The IDEC Communications Committee is pleased to officially launch IDEConnect, the new public blog platform for interior design educators and the industry!

IDEC is now on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn.  So make sure you don’t miss out on the conversation…subscribe, follow, like, and connect with IDEC’s social network today!

Please comment responsibly - click here for IDEC's social media policy.

2010 IDEC President Denise A. Guerin, FIDEC, announces the election of new officers who will assume their duties on May 1, 2011.

Lisa Tucker will serve IDEC as President-Elect. Tucker is associate professor and director of the graduate program in Interior Design at Virginia Tech.

Serving as Secretary/Treasurer is Migette Kaup. Kaup is an associate professor in Interior Design at Kansas State University.

Re-elected to the Board as a Director is Brian Powell, professor at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.

Serving as the East Regional Chair will be Annick Mitchell, professor at Ryerson University. Suining Ding, an associate professor at Indiana University Purdue University Fort Wayne, will serve as the Midwest Regional Chair. The Southwest Region will be chaired by Ron Reed, assistant professor at Texas State University.

Chair: Stephanie Clemons, Ph.D., FIDEC, FASID

The IDEC membership renewal is now online and you will notice a change. A hard copy of the JID will now be sent to all member at no cost as a member benefit. Although this does not support our green initiative, members have indicated that hard copies are needed for their research. If you would prefer to receive only an electronic version, please indicate that preference on your IDEC membership renewal form. Thank you for this feedback.

JID’s Writer’s Workshop this past spring was a big hit. Over 20 writers attended at the IDEC Conference and received practical tips from past and current editors on the way to frame a manuscript for submission to any journal. This workshop is the first in series of three that will be developed into webinars for access by all authors. The workshops can be taken out of sequence. Please plan now to attend our next workshop in March 2011 at the Annual Conference in Denver, Colorado!

60 day trial of JID. JID Board is pleased to announce that in collaboration with our publisher, Wiley/Blackwell, interior design practitioners now have a 60 day trial of JID. We began publicizing this at NEOCON and will continue to do so through a variety of strategies.

JID will be moving to a 4^th issue and a calendar year cycle in January 2012. This is exciting news and demonstrates the continued growth and evolution of the journal.

JID has a new Special Issue coming out in 2011 related to sustainability. Please submit manuscripts for this publication.

A special thank you is offered to our many reviewers! They work under tight timelines to complete a review and offer their expertise to improving the quality of articles published in JID. Thank you!

JID Symposium Call Now Online - The JID seeks to encourage new knowledge by sponsoring symposiums to be held in conjunction with the 2012 IDEC Annual Conference. IDEC Networks, Working Groups, Task Forces and other organized groups are encouraged to submit. Click for details.

IDEC Annual Conference

March 16-19, 2011, Denver, CO

The IDEC Annual Conference will focus on Educators as Intentional Leaders within the conference theme of Design with Intelligence. Three related conference events will build on the International Federation of Interior Architects/Designers’ (IFI) Think Tanks, which are the foundation of their international initiative: Design Frontiers: Interiors Entity. IFI is hosting nearly 50 Think Tanks around the world to have participants address the interior design profession’s:

• Identity

• Relevance

• Value

• Responsibility

The outcome of the Think Tanks is a series of White Papers from each region in the world. These White Papers will be the basis of a global IFI Summit to be held early in 2011, where recommendations will be made for moving the discipline forward.

At the 2011 IDEC Annual Conference, a three-part series of events provide IDEC members with an opportunity to tackle these recommendations and become intentional leaders.

• Part 1. Shashi Caan, IFI President, will present the IFI Summit Recommendations at the Kick-Off event, Wednesday evening, March 16.

• Part 2. Valerie Fletcher, Executive Director of the Institute for Human Centered Design, will present leadership intelligence at the Keynote event to bridge participants between the Recommendations and Development of Strategies, Thursday, March 17.

• Part 3. All Conference Participants will develop leadership strategies to implement the IFI Recommendations as intentional leaders in our institutions and design communities, at the Fellows Action Forum, Friday, March 18.

This is IDEC’s opportunity to lead the effort to “reposition the Interiors discipline on the world stage” (Shashi Caan, IFI President).

Annual Conference Fees announced

The registration fees for the 2011 Annual Conference March 16 - 19, 2011 in Denver, Colorado have been approved by the IDEC Board of Directors and posted for your budgeting purposes. The official registration brochure will not be available until the beginning of December. The IDEC leadership delayed setting the fees for as long as possible to be certain that they balanced the economic climate with the actual expense of the conference. Early bird registration will be open through February 2, 2011. Click here for more conference details.

Conference Hotel Reservations

It's not too early to make your room reservations at the Grand Hyatt Denver - call the hotel at 800.233.1234 or book your room online. The conference group rate is $159.

Change to Conference Awards Presentation

Special note: This year's awards celebration is planned for Friday evening, March 18 as opposed to the historic Saturday Banquet. All non-scholarship awards will be presented at this evening banquet. All paper, panel, poster and creative scholarship awards will be given at the Saturday Scholarship Awards Lunch.

IDEC joins NCIDQ, CIDA, and AAHID in sponsoring the 2010 Interior Design Video Competition in conjunction with media sponsor Interiors & Sources. This year's theme answers the question: How is the public's health, safety and welfare protection enhanced by the skills of fully prepared healthcare interior design practitioners?

Winning videos receive cash prizes, recognition in an issue of Interiors and Sources and are published on the sponsor's websites.

Competition deadline is February 1, 2011 and details are online at www.idec.org/videocompetition.

The Interior Design Educator's Council Social Responsibility Network is proud to sponsor The Make a Difference Project inspired by Bryan Bell, founder of Design Corps, a non-profit group dedicated to world betterment through design. The idea is simple, but potentially profound.

1. Have your interior design students find a real-life problem in the community (encourage them to get off campus) that could be made better through a design of some kind.
2. Have them create and install a small, meaningful design solution, either temporary or permanent.
3. The students then observe what happens when people encounter and use their environmental idea.

Details are online.

Students should email their projects by Thursday, January 20 to interiordesign@appstate.edu. Ideas will be posted on the IDEC website.