek at some of the launches, and these merit much more than a few photos, repetitious press release quotes and a “We’ll see.” These are not products representing just a little more chrome and a fleeting nod toward the odd need of the customer. Rather, built upon years of experience, a very competitive market, sophisticated designers and customers, these products have as their goal an earnest desire to dovetail with a multitude of customer needs that have been expressed repeatedly over the years.
Product >>
6.8.09 | For ten years the interiors industry has been talking about working anytime, anywhere. It has taken this long for technology and the ability to overcome inertial to add the next step, anyhow. Our new term for the products that facilitate the anyhow, as well as the anytime, anywhere, is landscape, referring to their ability, like that of a chameleon, to take-on the figurative color of the workstyles, processes and individual characteristics of the environment in which they are used, either through the guidance of interior designers or the needs of their users.
Product >>
6.8.09 | Here’s a “Where are they now”: Pallas Textiles, a KI division that became quiet during the illness and death in 2005-06 of its then president, the late Kimberly Christman.
Product >>
6.8.09 | Now comes Itoki Design, a new company to us, bringing another group of interesting chairs to our industry. I like the company already. It made its U.S. debut at ICFF 2009, a venue with no attitude but good design, fun and a welcome for everyone. Why it even has a day for the general public, a phenomenon about which contract furniture manufacturers and dealers look down their noses and sneer.
6.8.09 | They’ve finally moved the obituary. My newspaper of choice is not just a newspaper. It’s an event. An every day rite to which I look forward. And there is an order to my fulfilling the rite. First …front page. Seeing the ink confirms that that I’m still here …though the world and the economy remain sorry and sinking. Then, I turn to page two of the front section and look to locate on what page to find the obituaries. Forgive me, but I do. I’ve spoken with others who say they also go early in their papers to the obituaries. Death is not only inevitable; it’s interesting. Sad. Tragic. Untimely. But, compelling reading. And lately the morning mourning is presented in that front section where the news and views bubble and fizz.
Ira Joe >>
6.3.09 | Knoll doesn’t disappoint. That was our first impression as we took a seat in a conference room at the company’s showroom in Manhattan’s meat packing district. We were there with Lynn Utter, president and COO, North America and Benjamin Pardo, SVP and Director of Design,. And, oh yes, the stranger in the corner from whom Ms. Utter was just removing a cover, more to avoid prying eyes than the city’s dust: the new chair Generation by Knoll.
Product >>
6.1.09 | Allsteel is the cat of the contract furniture industry: It has had so many lives that we have lost count. And, like a cat, with impressive focus it proceeds slowly as it approaches its prey, the high-end of the contract furniture market.
Manufacturing >>, Product >>
6.1.09 | Kimball Office will have its most important showing in its history at its Chicago showroom starting the 15th of June, a fact to note especially on the heels of last year's HUM! Minds at Work introduction.
Manufacturing >>, Product >>
6.1.09 | Geiger International has for over a decade now bordered on the
venturesome, in the good sense of that term. Its Gensler-designed
Settings product introduced several years ago was a very forward
looking and conceptually appealing product line that was never fully
realized. But Robert Allen's Tablet collection dramatically
took traditional case goods to places it had never gone before, and still
today its original options are more advanced than most new case goods
products.
Product >>
6.1.09 | Tai Ping, known for its exquisite custom rugs, is moving into the North American contract arena, and why not? It is headed by Jim Kaplan, former NY Regional Manager for Knoll.
Product >>
6.1.09 | If anyone has missed the implications of the current economy, "Welcome back; how were things in the gulag?" Reading officeinsight over these last few months, we have seen some very serious questions about how to help our industry not just weather but improve this trust-rusted economy. This challenge haunts the mind: What could we do, what are we willing to do?
