He runs Malmaison, a Glasgow-based hotel group, which aims to bring designer hotels to Britain's regional cities.
Bloggers have sidled into shows alongside fashion editors, the TV show "Project Runway" has made design seem doable, and Fashion's Night Out has brought designers into stores to meet shoppers.
It's another coup for Gap, which has a successful history of bringing designers like Pierre Hardy and Roland Mouret on board to give their adult clothing some cutting edge.
General Motors hired him in 1963 in a program aimed at enriching the pool of ideas by bringing designers without automotive backgrounds into the studio.
The organization sets up art cooperatives in various countries and brings designers into these countries (some third world, some not) to help other artists market their work.
But the mid-90's brought entrepreneurs like Sanjiv Suri (V Zatisi, Circle Line, Bellevue and Mlynec), who introduced a pan-European eclecticism into the kitchen, updated classic dishes, brought designers into the dining room and gave waiters lessons in hospitality.
The importance of bringing designers and users together at interaction time springs from the intellectual nature of software artifacts.
