So if you’re a designer who has been in business less than 10 years – or a design student – why not enter? Just think: Your idea might not only win, but with the $10,000 prize in seed money, you might actually watch it come to fruition.

The magazine started their Next Generation Design Competition in 2003 “to promote activism, social involvement and entrepreneurship in young designers.” (Note: It doesn’t matter how old you are, Metropolis only cares that you are new to the field. Their goal is to encourage fresh ideas from people who have not yet had the time or opportunity to make their mark.)

They say the diversity of past entries has been “stunning,” ranging from building design to waste disposals to energy solutions.

Last year’s winners created a unique way to harness wind energy. Check it out.

Herman Miller has been a sponsor of the contest for five years because it fits so well with our long-time sustainability philosophy, started back in the 1950s, when founder D.J. De Pree declared that the company would be “good stewards of the environment.”

One environmental “fix” Herman Miller came up with was to devote 50 percent of a facility’s property to green space. Over time, one fix led to several and now the company is on its way to becoming 100 percent sustainable by the year 2020.

See what one fix can do?

So if you’ve ever sat around the conference table with colleagues or the coffee table with friends and asked the question, “Why hasn’t anybody come up with a way to…,” maybe this is the inspiration you need to do it yourself. But don’t dally. Entries must be in by January 29, 2010. So think big – and fixate on solutions.

This from someone whose bedroom floor has not been seen since 2005.

It’s true that my desktop was wall-to-wall document files, PDFs, web links, JPGs, etc. I tend to work with digital information the way I do with paper-based stuff. I want it out there where I can see it. I’m afraid that if I put it in a file I will never find it again.

Lots of people share this fear of filing. Researchers observing the ways office workers interact with paper documents have found healthy populations of “pilers”–people whose main organizational method involves surrounding themselves with apparently haphazard but personally meaningful piles of information.

Net-Geners, however, have grown up in a world where information can be found and lost and found again in two clicks or less, using a name or a number or a meta-tag or a string of words typed into Google. My son can be fearless about filing away his music, photos, and homework assignments because he’s got tools like iTunes and Flickr and Spotlight to locate exactly what he wants, precisely when he wants it.

In his latest book, Everything is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder, author David Weinberger extols the benefits of this brave new world where people can organize content any way they want, and never have to learn the Dewey Decimal system. Freed from its physical constraints, information can float happily, the way my desktop files now do, in that cute little cloud.

You can also join over 2,000 people who are already following Herman Miller on Twitter. We’re tweeting company news updates and events, as well as responding to questions you have.

Interested in stories about design, products, or the Herman Miller community? Check out our videos on the Herman Miller YouTube channel. Or peruse the stories in this blog, where we welcome your comments in the conversation that interests you—on topics from design to our products to what makes the world a better place for all of us.

Our live media team, composed of individuals from Herman Miller and our subsidiaries Brandrud and Nemschoff, covered the event live on Twitter under stream #hcd09.

What did we learn? What were the major trends we observed and takeaways we will continue to think about? What texture did we take away from the intangible? We synthesized our experience and now we present five takeaway points back to you for consideration:

1.  You can apply lean process to any industry. Learn and apply best practices from other fields.
2.  Use evidence-based design to drive innovation.
3.  Patients, doctors, nurses, furniture, infrastructure, equipment, buildings, and nature are all part of the same ecosystem.
4.  Design healthcare products and environments that reference norms but create delight.
5.  Listen, ask, test, challenge, and participate in communities that are shaping the future of healthcare.

We’d love to hear your reactions. Do you agree? Understand? Let’s continue the conversation here and on Twitter. Follow @healthcarehm and stream #betterworld.

Watch this video to hear Yves talk about the design and innovation behind Twist.

According to Always Building, Herman Miller’s book about PE, “To achieve programmable environments, we think about a digital as well as physical dimension of space.” Integrating the digital dimension can make a building smarter, more efficient, and responsive to the people who use it.

With digital technology, you can easily manipulate the physical features of a space. And that changes the rules of the game because design is no longer about delivering a perfect finished product. It’s about marrying the digital and physical so that users can change in seconds what used to take weeks of planning and construction.

Instead of walls, there can be intelligent space division that is movable and adjusts acoustic performance as needed. Digital wallpaper morphs to suit your taste. Light sensors communicate with blinds and lights so they can automatically adjust according to users and conditions. A workspace adapts to the user’s preferences in music, air flow, temperature, and even chair adjustment.

So many possibilities. And the story is just beginning. Herman Miller knows it doesn’t have all the answers, so as they go forward with PE, they are consulting with the design profession, users, facility managers, and engineers. Together, they are transforming how buildings are designed, built, managed, and used.

Be part of the discussion. Let Herman Miller know your thoughts on PE. They love the input.

Known for his iconic textile patterns and colors, Alexander Girard brought a new dimension of modern design to Herman Miller in the fabrics he designed during the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. One well-known design is “Daisy Face,” a screen-print created for the Action Office system in 1972.

In this video, hear what Bob Guerin, of Propp + Guerin Design, says about the three-dimensional “Daisy Face” sculpture outside Herman Miller’s Los Angeles showroom. It’s another way we’ve harmonized the details of design with the natural world.

Our third annual Better World Report talks about how we’re trying to live up to our Better World values—advocating for the environment, embracing inclusiveness, fostering well-being, and serving our communities. Read it for a look at our progress so far.

And the zero? It graces the cover of the report because getting to a zero operational footprint by 2020 is such a big deal for us. We’re proud to say that we’re 83.5% of the way there. For the full story, check out our video “Zero is hero.”

What if someone invented a simple, affordable device you quickly attach to your car to save you gas? Genius, right?

Well then, check this out. It’s Herman Miller’s new Energy Manager—a simple, affordable device you quickly attach to your Herman Miller systems furniture (new or retrofit) to save you electrical energy, 24/7.

Energy Manager is an easy solution to a major problem: A lot of energy and money is being wasted in facilities today. Chances are if you look around your facility, you’ll see too many workstations unoccupied for hours at a time with task lights, printers, computers, and chargers turned on, needlessly consuming energy, day and night.

That’s why Herman Miller developed Energy Manager. Part of the company’s Programmable Environments initiative, it makes your systems furniture smarter and it gives you more control over your environment.

Here’s how. Energy Manager controls two of the four circuits of power in a cluster of workstations. When a person sits down to work, an occupancy sensor detects their presence and turns on the devices in the cluster plugged into those two circuits. After the person leaves, the devices automatically turn off.

The results can be dramatic—and valuable to you and the environment. For example, take battery chargers that are always left on. Small potatoes, right? But 5% of energy is wasted on battery chargers not in use.

Energy Manager can also be connected to a Convia programmable gateway so it can measure and monitor occupancy data from every workstation—which workstations are occupied, when, and for how long during a day. Energy Manager uses this data to generate detailed occupancy reports that help you optimize floor plans to reduce real estate costs.   

Genius, right? The folks at Herman Miller’s LA showroom think so, too.

With its dramatic bowstring wood trusses, curved walls, and freestanding forms, Herman Miller’s Los Angeles showroom epitomizes Herman Miller’s design legacy—right down to the details.

Check out how this video captures the extensive level of detail and craft—in both the architecture and the products—that create a dynamic spatial flow and enhance the natural beauty of the materials in the space. Then come see for yourself. We’re pretty sure you’ll be delighted.