Boston. It’s where you need to be April 30 through May 3 so you can join us at HOW Design Live. One of our primary goals on the HOW team is to be forward thinking—to stay ahead of the industry so we can do everything possible to help designers, like you, navigate changing environments.

An obvious trend these days is that the convergence of design and marketing is accelerating. With that, we’ve seen more marketing professionals attending HOW Design Live with designers showing a stronger interest in sessions that address the intersection of the two.

While design and marketing have traditionally operated in their own silos, the work and the people who do it have become increasingly more collaborative. Just as designers often lament that their marketing colleagues don’t “get” the value of their work, marketers need creatives to roll up their sleeves and dig into strategy and analytics.

HOW Marketing Live, a new offering, comes online at a critical time for designers and marketers alike. Programmed in partnership with the American Marketing Association, this two-day event is co-located with HOW Design Live and offers unprecedented training that will help designers work more effectively with clients and colleagues. Session topics include:

Metrics: The Role of Data in Creativity – a deep dive into how businesses use customer insight, sales data, forecasting and more to define marketing strategies and measure results—and what it all means for creative output.

Bringing Designers and Marketers Together, i.e., kill the creative brief and start talking – a case study that dissects the designer-client relationship and shares smart strategies for collaboration.

From Gift Wrapper to Strategic Partner: How Creatives Can Shift Perception of Their Work – a session that addresses what designers need to know to be stronger, more-strategic, brand-building marketing partners.

Implications of Journey Mapping for Designers – a tutorial on how to engage in interdepartmental communication at the outset of projects—obtaining all the necessary information to design early on, allowing designers and marketers to map projects and solve for complications before they occur.

With 75% of the HOW Design Live audience working in house, we know the importance of bringing in top-tier corporate creatives to share their insights and their first-hand experiences. A few of the in-house leaders we’re featuring are:

Josh Higgins – who went from being a touring musician with MCA/Universal Records to Design Director for President Obama to an Executive Creative Director at Facebook. And how during each role, he realized the importance of building culture within the band/team/organization and the impact it had on the work, recruitment of talent, and team dynamics.

Vanessa Dewey – formally with Mattel and now at Adobe, Vanessa will talk about how figuring out your career path can be daunting. And how, as an in-house designer that’s part of a 500-person creative organization, charting that course can feel even more overwhelming. That is the situation Vanessa found herself in during her early years at Mattel. She’ll talk about how she took control of her career and embraced her creative passion, which helped her evolve in a surprising direction.

Josh Silverman – Design Producer at Twitter, will speak about how in a world of constant change accelerated by the intersection of design and technology, there are three things that persist: people, process, and performance. When we pay more attention to the configuration of teams, to our own individual and collective preferences for how work gets done, and to the structure of collaboration, we become more empathic, better at working with others, and happier people. His talk will show us how to diagnose and solve for “The People Layer” to develop skills that last.

Stephen Gates – this Global Head of Design at Citi has a strong working knowledge that companies want creativity and design like never before, but very few internal creative teams have been empowered or know what to do so they can take advantage of this demand. He’ll share what he has learned leading successful, empowered client-side teams for 12+ years at Starwood Hotels and Citi, and he’ll help you understand what your team needs to be successful and empowered.

Fernanda Amarante – Manager of Global Design with The Hershey Company is also coming to HOW to tell you that the in-house world is magical! She’ll share how she joined The Hershey Company as a design strategist over six years ago and why it’s her absolute dream job. Over the years, she’s learned to reinvent herself at a time when two-thirds of millennials are predicted to leave their current organizations by 2020. Fe will keep it real—sharing absurd, hilarious, craveable tales she’s been part of while transforming multi-million-dollar brands like Reese’s and Twizzlers into design-driven powerhouses.

That was a lot of information—I know. I’m just really excited about our session content and speaker line-up this year and I want you to benefit from being part of HOW Design Live. Of course, IHAF members receive 10% off when you use the code “IHAF.” If you register by March 15, that’s a $500 savings! We value our friends at IHAF and look forward to seeing you on April 30-May 3 in Boston.