Matt Grigsby is the Co-Founder of Ecolect and the Chapter Chair of IDSA Rhode Island.

This February marks the formation of the Industrial Designers Society of America's newest chapter, IDSA Rhode Island. A little known fact is that aside from Michigan, we have the largest proportion of Industrial Designers than any other state. The launch of our local chapter represents the prominence of creative design thinking in Rhode Island while highlighting the best and brightest designers in the world, growing and working right here in our community. Through the support of remarkable organizations such as RISD, Brown, Hasbro and Item Group, we've gotten the chapter off to a great start, with a strong interest from the Industrial Design community and several related sectors.

A large facet of our outreach strategy is to collaborate with creative and technical organizations that will promote education amongst IDSA members through fresh perspectives and diverse skill sets. In many ways, being an Industrial Designer requires you to be "a jack of all trades". We work between the art of creating forms that serve to be ergonomic and intrinsic while delivering cost-effective solutions, partnering with engineers, developers, and lawyers (to name a few), ultimately delivering products that are useful, feasible and sustainable on many different levels. We are a discipline that is hands-down, focused on people and the society that we live in. We love to problem solve and learn all aspects surrounding a product. We are obsessed with the users interacting with a design and what happens before during and after the product has been conceived, developed and implemented.

As an industry, we see tremendous value in learning from and working with local and national organizations outside of design. Even designers who create for a living must have solid and changing source of inspiration. What does this mean for the info-tech and digital media sector in Rhode Island? We see the formation of our chapter and outreach through members as an opportunity to connect and learn more about the people, projects and companies who make our state the national hub for innovation. We aim to bridge the gap between the professional and academic sectors in the state, helping to reverse brain-drain locally while showcasing the value of Industrial Design as a profession on an international level.

When bridging technology and creative thinking to create any type of product, Industrial Design has a history of being known as an integrated component any successful endeavor. Take Apple for example. There is no doubt that Industrial Design, User Interface Design and Technology live in harmony with each other and drive the company. Their products are purely about having the best experience by adding value to the lives of the users who buy them. They promote the best product interactions by leveraging a diverse range of technologies, always with purpose and always with a focused effort towards achieving something better, more useable and on top of all... something valuable to the user on a deep and continuous level. To learn more about Industrial Design and technology working together, visit core77.com.

IDSA Rhode Island is having our first event on the 20th at Tazza so no matter what industry you're involved with, join us in celebrating the launch of the chapter and meet the Industrial Designers who define our community in the state. Socialize with old friends, meet new ones, and enjoy drinks and hors d’oeuvres. The event starts at 5:30pm.

Please RSVP to party@ecolect.net

For more information about IDSA Rhode Island, visit http://www.idsa-ri.org. See our newly launched blog at http://www.idsa-ri.org/blog. To become a member, support the organization or simply share ideas for collaboration, email us! I can be reached at matt@ecolect.net.

Dear supporters of Ecolect,

It is with great delight that we would like to announce that www.ecolect.net - the online community for discovering and sourcing sustainable materials, has been chosen as a 2008 South by Southwest Web Awards Finalist in the category of "Educational Resource". In its 11th year, the SXSW competition received hundreds and hundreds of submissions. Among those, 5 finalists were chosen in each category. Now it is up to the public to vote on the best one for the Peoples Choice Award. We would like to invite you to help us win by casting your vote on the SXSW Interactive site:

https://secure.sxsw.com/people...

You can vote as often as every day through March 3.

Help us spread the word about Ecolect, grow our online community, inspire hope in designers across the globe, and connect people with free information about sustainable materials and the manufacturers. Our hardworking team is dedicated to creating this hub for sustainable design and future industry progress. We appreciate your support and look forward to changing the future together!

Matt Grigsby
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Co-founder
www.ecolect.net

Matt Grigsby is the Co-Founder of Ecolect and the Chapter Chair of IDSA Rhode Island.

My business partner Joe Gebbia and I met while students at RISD's Industrial Design program. Our shared love and desire for sustainable design and development led us to start Ecolect (derived from the words ecology and intellect) in 2005. From day one we've been a company dedicated to making it easy and exciting for the design community to create sustainably.

The core of our business is ecolect.net, a comprehensive website programmed using Ruby on Rails. Through resources, discussions and inspiration, Ecolect makes it feasible for individuals and companies to find green materials and decipher what is sustainable in a growing world of greenwashing. Our diverse database catalogs materials for industries such as architecture, product design, graphic design, fashion, and many more. The Ecolect news blog captures breaking headlines from the global sustainable industry. Through our forums, users engage in moderated discussions and our ‘Material Deans’ offer insight into green design by responding to user generated questions.

For almost two years, we've been running the firm from both coasts, Joe in San Francisco and myself in Providence. This year, Ecolect has grown into more than just a helpful web site, we're expanding our services and offering sustainable design consulting. It has been our goal for a while to take advantage of the diverse experiences and skill-sets of our team and as most all service based economies in the US have slowed down, Industrial Design remains strong. 2008 has proven to be a great time for moving the company in this direction.

We now have contributors and consultants across the United States, with a very diverse set of skills and experience. With our design expertise and materials knowledge, we are helping companies to craft new products (and recraft existing ones) in exciting ways that have positive impacts on our environment. Our services have branched out to include creative development, competitive auditing, sustainable product design, eco–friendly packaging, and procurement of sustainable materials and manufacturing. If additional needs arise, we are now recommending trusted vendors in our business network who specialize in areas such as strategic marketing, publicity, web development, and even logistics.

Joe and I have had the privilege presenting at numerous industry events over the last few months including: IDSA Boston's Green Design Conference, RISD's Art of Business Lecture Series and Pecha Kucha in San Francisco.

I'd like to thank everyone who has supported Ecolect and contributed along the way. The responses and results we've gotten since we first shared the idea have been tremendous. It's an exciting time for everyone in the creative industry and we're looking forward to all the positive changes that are destined to come.