Alexander Manu

Education

In 1978 Manu graduated from the Institute of Fine Arts of Bucharest, Romania.

Career

His original research in motivation theories led to the application of play behaviour in innovation strategies, competitive analysis, trend mapping and new business models for companies including Motorola, LEGO, and Whirlpool. With ties to the Ontario College of Art & Design, Manu"s work developed new methodologies in strategic foresight, focusing on the intersection of behavior, technology and organization. Manu generated the concept of ToolToy, a methodology for the development of physical models that integrate the characteristics of play value into products, services and system features.

He was also an early advocate of experience design, which he described as "the true esthetic of design" in a series of articles written for the magazine "Studio" published in 1994-1995 and compiled in book form in "The Big Idea of Design" published in 1998.

He founded the Humane Village (1993) and editor of The Humane Village Journal, a periodical on design as an instrument for social change. He chaired the "Socially Responsible Design Task Force" of the Ontario Design Strategy in 2004 and was Company-Chair of the Organizing Committee of "ICSID 97’ Toronto", serving as director and Chair of the Program Committee.

He is on the Advisory Board of the Japan Institute of Design Promotion (Tokyo) and Design for the World - Barcelona, an international non-governmental organization that works to provide and promote humanitarian design. Foreign his contribution to the development of the visual arts, he was elected an Academician of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts (Radio Corporation of America).

He teaches "Innovation, Foresight, and Business Design" at the Rotman School of Management of the University of Toronto, and is a Professor at the OCAD University.

He is a management consultant, lecturer and author and since 2007 a senior partner and "Chief Imaginator" at InnoSpa International Partners, a consulting firm.

Achievements

• Manu was the founder of Axis Group International, a design, development and applied research consultancy established in 1980 in Toronto where he was responsible for the development of strategic intellectual property and pre-competitive business concepts in the areas of conceptual design, intellectual property, user interaction design, ideal experience mapping and industrial design. Until late 2007, Manu was the founder and Executive Director of Research at the Beal Institute for Strategic Creativity, a non-profit research institute based in Toronto.

Membership

He was president of the Association of Chartered Industrial Designers of Ontario, board member of the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design (ICSID), and member of government-level advisory boards in Canada and Asia, consulting on design strategy for the Department of Canadian Heritage, the China External Trade Development Council and the of Korea Institute of Design Promotion.