May 21, 2010.
Founder of Russian design and innovation consultancy Lumiknows Dr. Ekaterina Khramkova has become an expert of the Second International Forum on Design and Architecture NEW CITY 2010 which took place in Togliatti on 20 – 23 May, 2010. An initiator of the Forum is Togliatti State University with a support of administrations of Togliatti City and Samara Region, Consulate of Italy in Samara region. Chair of the committee of the Forum is Prof. Dr. Omar Akbar, Director of the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation in 1998 – 2008, co-chairs are Prof. Dr. Michael Krishtal, chancellor of the Togliatti State University, Paolo della Queva, The President of Association of Engineers of Florence, Italy.

Presenters came from such diverse cities as Milan (Metrogramma), Florence (Association of Engineers of Florence), Pisa, Aachen (SzturHaerterAchitekten), Berlin, Rotterdam, Zuerich (Institut fuer Geschichte und Theorie der Architektur), Moscow (Lumiknows). More than 400 people visited the Forum.

April 29, 2010.
Founder of Russian design and innovation consultancy Lumiknows Dr Ekaterina Khramkova was invited by Serbian cultural authorities to talk on Russian visual culture and how knowing of its peculiarities can be successfully applied in new product design and development for the Russian market.

Based on the experience of design research and trend watching projects fulfilled by Lumiknows for such global brands as Samsung Electronics, Renault, Danfoss/DEVI, Philips and others Ekaterina explained different aspects of Russian visual, aesthetic and emotional preferences and tendencies. Her interview and presentation “Cracking Russian Cultural Code” took place in Novi Sad and were covered by local Serbian TV as a beginning of a series of meetings with experts from European countries on cultural sustainability.

As a part of the trip to Serbia, Dr Khramkova met Mr Djuric, regional minister of culture.

News on the visit of Dr Ekaterina Khramkova on the official website of Serbia.

April 24, 2010.
Business incubator innovationStudio based at the Moscow State University and design and innovation consultancy Lumiknows under the patronage of Intel and The U.S. Russia Centre for Entrepreneurship have announced a series of events dedicated to innovative entrepreneurship education in Russia.

The first seminar «Competence-Centred Approach and a Role of Design Thinking in Entrepreneurship Education» took place in a new building of the Faculty of Economics of the Moscow State University named after Lomonosov. The goals of the event are to improve level of entrepreneurship education in Russian universities, accelerate development of entrepreneurship creativity thinking courses, to foster a creation of interdisciplinary cooperation between institutions of business and design education, and to enhance interest amongst university teachers in entrepreneurship education.

Conference speakers included:

1.       Ekaterina Polezhaeva, HR specialist, NVision Group;

2.       Dmitry Kulish, Director general and founder, biotechnological  company DKIS;

3.       Dmitry Molchanov, Chairman of board of directors, Domostroy, Dom.Ru, Professor at the Higher School of Economics;

4.       Nikolay Mityushin, Director on investments, Venture Fund ABRT;

5.       Dr Ekaterina Khramkova, Founder at design and innovation consultancy Lumiknows, Head of Design and Innovation department at Moscow Industry-and-Finance Academy;

6.       Pavel Luksha, Developer of Executive Education programs, Skolkovo;

7.       Vadim Kotelnikov, Founder of Centre for Entrepreneurial Creativity and Systemic Innovations.

The event followed by a presentation of the book «Competence-Centred Approach and a Role of Design Thinking in Entrepreneurship Education».

Official Intel blog Innovation@MSU: design thinking and entrepreneurship abilities.

March 03, 2010.
On the invitation of the Moscow University of Industry and Finance founder of Russian design consultancy Lumiknows was appointed a head of Design and Innovation department of the Institute.

The Faculty of Design at the Moscow Industry-and-Commerce Academy is aimed at developing the first in Russia centre for preparing unique design professionals fully armed to become drivers of the emergent Economy of Creativity and Innovation. 

The educational program of Design at the Academy intends to be research driven and distinguish itself by a multidisciplinary focus and by its approach, namely competency-centered learning in one of the following domains: Environment Design, Visual Communications, Product Design.

February 01, 2010.
Ekaterina Khramkova, founder of Russian design & innovation consultancy Lumiknows started a column dedicated to design and design thinking for influential Harvard Business Review Russia. The blog will talk about design thinking as an indispensable tool of creating “blue oceans”, different aspects of the emerging Economy of Creativity & Innovation, and shift from Foresight to Foredesign

The first post “From creating things to designing futures”.

The second post: “Awareness and consciousness, or what design can teach”.

December 11-23, 2009.
Moscow Industry-and-Finance Academy invited Ekaterina Khramkova, founder of Russian design & innovation consultancy Lumiknows to hold a series of master-classes for students and staff of its “Design” and “Management” departments. The topics of workshops are “New Product Development”, “Design Research” and “The Fuzzy Front End of Innovation”.

Internal TV video dedicated to master-class.

November 27, 2009.
Ekaterina Khramkova, founder of Russian design research and product development consultancy Lumiknows spoke for the international forum “Distant Light” which took place in Moscow City 26-27 November 2009.

The Distant Light Forum was a two day conference dedicated to the identification of long-term strategies and opportunities for Russian industry and in the Russian economy through the discussion of key success factors, in particular culture specific values, images and practices. An interdisciplinary business & cultural conference on the theme “What Russia Can Give to the World “, discussed in 4 panel sessions with respect to: Cinema & Art, Entrepreneurship, Design, Innovation, and Society. Among the presenters were Alan Kantrow - Director, Infrastructure Research Center, Moscow School of Management, Skolkovo, Yan Soderqvist – columnist of Finanstidningen (Swedish Financial Times) and the author of the bestseller “The Netocrats”, Parag Khanna – Director of the Global Governance Initiative and Senior Research Fellow in the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation and many others.

Ekaterina’s presentation ”The metaphysics of Contrasts and Its Role in Russian Visual Culture” was dedicated to identifying “Russian cultural codes” and its influence upon visual, aesthetic, emotional and ergonomic preferences of Russian to be taken into account when developing new products for the Russian market. Ekaterina gave examples of how the codes “worked” in projects developed by Lumiknows for Danfoss and Renault.

See slides of the presention here and the presentation on YouTube.  

October 25, 2009.
Director of  Russian design research and strategy consultancy Lumiknows Ekaterina Khramkova was invited to participate as an expert in the British Council international project “Creative Cities”. Its session “Industrial zone 2.0: a new life of the industrial past” was organized with support of Theories & Practices and took place at Design-Zavod Flacon.

The aim of the four-day session was exchange of experience between Russian and Western experts and searching for new ways of development of creative clusters. Together with Creative Director at Dutch Total Identity Felix Janssens Ekaterina discussed topics of Experience economy, transformation of product design into service design and its possible implications for the development of Creative economy in Russia.

October 19, 2009.
Founding director of Russia based innovation product development concultancy Lumiknows Dr Ekaterina Khramkova was invited to talk on Russian trends, visual culture and identity issues for Dutch Design Week 2009 in Eindhoven. Her presenation "Cracking Russian Cultural Code for Successful Product Development” based on design research projects fulfilled by Lumiknows over the last years opened Caviar Rouge Forum which took place in Design Huis and was organized by Caravan Cultura Agency. Discussion and debates “Design today and tomorrow” following presentations were moderated by Jeanne van Beers of Design Huis.

Fragment of the presentation "Cracking Russian Cultural Code for Successful Product Development".

October 09, 2009.
Founding director of Russian innovation product design and development consultancy Lumiknows Ekaterina Khramkova was invited to talk on the issues of design research in NPD for a series of inspirational workshops organized by brand consultancy Mildberry. The presentation entitled "The Fuzzy Front End of Innovation" was dedicated to one of the most critical phases of new product development - that when customer needs are articulated and design brief based on the insight of design research is formulated. The main issue of the presentation was tacit knowledge and how design thinking can tackle its vague and fuzzy nature.

24 August, 2009
The Intel®+UC Berkeley Technology Entrepreneurship Challenge is where the best engineers and scientists present how they plan to make the world a better place through their innovations and entrepreneurial skills.
 
Russian stage of IBTEC-Russia 2009 took place in Moscow countryside and was organized together by the InternationalCenter for Innovation & Entrepreneurship of the Moscow State University named after Lomonosov and corporation Intel. This phase of the international contest was aimed at selecting the three winning teams to present Russia at Berkeley, California late 2009.

CEO of Russian innovation design consultancy Dr Ekaterina Khramkova was invited to talk on new product development issues and aspects of creating design brief. Ekaterina held a one-day workshop for participants of the competition with such topics as the Fuzzy Front End of Innovation, Co-creation economy, Experience economy, design thinking.
The workshop has become the third in a series of meetings of Lumiknows design research consultancy with the International Center for Innovation & Entrepreneurship and corporation Intel.

24 May, 2009
CEO of Russian design research consultancy Lumiknows Dr Ekaterina Khramkova spoke on “Thinking for a Living in the Participation Economy” for the first Russian TEDxMoscow conference held at the Higher School of Economics on May the 24th.

The first TED conference took part in the USA in 1984 and since then has become one of the most influential and inspiring global events gathering participants from diverse areas to talk on "the ideas worth spreading".

Presentation "Thinking for a Living in the Participation Economy" (Zen, Visual Thinking and the Participation Economy).

24 April, 2009.
A CEO of Russian design research and strategy consultancy Lumiknows Dr Ekaterina Khramkova talked on the role of design thinking in the Economy of Creativity and Innovation for the international conference "Entrepreneurship: From Education to Practice" organized by the International center for Innovation & Entrepreneurship of the Moscow State University together with the U.S. Russia Center for Entrepreneurship with support of Innovation Studio Intel, Tempus, Higher School of Economics. The foreign participants of the conference were Go Group (Scotland) and Politecnico Di Milano (Italy). Co-speaker of Ekaterina on the issues of creativity development has become Go Group’s Chief Executive Isabell Majewsky.

Today, it has become popular to talk about the role of creativity which is becoming more pronounced while we are deepening in the Innovation Economy. On the other hand, creativity thinking is often considered to be able to think “outside-the-box”. Though these two statements are no new, Ekaterina demonstrated that we need a deeper understanding behind these two commonplaces. Using examples from different fields including artistry and engineering, marketing and philosophy, Ekaterina showed that creativity is about shifting the focus from object, whatever it is, to the context behind it. This holistic way of thinking helps to connect to what is “outside” and find really new solutions to old problems – the ability so important to today’s businesses and entrepreneurs. It is this way of thinking that lies at the heart of the so called “design thinking” having become a part of the curriculum of such noble business schools as Stanford, The Rotman School of Management in Canada and many others. Thus, three aspects were featured during Ekaterina’s presentation: What is Creativity; Why is it that important for Innovation Entrepreneurs; Why this is equal to “Design Thinking”.

Presentation "Creativity, Design Thinking and How These Have To Do With Innovation & Entrepreneurship".

March 05, 2009.
A CEO of Russian design research and strategy consultancy Lumiknows Dr Ekaterina Khramkova is invited to speak at the 15th Russian largest design and advertising exhibition "Design & Advertising Industry in Russia" held at the Central House of Artist in Moscow from 15th to 18th of April, 2009.

The topic of the presentation is Design Research in Russia featuring as an example a project of Design Audit of Russian Lada Brand Experience having completed by Lumiknows together with French design and brand consultancy for Renault.

After buying in 2007 a 25% stake in Russia's largest car manufacturer Avtovaz - owner of Lada brand, Renault undertook a design audit of all Lada brand touch points to showcase Lada in a brand new light. Russian design consultancy Lumiknows has conducted the project in the both Russian capitals (Moscow and St.Petersburg) as well as regional cities and identified the main issues to be taken into consideration for developing a compelling Lada brand experience in Russia including culture and mentality. Among the touch points analyzed were advertising, Internet, in-store experience, sales collateral and other visual communication channels. 

After the presentation, Ekaterina took place in the round table discussion "The future of design and branding in Russia" along with art director of well known Russian branding consultancy DirectDesign Dmitry Peryshkov, editor-in-chief of influential brand & design magazine Identity Andrey Pourtov.

Go to the project Design Audit of Visual Communications for Russian Car Brand Lada.

Presentation "What Marketers Should Know About Design Research". 

November 10, 2008.
A CEO of Russian design research and strategy consultancy Lumiknows Dr Ekaterina Khramkova conducted two seminars for Master degree students of the program “Innovation Management” and participants of the project innovationStudio of the International Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship based at the Economic Department of the Moscow State University in Russia. 

The seminars were dedicated to the new role product design starts playing in a New Product Design and Development process, to the new for the Russian market design research methods.

October 27, 2008.
CEO of Russian design consultancy Lumiknows Dr Ekaterina Khramkova was selected a member of the competition organized by 100%Office magazine – part of the influential in Russia Interior+Design magazine.

The aim of the project is to make links between students of Russian leading design and architecture specialized institutions with manufacturer and distributors of office furniture more stronger and practical. Among the suppliers of equipment are Philips, Fagerhult, ES-System, ERCO, Gira.

October 06, 2008
Moscow International Furniture Industry Congress (MIFIC-2008) is organized by leading in Russia exhibition company RESTEC.

For the first time in Russia, the program of the Congress suggests rethinking of the furniture business and looking at environments, both working and living, as a whole where design, architecture, furniture and technology all work as a single structure.

The program of the Conference ‘Furniture: From Products to Environments’ is divided into two sessions: (1) ‘Furniture – Product Design’ and (2) ‘Furniture – Environment Design’. The keynote speaker for the first session is John Hughes, Director of Applied Research & Consulting at Steelcase with a topic dedicated to designing offices to release innovation potential within the organizations like the ‘Big Four’ consulting firms. Editor-in-chief of the Russia leading magazine on workspaces ‘100%Office’ Sergey Konnov will share the Russian best practices for such design issues like office layouts, adjacencies, and space allocations. Program leader for Industrial design at the Higher British School of Art and Design in Moscow Dr Umberto Jiraudo will talk about evolution of the global furniture industry. The keynote speaker for the second session is Jack Pringle, vice-president, in 2005-2007 President of the RIBA [Royal Institute of British Architects], CEO of the first in Russia design research consultancy Lumiknows Dr Ekaterina Khramkova will present findings of her research ‘Changing Office Environment: Challenges for the Russian Furniture Design’.

The event has gained support of the Russian Ministry of Economic Development, the Russian Ministry of Industry and Trade, The Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, The Association of furniture and woodworking enterprises of Russia. Media partners is leading in Russia magazines 100%Office [Design+Interior] and influential business weekly Expert. The round-table discussions will be chaired by the Russian Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Mr. Stanislav Naumov and deputy editor-in-chief of Expert magazine Dan Medovnikov.

MIFIC-2008 has become a continuation of the partnership with RESTEC for which in 2007 Russian design research and strategy consultancy Lumiknows prepared a program of the first Russian international conference on design research with participation of reddot award vice-president Elmar Schueller, director of Milan office of Design Continuum Bruce Fifield, director of London-based ProductFirst John Boult and others.

September 03, 2008.
Founding director of Russian strategic design research consultancy Lumiknows Dr Ekaterina Khramkova begins a monthly column dedicated to design research in New Product Design and Development for Russian leading product design Internet-portal Designet.ru.

August 29, 2008
Presentation of CEO of Russian design researh and strategy consultancy Lumiknows Dr Ekaterina Khramkova «Design Research in New Product Development: From Design Costs to Design Investments» opened master class organized by the Russian Ministry of Industry and Trade on product design issues for top management of the largest in Russia and the CIS makers of ground transportation.

Among the other speakers were Stanislav Naumov, Deputy Minister of the Russian Ministry of Industry and Trade, Michael Robinson, program leader for Transportation design at Istituto Europeo di Design - Turin. The master class is a part of the International Product Design Forum Design Act and took place at the Centre for Modern Art at Vinzavod in Moscow.

August 01, 2008
Lumiknows as an innovative Russian design consultancy has become a partner of the Centre for Entrepreneurial Creativity and Systemic Innovation (CECSI). Established and led by Vadim Kotelnikov, the Centre provides international business consultancy and training services since 1990. The clients include 3M, ABB, Adidas, Alcatel, American Express, Bayer, Boeing, British American Tobacco, BP, Canon, Cisco, Colgate, Corning, Deloitte, Ernst & Young, Fujitsu-Siemens, GE, GM, Goldman Sachs, HP, Hitachi, Hyundai, IBM, Intel, Johnson & Johnson, JP Morgan Chase, KPMG, Lufthansa, Microsoft, Motorola, Nokia, Oracle, Prudential, Samsung, Shell, Sony, Union Bank of Switzerland and many leading business schools.

Vadim Kotelnikov's books on new business models, innovation management, new product design and development, creativity and entrepreneurial culture have become bestsellers in more than 40 countries.

July 19, 2008
Founding director of Russian design research and strategy consultancy Dr Ekaterina Khramkova was requested to hold a series of masterclasses for Summer Design School organized by the British Higher School of Art and Design for working specialists from Russia and the CIS. The topic of Ekaterina’s meetings is Design Research for New Product Development in Russia on the sample of first design research projects aimed at the Russian market undertaken for Samsung Electronics and Danfoss.

May 30 – June 11, 2008
When Russian leading Publishing House 'Business Expert' was appointed to work on the project of designing Russian art-calendars for global Deutsche Bank, they approached CEO Lumiknows Dr Ekaterina Khramkova to participate in the process of generating emotional themes and ideas. This meeting has become a continuation of the series of workshops ‘From the Knowledge Economy to the Creativity Economy’ led by Ekaterina for 'Business Express' in October, 2007.

"The Velvet Revolution" - it is how the two workshops led by Ekaterina were entitled by art-director of the publishing house.

Go to the project.

April 17, 2008
The International specialized exhibition – "Energy. Industrial Electronics & Electrical Engineering" took place in Moscow, at the World Trade Centre. The participants of the exhibition were the leading producers and distribution companies which specialized in power industry, electro technology and industrial electronics from Russia and abroad. The program included conference on Product Design in the area of electrical engineering and was dedicated to Design Management issues.

Ekaterina Khramkova has become a keynote speaker of the conference. In her talk Ekaterina focused on the main aspects of conducting contextual research in the area of Electrical Engineering featuring case study of design research project fulfilled by Russian design consultancy Lumiknows together with Danish design agency Harrit & Sorensen for DEVI (part of Danfoss group) late 2007 - early 2008.

November 13, 2007

The speakers of the conference were:

Ekaterina Khramkova (Russia), Lumiknows, Founding director,

Elmar Schueller (Germany), reddot, vice-president,

Bruce Fifield (Italy), DesignContinuum, Founding director,

Paola Govoni (Italy), editor-in-chief "World Furtiture",

Prof John Boult (UK), ProductFirst, Founding director,

Richard Barrett (UK), University of Hertfordshire.

Go to the project.

October 15 – 29, 2007
Ekaterina Khramkova conducted five workshops for Financial Publishing House «Business Express» titled ‘From the Knowledge Economy to the Creativity Economy’ for top management, art-directors and client managers of the publishing house.

The topics of the workshops included such issues as:

1. The key problems of the knowledge economy;

2. The changing role desing plays today for businesses;

3. What is «Design Thinking» and how to apply its tools for boosting innovation;
4. Design research methods and tools; design research vs. marketing research;

5. Contemporary design education as a mirror of dramatic changes in the global economy.

August 18 – September 01, 2007
Seminars for one of the leading in Russia manufacturers of metallic furniture Ocsmet were ideated by Ekaterina Khramkova and conducted with involvement of British ProductFirst’s Directors – Prof John Boult and David Scothran.

The series of seminars has become the first phase of the project to design furniture for Ocsmet and was aimed at establishing understanding among all stakeholders of the project: designers, engineers, marketers, brand specialists and top management. All in all, four working days were dedicated to such issues as design research methods, design trends, foresight, new role design can play during the NPD processes. The second phase of the project – design research itself – started immediately after the training stage finished.

Go to the project.

June 29, 2007
Annual Design competition Henkel Art.Award.2007 is part of the programs dedicated to stimulating arts and creativity in modern Russia led by Henkel for many years. This year, Dr Ekaterina Khramkova has become a member of the committee to select the best product design works winning a prize of 7.000 euros.

March 03, 2007

The annual interior design exhibition Fidexpo took place in the most honored exhibition place of Moscow city Gostiny Dvor near the Kremlin. It had a special program dedicated to design called Red Dot Academy which included presentations of Karim Rashid, reddot Design Award president Peter Zec and reddot Design Award vice-president Elmar Schueller, discourse by Jae-Jin Shim, vice-president of LG Electronics.

On March the 3^rd, a round table discussion with the participation of Peter Zec, Elmar Schuelle and Russian winners of reddot award: design concept 2006 Pavel Balykin and Takemura Ori took place. The round table discussion was moderated by Ekaterina Khramkova representing reddot in Russia since 2005 and dedicated to the issues concerning the problems preventing Russian designers from developing and achieving the world level design standards.

March 01, 2007
The exhibition Ambiente Rossiya 2007 was arranged by Messe Frankfurt RUS together with Beautytime Ltd. and took place in Moscow Exhibition Centre “Krokus-Expo” from February 27 to March 2.

Ekaterina Khramkova delivered a presentation called ‘Dishware Design: Trends, Lifestyle, and New Values’ in which the pivotal point was how to design not for needs, but for wants in the era of abundance.

February 07, 2007

The first in Russia course on Design Research started at the base of British Higher School of Art and Design in Moscow. The School has partnership programs with the British University of Hertfordshire and provides its students with British bachelor diplomas in Arts & Design.

A unique course of lectures developed by Dr Ekaterina Khramkova is integrated into the program of additional professional education (specialty “Product design”). The objective of the course is to develop conceptual thinking and research skills for designers who already have working experience.

October 09, 2006
In 2005, Ekaterina Khramkova was awarded a Chevening scholarship from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office of the British government to enable her to undertake the Masters course in Design and Branding Strategy at Brunel University - one of the first programs in the world designed to bring benefits of design thinking to the needs of business and society. For the first time in Russia, this prestigious scholarship was given in the area of New Product Development. Study was successfully finished – from London Ekaterina brought Diploma of Master of Arts with distinction.

September 21, 2006
The first international conference on product design in sports industry took place in the Moscow exhibition centre Crocus-Expo in September. Keynote speakers was Director of Continuum's Milan office Bruce Fifield.

The conference was opened by the Ekaterina Khramkova's talk entitled “Global design today: From executing tactical tasks to solving strategic business issues”. In her presentation Ekaterina examined the main trends of the development of global design industry that goes through considerable changes when design has become one of the most important resources of competitiveness.

Bruce Fifield, Director of Continuum Italy, described a unique experience of creating a new product for the Reebok company where designers had to solve not only aesthetical issues but also apply their skills of deep understanding into customer unmet needs and expectations. “Successful design is based on the ability of the team creating the product to understand what are its features and qualities that will make it “work” and resonate in target customer’s heart and mind”, noted Mr. Fifield. “This is particularly relevant with sport goods because of the private and demanding environment where the product will be used and valued by a strict customer”.

Next speaker, Continuum’s Processes and Technologies Director Wolfgang Obermeier. Mr. Obermeier dedicated his presentation to efficient design management.

The conference was closed by a joined presentation of SmirnovDesign’s President Sergey Smirnov and Sport Technology Director Boris Dyshko in which they shared their experience of creating breathing training device.