Herman Miller has always kept people at the center when it comes to their designs. This is no truer in the commercial side of their designs as it is in their healthcare designs. Recently, Herman Miller Healthcare has made a strong partnership with Planetree Visionary Design Network to better serve patient’s needs.
Herman Miller’s healthcare focus and goals are centered on creating healing environments that customize the needs of patients. This ensures the people using their designs best interests will always be at the center. Planetree’s focus is to personalize, humanize, and demystify healthcare, beginning and ending with the patient in mind. With those core values at the heart, Herman Miller is proud to have found someone with the same vision to partner with to focus on their healing environments. This partnership aims to draw on their collective research and design to encourage creating patient-centered healing spaces.
Coming June 25th, Intereum and Herman Miller Healthcare will host a CEU focused on the story of Planetree, the healing environment, and patient-centered care. This presentation will focus on what’s become top-of-mind for many healthcare organizations, the patient experience, and it will also address the measurable outcomes with Planetree’s successes and its relation to the creation of environments. The CEU kicks off at 4:00 at Intereum. Contact Jen Zeller if you’re interested in attending!
Getting to Know Intereum: Rollie Marcovitch
May 10, 2013
This Intereum employee blog puts our longtime designer, Rollie, in the spotlight. Rollie has worked with Intereum since 1994 as a designer and project manager specializing in higher education.
Rollie and her husband Ben
Outside of work Rollie has many passions and hobbies that keep her busy and active. Her most obvious love is for her “little man,” Bode, a two and a half year old boxer. She fell in love with the breed over 11 years ago and has owned one ever since. Her first boxer was named Tai and with Tai, Rollie discovered the sport of dog agility! She and Bode stay busy with agility and obedience training where they are able to foster their teamwork skills and then take principles learned there and apply them outside the classroom. What Rollie particularly loves about agility training with Bode is that it builds such an amazing canine-human relationship and it teaches Bode to watch Rollie and be more connected to her as well.
Rollie and Bode
Rollie also volunteers at the Ronald McDonald house serving 8-9 meals a year through their “Cooks for Kids” program. During any one of the meals there can be upwards of 90 people to provide meals and community to. Rollie has done this for so many years; she has her recipes and serving down like clockwork! All people being served are families that have children with life threatening illnesses. The Ronald McDonald house provides food and shelter for these families while their children are in treatment.
Kisses from Bode
Rollie is also a self-proclaimed “Frustrated Photographer.” As a kid, she and her sister had a darkroom in their basement where they had equipment used to develop photos. They were savvy enough kids that they bought the equipment from a teacher at their school (Sidebar: It wasn’t until Rollie was an adult that she realized this teacher didn’t actually own that equipment and therefore it wasn’t his to sell!). Turns out that they had had hot developing equipment all those years!
Picture of Bode taken by Rollie
Rollie also loves to travel! Her favorite and most memorable vacations have been centered around beautiful mountain views in Banff, Jasper, Lake Louise, Yosemite, Yellow Stone, and Alaska. She just loves being outside – going for long walks and hikes in the woods and taking in the majestic views of the mountains and breathing in the fresh air!
Rollie’s love for animals, people, the arts, and the outdoors makes her an extremely compassionate and driven person. Those are the values that transcend into her everyday work life here at Intereum. We are lucky to have her on our team and even more lucky to call her friend.
Herman Miller: Covered In Good Design
May 3, 2013
Last Wednesday Herman Miller Inc. made an exciting announcement that they acquired the designer textile company, Maharam Fabric Corp. Since 1902, Maharam has created interior textiles for commercial, healthcare, and residential interiors when founded by Russian immigrant Louis Maharam. Four generations later, brothers Michael and Stephen Maharam are the company’s CEO and COO and optimistically speak of the new relationship with Herman Miller.
Michael Maharam stated,”Much as we’ve struggled with this decision, our philosophical kinship with Herman Miller helped make this difficult step a far easier one. Beyond our shared objectives in design leadership, we consider Herman Miller to be an esteemed organization intent on doing well by its staff, clientele and the community. We believe they have the complementary intellect and resources to ensure Maharam a bright future while valuing our spirit and ways, and permitting the continued evolution of our unique approach. Herman Miller’s potential to provide the wherewithal to pursue important new initiatives, as well as an established reach into both retail and international markets and the greatest possible strength of association, offers a powerful lever in achieving our design-centered strategic vision.”
Circles Fabric by Charles and Ray Eames
Herman Miller’s CEO, Brian Walker, is also excited about the acquisition and stated, “The combination of Herman Miller and Maharam is a natural and complementary union anchored in our shared values and built on years of business cooperation and personal friendship. Our respective and combined operational strengths and resources provide immediate, mutual strategic leverage.”
Dot Fabric by Charles and Ray Eames
The synergy between the furniture company and textile company is a natural one that will enable the two to thrive as one. We’re thrilled for them both with this exciting opportunity. Here is to many years of creativity and success!
The POWEROFFICE Event
April 30, 2013
Herman Miller’s Small and Medium Business (SMB) team from Minneapolis collaborated with Intereum, Entrepreneurs’ Organization of Minnesota, and StepStoneGroup to rock the house with an informative and fun evening branded ‘The POWEROFFICE Event’.
What does the future hold in store for us regarding our web presence and web design, and how do we get there? That’s exactly what we all sat tight to hear.
Opening up the evening for us was RJ Stelter (@RJStelter) and Anna Olson (@AnnaOlson20) with Herman Miller SMB. They provided our audience with an overview to Herman Miller, Thrive, and the benefits of the Small and Medium Business program.
Moving along into the core of the evening, StepStoneGroup took the floor, which was composed of Kevin (President), Paul (Sr. Web Developer), Alex (Graphic Designer), and Stephen (SEO Guru), by providing us with a tech overview that was informative and easy to absorb without feeling lost on this dense topic.
We all know how websites look and function for the most part but it’s not often we go back in time to pull up what Yahoo’s site from 1995 was like now do we. Taking the walk down the path of where web has been to where it is now (and going) was very intriguing. Web 1.0 was your basic, table layout page that had little to next and ran on a dial-up modem (insert old dial-up modem sound here).
Remember this?
Web 2.0 took a migration to more dynamic content and interactivity with the use of more flash and social capabilities. Biggest trends that have come from this phase of Web 2.0 are still commonly used today: Top navigation, rotating banner images, and website footers which serve as the toolbox for the bottom site. Overall, content is the frame and the design is frameless.
Shifting to today and turning the page for a glimpse into where the future trends lie, web design is being categorized as needing to have “responsive design.” Broken down, this means that there needs to be UX elements (one environment for all technology platforms: mobile, desktop, etc). Becoming more popular is the one page, one element look with full screen graphics for a clean layout. It’s best to keep in mind that your web presence should be compatible on mobile technology. Why? Because research indicates that by 2014, 15% of commerce will be done on mobile devices. And think of all of the searching and information we pull from these gadgets!
Digital real estate is paramount this day in age and over the last three years there has been a dramatic shift in web design. Always a good rule of thumb is to remember that content is king, your copy and text is still very important as the makeup of your digital real estate.
A big thanks to our attendees, sponsors, speakers and helpers! If you attended this event, we’d love to hear what you took away from the evening, simply message us @Intereum.
Getting to Know Intereum: Sue Weisberg
April 19, 2013
We had the spotlight on Sue Weisberg last year as she was preparing for a cycling tour beginning in Amsterdam. Today, we caught up with Sue to see where she’s been visiting over the course of the last year. Read all about it here!
Friday Fun Day!
April 5, 2013
Well done, we all made it another week! Let’s take some time from our regular routine and kick back while enjoying some fun and lighthearted throwback commercials from Herman Miller.
izzy+ Nemo Trellis and Nemo Bar
March 29, 2013
Back when the snow was falling (yes, a mere two weeks ago), we had a visit from izzy+ for a spring update. Knowing that the workplace involves a lot of collaboration and huddle spaces, we were introduced to a great collaborative product line perfect for large and small groups: The Nemo Bar and Nemo Trellis designed by Joey Ruiter and Chuck Saylor.
Nemo Bar and Trellis, photo courtesy of izzyplus.com
The Nemo Bar creates a great place for people to collaborate and connect around. Being at standing height helps support the idea of people constantly being on the move and moving from one thing to the next. The Nemo Bar has power options to bring technologies into your meetings and a plethora of flavor materials that can be applied for any aesthetic. Pull up a stool or just yourself; the Nemo Bar is a great addition to the working environment.
Nemo Bar, photo courtesy of izzyplus.com
As a complimentary or standalone piece, the Nemo Trellis provides a beautiful architectural element that defines space as an inviting, gathering hub. It has a balance of enclosure for a certain amount of privacy as well as openness that welcomes people in.
Nemo Trellis, photo courtesy of izzyplus.com
Both the Nemo Bar and Trellis won Gold at NeoCon in 2012 for their amazing ability to house and support people coming together and creating. For more information about the design inspiration, check out this quick video. One look from the fresh designs and materials from izzy+ and you’ll be thinking spring, too!
AT INTEREUM.COM
ON FACEBOOK
ON TWITTER
