Past 2005 PDMA Georgia Events
May 26, 2005
See Mr. Art Saxby's presentation (1.3 mb PDF)
Mr. Art Saxby – Vice President of Marketing at the Imperial Sugar Company – presented an amazing turnaround story. He showed how Imperial Sugar used New Product Development to get the company back on track after Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
As competition from store brands heated up, Imperial Sugar worked with a new management team to turn the company around. Faced with a cost-conscious culture, a commodity product and little chance of growing the potential market, Mr. Saxby turned to packaging as their best option. Careful market research uncovered new ways of thinking about sugar that led to innovative pakaging ideas. By looking into how consumers used sugar, Imperial Sugar found new ways to breahte life into an old product.
As he said, "If I can do it, you can do it."
Art Saxby, Vice President of Marketing at the Imperial Sugar Company, shared his incredible story at the last PDMA meeting of the 2004/2005 season. Those who attended the event at Philips Design in Atlanta walked away inspired and energized.
March 24, 2005
Decisions, Decisions, Decisions?- Dr. Gary Bush
See Dr. Gary Bush's presentation
How are Decisions really made and what is the impact of the human dynamic on your product development success rates? Dr. Gary Bush, founder of Decision Strategies, Inc. gave us an insight into a better way to make decisions about new ideas, products and services.
We are trained to provide “the answer” to any problem. It doesn’t even matter if it’s the right answer – so long as it’s an answer that seems likely.
The problem with this approach is that it keeps us from facing uncertainty. On March 24, 2005 at Maquarium, Dr. Gary Bush proved that dealing with uncertainty and ambiguity can get us closer to a successful decision.
He introduced several tools that can be used to bridge the gap between the “Fuzzy Front End” and a structured New Product Development Process. In short, he showed us better ways to make decisions.
These tools form the basis of Integrated Decision Management. Dr. Bush talked about the use of Tornado Diagrams that map a range of probable outcomes against proposed solutions. These diagrams can be used along with Stochastic Analysis to understand what could go wrong and uncover the possible upsides of any decision.
Integrated Decision Management helps identify the critical issues of a problem and aids decision-making by facing the risk and uncertainty inherent in many New Product opportunities.
January 27th , 2005
Toast the start of the new year with the perfect mixture of innovation and networking!
Your Georgia PDMA team has lined up two outstanding speakers for our January event. First, you'll learn from one of the leading consumer goods organizations on how to get close to customers to drive your product development activities. Then you'll gain insights about how to get close to your business contacts to drive your own career! Don't forget to come early to network with other product development professionals.
Tracy Baker - Tropicana - VP Development, and Innovation Shelf Stable Beverages
Learn the key reasons the Sunshine Shines on Tropicana - Orange juice becomes premium when you mix in equal parts of Innovation and Customer Intimacy. Tracy will share Tropicana’s best practices on establishing and building intimate relationships with customers - I'll drink to that!
Brian Hilliard Motivational Speaker and author of Networking like a Pro!
If you’re tired of not getting enough new business or looking to improve your career opportunities from your networking activities, then you're going to love Brian. Brian will share three surefire questions that will make you stand out from the crowd. He’ll also share how the 12 x 12 x 12 rule can help manage the perception others have of you. We will all benefit from Brian’s insights in today’s hyper competitive business climate. I'll drink to that too!
