00:02 - Stacey (Host)
Lisa Roberts.
00:03 - Mark (Host)
Lisa Roberts yeah.
00:05 - Stacey (Host)
What an incredible woman designer, business woman, philanthropist.
00:10 - Mark (Host)
Yeah, keep going, you're 100% on. I mean, she's got a heck of a mind, a hell of a background and a success story in a world that not many of us probably even think of. But be it product design or two-dimensional design, which she really made her mark in two-dimensional design I know you're saying like I don't know anything about that world it's actually a hell of a lot more fascinating than I thought it was.
00:33 - Stacey (Host)
Well, yeah, just think about it you go into a restaurant.
00:35 - Mark (Host)
Yeah.
00:36 - Stacey (Host)
Why do you feel good in said restaurant? Right, it's because of the way it looks and the way it feels and the way it smells and the way it was designed. So design is all around you. Even if you don't realize it, it's everywhere, it's everywhere. So she talks about well-designed products that we use. We don't even know why we use them, Like why do you use the iPhone?
00:55 - Mark (Host)
Yeah.
00:55 - Stacey (Host)
Why do you use a Dyson vacuum and?
00:57 - Mark (Host)
all the research that goes behind creating that design. That just seems logical. But, boy, there's so much time, effort and money spent on that and you know what? You've seen her designs. You may have them in your kitchen, your kids may have had them on their school bag and all across their school. So this is like a little like a treasure hunt when we go through this, and she has her own collection that we give you the website to, so you can go and look at these future antiquities right, antiques of the future and you can see the details where they're really fascinating products that are no longer for me.
01:28 - Stacey (Host)
Beautiful contemporary design. So cool, so we're going to love this one guys.
01:32 - Mark (Host)
Yeah.
01:33 - Stacey (Host)
Enjoy it. Lisa Roberts. Hi, I'm Stacy.
01:38 - Mark (Host)
And I am Mark, and this is the Guru's at Game Changers podcast. Hey everybody, welcome to Guru's at Game Changers. For more than three decades, our guest today, lisa Roberts, has been a connoisseur of high design.
01:53
What is high design? Well, you can define it as best as I can, at the most basic level of designing products thoughtfully, purposely and with form and function in mind. Now, you don't think about this as you go throughout your day, but you are absolutely experiencing it and you are affected by it. So maybe you have physical design of a product that makes you do your daily activity better, but have you ever thought about how the shape or the beauty of something, from a high rise to that bold, to a napkin, can elicit a certain emotional response from you? Well, you probably aren't thinking that, but Lisa lives thinking that because she understands the game changing nature of good design and she has worked with countless companies, major brands, designing anything and everything, from dinnerware to watches, to clocks, to greeting cards, to gift wrap, to all of these things that we see every day.
02:47
And on top of that, she has curated her own collection of items I think it's like 450 items that she's calling the antiques of the future, which I can't wait to talk about that as well that she uses to educate others on the impact and the beauty of good design. So today we're getting deep into a discipline that is rooted in inspiration. We're going to look at it through the eyes of somebody who has helped define that Lisa. Welcome to the show.
03:14 - Lisa Roberts (Guest)
Wow. Thank you, Mark.
03:16 - Mark (Host)
You are welcome. We're very happy to have you here, well, that was a good one.
03:18 - Lisa Roberts (Guest)
I hope I can live up to that, lisa, no you already have Thanks for being here.
03:23 - Stacey (Host)
You already have Looking forward to the conversation. Yeah. So I want to ask, first off, what are some of the objects that, just by their design, change the way we think about the things we use every day?
03:35 - Lisa Roberts (Guest)
Well, I would say, when first you want to define the design.
03:41 - Mark (Host)
Yes.
03:43 - Lisa Roberts (Guest)
And what is design, what is art, what is craft? I think, stepping back and looking at these three different categories, when you think about art, of which is a component of design, but they're different. But when you think just about art, art is aesthetic, it's something you put on the walls, it's sculpture, it's painting. It does not have a function, some people may argue, the function of feeling good when you see the art.
04:12
However, it does not perform a function. When you think about craft, you think about things made with the hand, made for the hand, and it may have a function. It may not. It has an element of artistry to it, but it is always hand involved. Then there is design, and in its most basic definition, design is an object, is a piece of furniture, is an environment that performs a function.
04:47
It may not always do it so well, but it always has a function Aesthetically. The aesthetics can range from beautiful to well, not so great. So maybe that's not good design because it's ugly, but it is a component of design. It is how it looks, but most importantly how it functions. But here's the other thing, particularly with product, it's mass produced, it's made in multiples. It's not one of a kind. Art is one of a kind, design is multiples. So that's the basic difference between those three disciplines.
05:28 - Mark (Host)
Maybe similar to your question Tell me a good design for a product off top of your head that everybody would recognize A Dyson vacuum cleaner. Okay, from a function standpoint, it's certainly a good design.
05:40 - Lisa Roberts (Guest)
But also from an aesthetic standpoint. So when James Dyson created the vacuum cleaner the Dyson vacuum cleaner back in the 90s, he was looking at every aspect of the traditional vacuum cleaner. He was also an engineer, so he was starting with the technology he created in the Dyson vacuum cleaner, the first bagless vacuum cleaner. Today, most vacuum cleaners are bagless but the Dyson was the first.
06:10
He created this motor, that was, he caused a dual cyclone and it would be a dual cyclone action that would be so fast. It sucks up the air. It separates the particles, the dirt particles. They spin around very fast. So that's what does, the separation, and then they're in a see-through canister and the see-through canister allows you to see the dirt come in and when is it filled? There's also kind of the visual fun of seeing it suck up the dirt.
06:41
But the see-through canister has a simple button that you press and the dirt comes out and that's how you empty it. So he looked at every aspect of the functionality and the engineering of the vacuum cleaner, but there is something he did that no one ever did before. First generation was bright yellow, a yellow vacuum cleaner Up to that point every vacuum cleaner is silver, it's gray, it's maybe black, but you never saw a bright color in a vacuum cleaner.
07:16
So one of the reasons he did that, obviously to set it apart from all of the others, but he figured that women do most of the vacuuming. How could he get his vacuum cleaner to appeal to men? So he did it by number one, a color that men are familiar with in power tools. It is the most ubiquitous color If you go into the hardware store and you're looking at power tools that bright yellow is with all of the tools. So he picked a color that men could resonate with them.
07:50 - Mark (Host)
That's a fascinating behind the scenes.
07:51 - Lisa Roberts (Guest)
Yeah, and then the attachments. Every vacuum cleaner has attachments. He made the attachments very well designed, attached to the unit so they wouldn't fall off. But he had a clicking motion that when you put it in it's kind of like an erector set. When you're putting that vacuum cleaner together you're clicking each of the attachments into place. So there's a sound component. There's a tactile component. And again, this was all to kind of make this appealing to a male population with the hope they'd do more of the vacuum.
08:26
Wow, Did it work it did I have had. So many times I've asked my men, friends that live alone. I say so like do you have a vacuum cleaner? Yeah, I have it. What kind do you have? Dyson, it is absolutely at work. But here's another really interesting fact which really blew me away. First generation of those Dyson vacuum cleaners were sold in mass markets like Target and Walmart and the starting price was $400.
08:56 - Mark (Host)
Wow Cheap.
08:57 - Lisa Roberts (Guest)
They're expensive.
08:58 - Mark (Host)
Super expensive.
09:00 - Lisa Roberts (Guest)
And they blew off the shelves Right. So the demand for an expensive vacuum cleaner, because the design was not only so visually good that vacuum cleaner sucks In a good way.
09:14 - Stacey (Host)
In a great way.
09:16 - Mark (Host)
Yeah, it's a great product. That's amazing.
09:18 - Lisa Roberts (Guest)
So that is an example of great design. So another good design is a company called Oxo OXO.
09:27 - Mark (Host)
Sure.
09:28 - Lisa Roberts (Guest)
And they created a line of kitchen utensils primarily or originally intended for people who had disabilities, whether it was arthritis or some kind of challenge with small motor control. The back story is the company was founded by a man named Sam Farber. Sam Farber had had two cookware companies, one called Farberware and the other called Copco. I love it. He was in that cookware business. He retired. He and his wife moved to Paris for a few months and his wife loved to cook and one day he saw her making an apple tart and she was peeling apples with a peeler and she had mild arthritis and as she was using that apple peeler she was struggling with getting the skin off of the apple because she could not tighten her hands enough around the apple peeler to control it. So he's witnessing this thinking can't there be a better design for somebody who has a minor disability using the most basic everyday household object? So his light bulb goes off. He calls his favorite design firm in New York called Smart Design, and together they come up with this line of kitchen utensils called Oxo Good Grips. The way they created their first product, which was a carrot peeler, was they went out and bought every single carrot peeler that already existed in the market. Then they got a test group of people young, old, left-handed, right-handed, people with disabilities, people without disabilities and then they had them use all of these wide range of carrot peelers that already existed and they watched how they used them, how they worked with them, how they struggled with them. So they then took every aspect of the carrot peeler and said we're going to change it. So the first thing they changed was the size of the grip.
11:45
For people who have poor, small motor control, the tighter you hold your fist, the harder it is. So if you can relax your hand a little bit and still hold on to the handle, you've got control. So they made an oversized handle. They made the handle oval instead of round Oval, because when you're washing it and you get soap on it, much easier to hold on to an oval shape than a round shape. Then they used a neoprene handle, which is a rubber handle. So it's soft to the. It's a firm rubber but it's softer on the hand. One of the most important parts of the Good Grips is that when you're trying to controland these are all micro movements. When they had their test market with all of the people, they're looking at micro movements.
12:40 - Stacey (Host)
Again, this is what is good design the thought process that goes in behind it.
12:46 - Lisa Roberts (Guest)
They saw that people use their forefinger and their thumb to control the direction of the carrot peeler. But if you have arthritis it hurts to hold your fingers tightly. So they put these little ridges on either side of the oval where your thumb and forefinger goes, so that when you press it it has some resilience, you can still direct it, but it doesn't create the pain in your fingers. And then they used an extra sharp blade. So every little step, every little aspect of the most basic peeler was rethought, redesigned, and they came up with this concept of universal design how to create something for the largest amount of population, with or without disability, left or right-handed, older, young, and even price point. They wanted to bring the price down to be affordable so that it could be for the largest number of people.
13:50 - Mark (Host)
Yeah, that's wild.
13:52 - Stacey (Host)
That is good design. Does good design make something more attractive?
13:57 - Lisa Roberts (Guest)
So I wouldn't necessarily say that, because sometimes it can be so simple. You don't see what makes a good design. It's not always so apparent why something is good. However, once you start to understand the difference between good design and things that are not well designed, it could be the material.
14:17
It may be a material that you think looks great, but once you pick it up in your hand you see it's cheap plastic. So once you start to build your design IQ which is a term I always like to refer to the more you know about it, the more you start to look for it, the more you can distinguish. You will say you know, that doesn't feel really good, this is not going to last, this is not going to hold up. Or if you talk about interior design, let's take an environment. We were talking about going into a restaurant. Sometimes you walk into a restaurant. You feel good in that place. You don't know why you feel good, but you feel good.
15:00 - Mark (Host)
So you've designed countless products, work with countless manufacturers. Is there one type of product or is there one favorite specific product that you designed for?
15:10 - Lisa Roberts (Guest)
So I'm going to tell you about my most successful design. So I did this in 1991. So that's how many years ago. And it was just retired two years ago, so it was out for a long time.
15:22 - Mark (Host)
Yeah, good run.
15:23 - Lisa Roberts (Guest)
So the way I work is I create artwork that is applied to product. Sometimes I create the whole product myself, but I'm really a two-dimensional designer. I create patterns and imagery. I think about where it's going to go, how it's going to be applied. So I'm really what is called a surface designer. So I created this artwork and as I tell you about it, some of your listeners may say oh, I think I've seen that it's a globe I created and I work. Let me just preface I work in cut paper. So I don't paint, I don't draw, I don't use the computer. All of my design work originates in cut paper. I'm wicked with a pair of scissors, scotch tape and an X-Acto knife. I can do almost anything with those tools, love it. So I created this globe, the earth, with little kids holding hands going around the globe. Totally have seen that. We all know that.
16:30 - Mark (Host)
Oh, my God, that was you. That was you, that was me.
16:34 - Lisa Roberts (Guest)
So I can license it to non-competing firms. And I licensed it six times to six different companies, six different product categories, so the distribution was really wide. It was made into a poster and they added the words our greatest natural resource is our children. It was made into posters. The posters were made in English, french and Spanish. It was applied to t-shirts, totes, sweatshirts, notepads, magnets, I mean. This went on and on and they were all sold in teacher stores. Teachers would hang up these posters, they'd have t-shirts, they'd have little gifts for their kids. So then I also got requests. The company would contact me and said we had a request for that artwork to be painted on the side of a school and I would then donate the artwork and allow that school to use it. Then I had there were conferences that wanted to use the artwork as the cover, children's conferences for teachers that wanted to use the artwork for the cover of their notebook that they would give out to the teachers. So I donated that artwork four or five times to different organizations.
18:01
I got tremendous exposure. Then I continued to license it to a paper tableware company that made it into paper plates and napkins and cups and all kinds of party goods. I did it for somebody, a company called Museum Store Associates, and they did little boxes, mouse pads, magnets, on and on. So all of this paraphernalia.
18:30 - Stacey (Host)
Wow, how cool is that to see your design places and be like oh, yeah, that must have been neat the first time you walked in a store.
18:36 - Lisa Roberts (Guest)
I started out as an architect Right when I graduated. We were in the middle of a recession. It was really difficult to find work, so there was a trend that was happening of established firms and newbies like me that were moving into other fields of design, which is why I was looking to do something besides architecture. I heard about this field of home furnishings and giftware and tabletop design and moved into that industry.
19:08 - Mark (Host)
Hey guys, thanks for listening. If you like what you're hearing, please leave us a review, give us a follow, like, subscribe. All those things, all those things, all those things. We love it because we read each and every comment and it helped shape the show, so we would appreciate it, please.
19:22 - Stacey (Host)
And back to the show. I love the story that I heard that when you decided to transition from architecture to design, you pounded the aisles of trade shows and showed your portfolio, so you had a drive there. Where do you think that drive and passion for design? I can see you light up when you talk about it. Yeah.
19:40 - Mark (Host)
Where did?
19:40 - Lisa Roberts (Guest)
it come from I didn't know what to do after being an architect and, as luck would have it, I met a young man who was a textile designer working in these industries of domestics and home furnishings. And I saw what he was doing and I said, boy, that looks like fun, but I don't know how to draw, I don't know how to paint. How do I communicate my ideas? And at the time he was a skilled artist. He was working in cut paper. It was just a phase for him. It was not a phase for me, but for him. It was just a phase. But I saw, oh my gosh, scissors, papers. I see a material that I didn't know I could use to communicate my ideas. So that was the first very important step was I'm learning about a new industry and I see a new technique.
20:37 - Stacey (Host)
I can't tell you how many miles over the years I have spent walking those shows what is in the mind of someone who's a collector, and how would you advise someone who wants to be a collector to be one? There's something about when you collect something and you're like, oh, there's something. I'll tell you exactly what it is that makes collecting a product what it is that makes collecting appealing.
20:58 - Lisa Roberts (Guest)
It's not the actual object itself, it's the hunt. That that's what people love, is the challenge of finding it. And the bigger the collection, the more specific select you want to grow that collection. You're not buying everything. You then become more particular. There's a logistical reason you don't have a lot of space, but you do become more selective and then you get to hunt for it. If it's too easy to get, then there's no challenge. So collecting also includes the hunt, and the hunt, ultimately, is the fun part. Where do you find it? How do you find it?
21:38
But the other thing about collecting certainly for me and my most major collection, which I call antiques of the future is that you have to have boundaries, you have to have limits, you have to have what is the direction for the collection. It can't go everywhere, it can't be everything, so what are your parameters? So here's how I define my collection Antiques of the future is what I call it, and I can tell you what it is. But first I'll tell you why I call it antiques of the future. They are objects that are being made today, in my lifetime, that represent the best of design as defined by curators, by the press, by art exhibits, by museums and by other designers as the notable designs of this generation that, once they are no longer in production, will go up in value because they represent the best of design in their time.
22:50
And I personally don't define what is the best of design. I have my opinion, but I do my due diligence. I talk to other designers, I talk to people who are in the press and I read the articles. Who's winning design awards? What is the community consider important? What are museums showing? What are curators talking about? And I have my selection of curators that I talk to. I have the exhibits that I like to go to and I discover things. I go to stores, I go shopping and I look and see and I talk to the store managers. You know what's selling, why do you think it's selling? I do my research and then I make a decision as to what I'm gonna bring in. When you start a collection, you buy what you like.
23:42
You know it always starts from the heart. As your collection grows, then you start to become responsible to your collection. So it can't just be what you like, but sometimes something needs to be in your collection that you may not necessarily love, but it becomes important to tell a story. So and that's another component of a collector is the storytelling that goes behind it. So I started my collection when I made my career change from being an architect to going into the world of product design and I was seeing all these great new products coming out designed by the renowned architects and designers.
24:25
I think one of my very first objects that I brought in was the Whistling Bird T-Kettle by Michael Graves. Michael Graves was a renowned architect who was going through a slump during this recessionary time and a brilliant manufacturer out of Italy called Alessi spotted him and said "'We think you understand the American taste. "'you've designed hotels for Disney. "'you're very popular? "'we think you understand what Americans like. "'design us the quintessential American product'".
25:04
And what he came out with was this Whistling Bird T-Kettle classic little T-Kettle with a blue handle and a red bird whistle where the spout is. So when the water is hot, the bird whistles. First time ever there was a T-Kettle that actually had color we never had T-Cuttles like that and it has this lovely blue handle that has ridges, so it's ergonomically comfortable in the hand. But that bird whistle had a sense of humor. You never saw humor in product design before like that. That was a serious product, not a gimmick, right? Well, that product came out in 1985. We're now in 2024. How many years later? It is still the top selling design for the manufacturer. It came out originally at $175 back in 1985, which was unheard of to pay that kind of money for a T-Kettle. But it has consistently been a top seller. It has made over $300,000 worth of T-Kettles.
26:20
And you say why Michael Grays was never able to repeat the success of that. But something happened to him that was wonderful. Target saw that and said Michael, we are reinventing ourselves. We're a big box store, we're bottom of the rung Walmart, jcpenney, everybody's above us. How can we distinguish ourselves? How can we reinvent ourselves? And Target decided to do it through design. So they had a program called Good Design for All and it started in housewares and they hired Michael Graves to create the housewares line for the Good Design for All program. And suddenly Target jumped to the top of the list of the big box stores and they took that Good Design program and applied it to their clothing and had partnerships with top designers. But Michael Graves, over the life of his time with Target, thousands and thousands of products, everything even down to ironing boards and irons.
27:31 - Stacey (Host)
Toasters.
27:32 - Lisa Roberts (Guest)
They were winning awards the Good Design Award the Toaster for Target. Whoever would have expected that for $35, you could buy an award-winning design at Target.
27:43 - Mark (Host)
Is that in your collection? Absolutely. What are five other items in your collection?
27:48 - Lisa Roberts (Guest)
iPhone, so I do have some electronics.
27:52 - Mark (Host)
So I do have the iPhone. Iphone's a good one.
27:54 - Lisa Roberts (Guest)
And I do have Google Glass, which was a failure.
27:57 - Mark (Host)
No, but it's probably very valuable, very valuable. Go ahead, keep going.
28:00 - Lisa Roberts (Guest)
I happen to like failures because I think failures show us the way to successes, and if it's first-generation failure, I love that that it gets reinvented. I have a lot of chairs in my collection and I have a chair called the Balloon Chair. It's a Dutch designer, marcel Wanderz, and he works with two materials. He works with carbon fiber and epoxy resin. Carbon fiber is a very, very strong, very lightweight fiber and they use carbon fibers in automobiles and they use them in airplanes. It's extremely strong but so lightweight. So epoxy resin is like a liquid plastic and he would weave the shape of a chair with this very lightweight carbon fiber and then he would pour epoxy resin over it and solidify it.
29:06
So he took these balloons, these long balloons, and he made four legs. And then he took the carbon fiber and ran it back and forth and somehow constructed this chair with the balloons and the carbon fiber poured epoxy resin over the entire chair. It weighs a pound and a half.
29:32 - Mark (Host)
That's amazing.
29:32 - Stacey (Host)
And you can sit in it. So do you think your collection will ever be available to the public eye in some way?
29:38 - Lisa Roberts (Guest)
It's absolutely completely available to the public eye in two ways OK. The first way is I have a virtual museum.
29:46 - Mark (Host)
Nice, so you can go on my website, oh I didn't realize that.
29:48 - Lisa Roberts (Guest)
Yes, and you can see every single thing that's in my collection.
29:51 - Mark (Host)
What's the?
29:51 - Lisa Roberts (Guest)
website. It's called mydesignlifecom.
29:56 - Mark (Host)
OK, I'm totally going on there. What's the second one we can come to your house Is my books.
30:02 - Lisa Roberts (Guest)
Oh, OK, so I've written four books that's right, four books. And most of the things that are in the books are in my collections.
30:08 - Mark (Host)
Wonderful.
30:09 - Lisa Roberts (Guest)
So my book, my first book, was called Antiques of the Future and it was a way of introducing my collection in a very lighthearted way. My design books are intended for people who may not be as familiar with design. I use a lot of photography that's original and humorous and it's not text heavy, it's image heavy and in my first two books I have a little statistics box that tells you who designed it, who manufactured it. But the most important piece of information, people want to know how much did I pay for?
30:45 - Mark (Host)
it yeah.
30:45 - Stacey (Host)
So, I include that. Oh nice, the original price for it.
30:49 - Lisa Roberts (Guest)
In my first book, antiques of the Future. The last chapter is the future is now. So it features products that are no longer in production and have gone up in value, or that have been continuously in production, but because production costs have gone up or demand has gone up, the price has gone up.
31:09 - Mark (Host)
In an industry that very few people think about. If we go through our day coach that 20-year-old woman who's starting her career, just the best piece of it like finish the sentence, the best piece of advice I could give her right now or him right now is.
31:26 - Lisa Roberts (Guest)
I do have one piece of advice that I tell my kids, I tell other people, and it's also something, a philosophy I live by, that I tell my peers, and I have one friend who said it was the best advice she has ever been given.
31:42 - Mark (Host)
Love it.
31:43 - Lisa Roberts (Guest)
When the going gets tough, the tough get creative.
31:47 - Mark (Host)
Solve the problem creatively.
31:49 - Lisa Roberts (Guest)
You use that creativity and you say, OK, I'm not going to go the direct way, I'm going to find a workaround. Those workarounds sometimes become the best skill set you can ever get. How can?
32:03 - Stacey (Host)
we inspire more people to give to the arts.
32:07 - Lisa Roberts (Guest)
Well, I think I'd like to tell you a story, a little bit of a narrative that's been with me throughout a lot of my philanthropic giving. When I was in architecture school, there was no diversity. When I got out into the profession, there was no diversity and I felt that I don't know why, but I instinctually felt something great and important was missing. There wasn't a diversity of voices, ideas, imagery. One of the things I just remember this one of my early designs was an African kinte cloth design that I was interpreting into paper tableware and became a whole collection of things. And I'm thinking why am I doing this? Why am I the one interpreting African textile design For the American market? So that started to build on my sense of there are voices that are not being heard. So I started my career and I am in the middle of my career and I hear about a new school that is being created called the Charter High School for Architecture and Design, and it is specifically targeting inner city kids who may have some ability in the arts have no outlet for that, and this is a school intended to introduce them to the design professions through their regular curriculum. So it's a public school. It uses architecture and design, to teach reading, writing and arithmetic, in addition to studio design classes. And it's predominantly kids of color 97% kids of color and I'm thinking, oh my god, this is the breeding ground, this is the pathway.
34:17
So I got involved with the school almost from inception and I was with the school for the 20 years that they were in existence and I was one of their largest donors. I was involved with the classrooms. I brought speakers there. I you know kids were going to design schools. They had a great college counselor. I worked with him. Together we helped pave the way for some of these kids to go to college. So I was very, very committed to this school. And unfortunately, our school district decided that a school like this should be open to all kids, not just kids who are interested in design. And when that happened they diluted the population and kids were going to the school for the wrong reason. They thought an art school would be an easier school, so they were not interested in the curriculum. A lot of them went there and didn't even know it was a design-themed school. It brought the test scores down.
35:22 - Mark (Host)
Sure.
35:25 - Lisa Roberts (Guest)
And the school district ultimately closed the school and it broke my heart. It absolutely broke my heart.
35:32 - Mark (Host)
You put so much of yourself into it for so long.
35:35 - Lisa Roberts (Guest)
It was doing exactly what I wanted. It was filtering this population into the design professions in a way nothing else had before. Well, from the ashes of that school, something rose. The school had been created by the American Institute of Architects in Philadelphia. They had created that school in 1999. And that center for architecture and design, of which the American Institute of Architects is part of, decided to create a design education program for the Philadelphia Public School District.
36:17 - Mark (Host)
Nice.
36:18 - Lisa Roberts (Guest)
And so I got involved very early on. We hired an incredible architect, an African-American architect, who is a great educator, particularly for K. Through 12 schools he created a program. The program now is an official partner with the Philadelphia Public School District so they can bring that program to any public school.
36:44 - Stacey (Host)
It's wonderful.
36:45 - Lisa Roberts (Guest)
Last night I went to an event at the Center for Architecture and Design. There were 400 people there, the largest event they've ever had. All people of all ages related to design, from the head of the Philadelphia Museum of Art was there down to students who were doing internships for design firms. It was singly the most diverse audience I have ever seen there you go, you did it.
37:16
This has realized my dream of integrating my industry in a way that all voices are being heard. I came away feeling like OK, I can breathe again. There you go.
37:29 - Mark (Host)
You did it and you announced it here.
37:31 - Lisa Roberts (Guest)
I don't like it, you announced it here and I announced it here.
37:34 - Mark (Host)
We're taking credit for you announcing it. What a great way to end, though.
37:36 - Lisa Roberts (Guest)
What a great feeling to end on.
37:38 - Mark (Host)
So thank you so much for coming on the show. And thank you everybody for listening and we'd love to hear your thoughts on this in the comments. Be well, we'll talk to you soon. We love you, we love you, we love you.
37:49 - Stacey (Host)
We love you. You're still here. You're still listening. Thanks for listening to the Gurus and Game Changers podcast While you're here. If you enjoyed it, please take a minute to rate this episode and leave us a quick review. We want to know what you thought of the show and what you took from it and how it might have helped you. We read and appreciate every comment. Thanks, See you next week.