This is my first time ever attending a conference of this sort and it's blowing my mind. The fact that there are 4,000 other people that do what I do in one place is mind blowing.

Yesterday I went to a session about research for design. The topic seemed somewhat boring, but at the same time necessary, but I was pleasantly surprised by what was said.

Jenn and Ken Visocky O'Grady lead the session and had a great theory of how to handle the designer client relationship. The theory comes from a technique of introducing two cats to each other; "If it smells like me, it must be me." A lot of times it seems that clients don't know what exactly we do as designers and therefore they might miss the value of what we do. One thing that clients seem to understand and actively participate in is research. Therefore the more research we do to more understand our client and their customers, we can come to stand on common ground, and smell like the client.

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