How do you create mind-blowing digital experiences when you don't have a "typical" customer? Meetup co-founder and CEO Scott Heiferman alongside VP of Strategy and Community Andres Glusman will offer a peek inside their first-class usability lab to demonstrate how they create great products for its diverse user base, which ranges from knitting clubs in Oklahoma to startup events in New York City.

About Meetup
Meetup is the world's largest network of local groups. Meetup makes it easy for anyone to organize a local group or find one of the thousands already meeting up face-to-face. More than 9,000 groups get together in local communities each day, each one with the goal of improving themselves or their communities.

About Scott Heiferman
Scott is Meetup's co-founder and CEO and focuses the team on the dream of a Meetup Everywhere about Most Everything (MEME). He co-founded the NY Tech Meetup and is organizer or member of lots of other meetups.

About Andres Glusman
Andres develops insight-informed strategies that help set Meetup's direction.

User experience (UX) design - designing products and experiences through the lens of the end user - is a hot topic today that can often feel elusive to non-designers. Join us for a studio session at General Assembly where three top UX practitioners - Luke Miller, Experience Designer at Yahoo!; Paul Canetti, founder and CEO of MAZ; and Jacob Cohen, formerly of frog Design - introduce the foundational principles of good UX design and guide attendees through exercises that apply those principles to real-world examples.

About General Assembly
At General Assembly, we offer a new model for learning skills, one that features emerging content taught by top practitioners with real-world experience. Our global network of campuses not only brings people together - it takes advantage of a new kind of learning-by-doing.

Get an inside look at how Quirky launches three new products every week and take a tour of thier headquarters and workshop, complete with a massive 3D printer. CEO and Founder Ben Kauffman will lead a live "evaluation session" with Quirky experts to give audience members a behind-the-scenes look at how the company selects products for manufacturing using a crowdsourced decision-making process. Learn how the company decides what goes, what stays, and how it creates hot products for mass-retail.

About Quirky
Quirky is a social product development company that releases three new products every week from independent inventors, as approved by the worldwide Quirky community.

About Ben Kauffman
Ben is the 26-year-old founder and CEO of Quirky. Ben publicly launched Quirky in June of 2009. In 2007, Inc Magazine named Ben the top entrepreneur in the country under the age of 30.

The creative world increasingly rewards those who can ship and ship quickly. But how do we produce our best work in a fast-paced creative environment? By taking feedback from others and iterating rapidly. In this studio session, you'll solve a quick design challenge in collaborative IDEO-like teams and learn how to make the most of meaningful feedback in your work. IDEO staff will be on hand to walk you through the challenge and share insights on how to produce great work quickly.

About IDEO
IDEO is a global innovation and design consulting firm that uses a human-centered, design-based approach to help organizations in the business, government, education, healthcare, and social sectors innovate and grow. The New York studio is located in the heart of Soho and is home to more than 40 talented IDEOers across a wide range of creative disciplines as well as one very well-worn foosball table.

Join Red Antler partners J.B. Osborne, Emily Heyward, and Simon Endres in positioning a (fake) new business for launch. Work through a naming process, followed by building a strategic brand vision, and establishing core insights and mission. Finally, the session will explore visual brand identity development by creating "mood boards" that bring the brand vision to life.

About Red Antler
Red Antler is a branding and design consultancy specializing in startups and new ventures. Working with clients such as One Kings Lane, Tasting Table, and StumbleUpon, Red Antler partners with new businesses on strategic positioning, naming, brand identity design, user experience, and web design. Red Antler has served as a long-term strategic partner of Behance, consulting on product development and positioning.

About Grind
Grind is a unique members-only workspace and community dedicated to taking all of the frustrations of working the old way and pulverizing them to a dust so fine it actually oils the wheels of the machine.

This session will show you how to brainstorm new ideas, products, campaigns, and services using the technology-first approach utilized at R/GA. This novel approach to brainstorming challenges you to think about ideas and execution simultaneously, and shows you ways to break out of a concepting rut to make your ideas real. Led by Will Turnage, R/GA's VP of Technology & Invention, you'll see real-world examples of mobile apps and social media games built with this technique, and learn how you can incorporate this methodology in your own brainstorming process.

About R/GA
Founded in 1977 by President and CEO, Bob Greenberg, R/GA is a full-service agency that transforms the way people interact with brands. Our commitment to design, technology, strategy, and innovation has defined R/GA's continuing legacy as an iconoclast in the world of communications and marketing.

About Will Turnage
Will Turnage, VP of Technology & Invention, is responsible for global technical product innovation and digital experimentation at R/GA. With an emphasis on making and building, he works with global clients and R/GA's deep roster of in-house talent to build great products.

Clients demand greatness, regardless of medium. In order to stay on top of our game we often have to produce creative work in varying disciplines and formats. In this studio session, Method principal David Lipkin and his staff will illustrate how to capitalize on your team's diverse skillsets to produce work that impresses clients and keeps the inquiries rolling in.

About Method
Method is a brand experience company that helps business leaders harness the competitive power of design. Its clients include Cisco, Samsung, Sony, TED, and Visa.

About David Lipkin
With nearly 20 years of experience working in creative services, David knows how design can be leveraged as a strategic advantage for his customers. He currently leads business development efforts from Method's New York office.

Strategy is nothing without action. As companies continue to push themselves to stand out, they're looking for new ways to communicate who they are and what they stand for. Join SYPartners Executive Creative Director Susana Rodriguez de Tembleque for an interactive session focused on making strategy real through iconic customer experiences. The group will split off into small teams for a quickfire challenge and prototype a new customer experience that fully embodies a company's strategy and purpose.

About SYPartners
We help companies design their future by engaging companies at times of significant change-a new leadership team, a competitive threat, a merger, a desire to set a new growth agenda, the launch of an innovation, an opportunity to vitalize the brand. Past projects include work with Coca-Cola, Gap, GE, Nike and the complete rebranding of Starbucks.

About Susana Rodriguez de Tembleque
Susana's responsibility is to catalyze creativity and original thinking in all our work. She is passionate that design can be the paradigm shift in business. She is an active voice in the design industry and is currently a member of the AlGA's Visionary Design Council. She is a frequent recipient of awards and has been recognized by STEP Magazine as one of the "Ten Women to Watch." Susana brings years of experience as creative director at Wired Magazine and VSA Partners.