The 2008 In-HOWse Designer Conference in San Francisco was the best and biggest so far. I was impressed by the willingness of attendees to participate fully and take advantage of every opportunity to ask questions and network with peers and speakers. You were a huge part of making it such an exciting and enlightening event!

Steven Morris and Erin Sarpa kicked off the conference with some solid advice for managers about how to help their teams love their jobs. The big thing I got out of the session was the importance of recognition. It doesn’t have to cost much (or anything), but it goes a long way to keeping morale high and giving people a reason to show up every day.

The opener was followed by a brief but noisy networking session where attendees stood up and explained who they wanted to meet and what they wanted to talk about, forming small groups with other attendees. I wasn’t sure how such a loose structure would work, but it turned out to be the perfect way to help people find each other. The conversation continued during the Networking Happy Hour sponsored by The Creative Group, where attendees also got the chance to talk with sponsors.

Peter Phillips headlined a busy Saturday with his ideas about how to earn respect and trust for your in-house group. One interesting and controversial idea was to remove the words “art” and/or “services” from the name of your department. After this general session, the group split and had a choice of two sessions. Moira Cullen, design director for the Coca-Cola Company explained how to communicate with clients using the language of business, while L.L. Bean’s Jim Hauptman drew some amusing parallels between in-house creatives and the animals in the Bronx Zoo. Part of his session explored the importance of creating the right physical environment for your team, whether that be something radical like dismantling the cube farm or something simple like moving the location of the regular Monday meeting.

After lunch, creative consultant Jeni Herberger presented the first of a two-part session on instituting a charge-back system to establish an in-house group’s value to the company, while designer Patricia Belyea led her part of the group in an inspiring brainstorming session to show how to get the most and best ideas out of your team and clients. Then Jeni presented the second part of her session, while Peter Phillips explained in great detail how to create the perfect design brief.

The HOW staff spent the evening sorting through all the great questions that attendees submitted for the Sunday morning speaker panel, where Peter Phillips, Patricia Belyea, Jeni Herberger, Jim Hauptman and Moira Cullen addressed questions like “How can I turn around low morale?” and “What is the best method for tracking designers’ time?”

Finally, Sheila Campbell closed the conference with an inspiring session about achieving work/life balance, an issue many designers struggle with. Here’s a question to ask yourself: What are you really passionate about and what are you willing to abandon to have more time for it?

Lots of attendees approached me after the closing to say how much they enjoyed the event. But at least half of its success can be attributed to the great attitudes of the attendees and their willingness to share their trials and triumphs with one another.

Thanks everyone for participating fully and we hope to see you next year in D.C. for an even better In-HOWse Designer Conference!

Megan Lane Patrick, HOW Editor