1. WHAT IS DMN?
The Design Management Network (DMN) connects professionals in the field of design management.
DMN was founded in the Netherlands in 1999 and aims to join together the worlds of business,
management and creativity in a constructive manner.
At the moment, DMN consists of 75 members from three important target audiences: supply
(organizations like Heineken, Forbo and Philips), demand (design offices and consultants like
EdenSpiekermann, VBAT and NPK) and research and education (TU Delft, the Art Academy in
Utrecht and Design Academy Eindhoven).
WHAT DOES DMN OFFER?
DMN commits itself to implement design in a professional and structural way. This approach leads to
relevant products, a vital brand, better services and successful innovations. The use of ‘creativity’
allows the organization to respond in a better and faster manner to changes in the market. It makes
the organization more flexible and supplies a stronger connection to the actual needs of the end user.
This way, design is not only effective, but also offers verifiable results and helps to build and maintain
a sustainable competitive advantage.
WHAT DOES DMN DO?
DMN connects professionals and makes sure these encounters lead to the sharing and multiplying of
knowledge. DMN focuses on network meetings (approximately 6 each year), which take place on
changing locations and shed light on current, provocative themes through business cases, debates,
a company visit or a lecture. The past year, DMN not only traveled to the Philips HUE team, the
winners of the Dutch Design Award ‘Best Client’ (the Amsterdam based zoo Artis and marketing
foundation EHV365) but also organized events on ‘service design in health care’, ‘circular
entrepreneurship’ and ‘social design’. Additionally, DMN set up two debates about ‘new business
models for the creative industry’.
COLLABORATION
DMN participates in relevant third party events (What Design Can Do, the Dutch Design Week),
collaborates with likeminded parties (PDMA, BNO, CLICKNL, Top-team Dutch Creative Industries,
DMI) and supports prizes that award in particular the added value of organizational design (for
example, the category ‘best client’ of the Dutch Design Awards, and the European Design
Management Awards, DME).
BECOMING A MEMBER
Individual members pay 302,50 euros per year (including VAT), which allows them free access to all
network meetings. Student members (under the age of 30) pay 118 euros per year (including VAT).
Company members pay 907,50 euros per year (including VAT), which allows them to enter all
network meetings with a maximum of five guests.
THE BOARD
The board of DMN consists of Mirjam Van Coillie (chairman, senior director consumer marketing at
Philips), Louise de Blécourt (treasurer, design manager at BlécourtDesignManagement), Pieter Aarts
(secretary, senior consultant and strategist at ContentKings), Edwin Wibbelink (board member,
design manager at Rabobank) and Christine De Lille (board member, assistant professor at the TU
Delft, Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering).