Lee: 'The Hiddink of
Korea's Design Sector'

Stresses missions to upgrade Korea through design promotion

The KIDP president is determined to play a Hiddink-like role in Korea's design industry to raise Korea's design power to a globally-competitive level and to turn KIDP into the world's best design service institute. The following are the excerpts of an interview with Lee Il-kyoo, President & CEO of the Korea Institute of Design Promotion (KIDP).

Question: Seventeen months have passed since you took the post as president of the Korea Institute of Design Promotion (KIDP). What is your impression so far?
Answer: KIDP holds a special place in my heart; it feels much like my hometown.
I have a long established career in the design field. In 1992, when I was an official in the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy (MOCIE), I worked as a commercial attache´ in New York, the center of design and world fashion. During my four years in New York, I became well acquainted with a number of professors at leading design colleges such as the Parsons School of Design (Mr. Charles Olton was then president), and the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. Through these contacts, I was able to introduce a considerable amount of up-to-date design information, which I then applied to domestic Korean concerns.
At about the same time, the Korean government began to visualize design as an essential component of national industrial policy. A department was created to focus solely on design policy. I was appointed as the department's first director thanks to my contacts and experience with advanced design in New York. I personally selected a site for the construction of the Korea Design Center, where KIDP is now situated.
Being the CEO of KIDP has special significance for me, as I was the quintessential driving force behind establishing the Design Promotion Act which highlighted salient conditions for design industry development, such as providing adequate assistance to small and medium-sized companies and nurturing specialized design companies.
In particular, I successfully attracted the Icograda Millennium Congress Oullim 2000 Seoul and the ICSID 2001 Seoul Congress, and 22nd General Assembly to Korea after traversing the world with Korean designers, thus, laying incipient groundwork for spreading the word about Korean design, worldwide.
My objective, when assuming the post of KIDP president, was to turn KIDP into the world's foremost design service organization. In order to attain the goal of leading Korea towards becoming a world-class design nation with a major influence in global design, my KIDP colleagues and I have concerted and synchronized our efforts accordingly while striving valiantly over the past 15 months. As a result, KIDP recorded the fastest growth rate of any Korean government-run organization. We are currently manifesting relentless reform efforts in order to transform KIDP into a design service center worthy of worldwide emulation.

Q. What have been your priorities since your inauguration and what plans do you have for the future?
A: The single biggest reason I am trying to transform KIDP into a top design service organization is so that design can become a benchmark for transforming Korea into a 'world class nation', second to none. Vision and dynamic state-of-the-art design activity will inevitably result in our becoming a much more imaginative and globally competitive nation. Designers are the very heroes and heroines of our epoch, enabling countries such as the United Kingdom to transform itself, in a relatively short time, from an aging industrial laggard into the dynamic and creative global powerhouse that it is today.
I believe KIDP's role is crucial in helping transform Korea into a creative nation. A role of this nature can only be achieved once there has been a profound KIDP renaissance; so that our design expertise and vision may better complement our customers'changing needs and expectations.
Upon accepting the post of KIDP President, I increased the rate of reform by focusing on business, organizational realignment and renovation. KIDP's varied customer base includes enterprises,
designers, universities, government entities and the general public. I transformed KIDP to meet the diverse needs of our customers.
From the onset, we solicited a range of opinions and rearranged business in a consumer-oriented manner. During the initial stage of reform, I faced incredible difficulties due to a legacy of insufficient employee involvement and participation within a pervasively cynical atmosphere. However, we have now managed to turn things around significantly to where we are receiving increasingly affirmative customer responses. This has dramatically improved our morale and work environment.
Until quite recently, I have been primarily preoccupied with domestic Korean issues. From now on, I am going to turn my attention to overseas projects because the importance of design management and public design has intensified throughout the world. These two areas are becoming increasingly important to design, therefore, one of my primary objectives is to assess what can be done to enable the Republic of Korea to compete effectively while contributing significantly to the global realm of public design and design management.

Q. KIDP has been unflagging in its effort to contribute towards enhancing business competitiveness and national image while engendering enhanced brand value through effective design promotion. What was the purpose of founding KIDP and what is its main role?
A: Established in 1970 as the Korea Design Packaging Center, it metamorphosed into KIDP in 1997 with a mandate and objective to develop and promote design in an effective and systematic manner. Basically, KIDP is a semi-autonomous government entity which came into being as a result of the Design Promotion Act.
The main function of KIDP is to develop and implement middle and long-term design policies so as to facilitate high value-added product development in small and medium-size companies. We are committed to research and to creating appropriate design development infrastructure well-suited to processing, synthesizing and storing design-related information and knowledge. In addition, we have also been apportioning resources for international exchange and cooperation as well as for hosting a series of exhibitions for the purpose of increasing Korean brand value awareness. We have also been utilizing a reformative internal education policy in an effort to maximize global human resources.

Q. So far, you have initiated a drive for policy development and business reform so as to provide high quality design information and services. What is the tangible result of these efforts?
A: First of all, I established a design policy research and development team last November in order to strengthen policy development, which had been cited as a KIDP weakness. An essential role of KIDP is to collect, analyze and distribute salient information on design, both at home and abroad. We also conduct a variety of surveys and collect opinions from design-related entities, both domestic and foreign.
Our KIDP team is currently involved in a major project to compile basic data pertinent to design and relevant industries. In the process, KIDP hosted "the Korea Design Forum"last April with about 20,000 international designers participating, online and in person, in the discussion of major design-related issues. Opinions which emerged from 50 subcommittees will go a long way towards formulating strategies for future Korean design industry development.

Q. KIDP has set up five strategies for the pursuit of "the world" best design service organization'Can you elaborate on this?
A: Upon becoming the institute's president, I mapped out a five-point action plan to develop KIDP into a top-notch design service institution. The plan encompasses the following:
First, in order to energize the institute through reformation, we devised a system of commensurate employee compensation which serves to both enhance performance and raise the level of general design expertise through on-going reformative education and self-development.
Second, we are seeking to considerably bolster our customer service through consumer-oriented business. To that end, we have been focusing upon our customers by realigning all business apparatuses so as to improve service expertise in order to garner optimum customer satisfaction.
Third, we have also been pursuing innovative projects as a global leader. This requires the transformation and realignment of key business objectives via emphasis on customer service. To achieve this, we developed Design Information Service Korea (DISKO), provided design CEO courses and initiated the innovative GD (good design) quality control and evaluation system.
Our fourth project is to transform the Korea Design Center into a global design hub. We have even been recording dramas in an effort to induce a sort of "allyu"(Korean wave) of design and we have also established a prestigious new designers club.
Finally, we are seeking ways to raise the integrity and prestige of KIDP through credible ethical management and community involvement.
As I previously mentioned, I have been concentrating on reforming the KIDP organization and associated businesses over the past year in order to implement these and other planning strategies. Over the past three months, we have been analyzing the business KIDP has so far conducted and are classifying it into three categories. Several aspects have either been dispensed with entirely or else delegated to other organizations, while still others have either been re-introduced or expanded.
We have enlarged some key business sectors into a more customer-oriented direction:
First, after encouraging vigorous internal debate among KIDP employees, we finally managed to map out a preliminary draft for an overall planning strategy after consulting with 70 specialists from various sectors. We then consulted with about 20 representatives from design-related organizations before finalizing the reformative process by holding public hearings, which were attended by approximately 200 figures representing numerous design entities. In this manner, we continually strive to raise the bar on customer service by implementing requisite structural reforms.
Q. The Korea Design Center has been a big hit in the Bundang area, because it is an intelligent building sited on a 50,000 square meter lot. What are the functions and characteristics of the new building?
A: The Korea Design Center was established in Bundang in September, 2001. It has very quickly become a design hub for Korea, if not for the world, as it is the world's largest design center and it is equipped with state-of-the-art design infrastructure and staffed by highly skilled personnel. Our eight-story building has four floors of underground facilities on a 50,000 square meter site. It can be perceived as a benchmark for effective Korean and global design. With its intriguing architectural design, it has even been used as a backdrop for a number of movies, commercials and television dramas.
The Design Experience Center, for instance, is built on a 1,200 square meter site with four theme pavilions and 14 activity centers. It is a very popular place for kindergarten, primary, middle and high school students. Our facilities provide students of practically any age with opportunities to learn about, to explore and to experience design in interesting, informative, innovative and entertaining ways.
There is a 1,700 square meter exhibition room on the first subterranean level where visitors can view a wide array of design displays. The convention hall on the sixth floor can accommodate 600 people within its 1,000 square meters and is equipped with high-tech facilities suitable for hosting international conferences and seminars. In addition, the designers club at the top of the building has been the meeting place of choice for CEOs and renown design professionals, whether they be practitioners, scholars, specialists or visiting visionaries from all over the world.

Q. Design Korea 2007 will be held soon. Could you explain it?
A: Design Korea 2007 will be the world's largest design event endorsed by both the International Council of Society of Industrial Design (ICSID) and the International Council of Graphic Design Associations (Icograda). You may be interested to know that we first hosted an ICSID congress at the Korean Design Center back in 2001. Our up-coming event will attract leading design dignitaries, promotion organizations and companies as it will offer an important forum in which to discuss global design trends and state-of-the-art designer goods and services. This event is mooted to have emerged over the past several years as one of the most important international design, business and exhibition venues of its kind in the world. This year's event will be held at the COEX over the course of eight days, commencing on Nov. 29.
Design Korea 2007 will be a premier event focusing on and catering to the design industry. With a view to enticing more participants, the exhibition space has been expanded from 7,300 square meters to 9,700 square meters.
Secondly, participants will be given frequent opportunities to meet and to establish business contacts. 1,468 buyers representing 25 countries, will make this affair a premier global business opportunity in every sense of the phrase. We project many additional buyers to be present this year. There will be a plethora of concurrent events, which have been designed to assist businesses at every conceivable level via engaging displays and informative presentations, housed in a number of meticulously planned pavilions.
Thirdly, we will further enhance strategic public relations exposure and marketing activity because we expect about 180,000 attendees this year, compared to 160,000 in 2005. We have been carefully planning and coordinating our public relations activity accordingly via a wide network of carefully selected domestic and foreign broadcasting companies.

Q. We would like to hear about your managerial philosophy and principles.
A: According to my resume, my hobby is "helping people,"and my talent and affinity is "linking people to people"by means of mutually-beneficial symbiotic relationships. Throughout my 30-year long service at key administrative positions, both at MOCIE and at the Small and Medium Business Administration (SMBA), I have been serving people and businesses at a wide range of industrial locations. In the process, my hobby has become "to help people"because I make it a general rule to try to assist the public to whatever degree they require, whenever and wherever I can. If I am unable to find an appropriate solution quickly, I provide them with the requisite expertise and contact information by re-directing them to appropriate officials, inclusive of the official's name, office number, email address and cellular phone number.
I have organized and hosted many design gatherings in the spirit of "mutual benefit"where I encourage members to assist each other.
For instance, I organized an alpinist club containing 200 members soon after becoming KIDP president. Besides helping to improve the general health of its members, this club has been lauded for providing a useful exchange and cooperation forum for designers, executives of large multi-national corporations, design entities and overseas representatives.
I eventually hope to become known as "Leedink"- leading Korea toward advanced design power. By utilizing my best efforts and harnessing my talent, I seek to achieve what our Korean national soccer team did during the 2002 World Cup under the leadership of innovative Dutch football coach Guss Hiddink. Likewise, by carefully melding strategy, prowess and teamwork in concert with the determined spirit of our KIDP members and the unwavering support of our nation, we will eventually engender an inevitably winning scenario.
I believe there is a close parallel between Korean design and the 2002 World Football Cup. The aim of KIDP should be to enhance Korean design competitiveness among the world's four major powers. With that objective in mind, more people should be cognizant of Korea's design potential. Thanks to overwhelming support from the design sector and the Korean public, Korea acquired a ranking of 25th in global design competitiveness back in 2002, then finished in 14th place in 2005 (according to data from a Finnish design research institute). That having been said, we still have a long way to go.
Accordingly, just as Korea entered the semi-finals in the 2002 World Cup, Korea needs a dynamic Hiddink-like coach in the field of design to oversee a giant leap forward in global design ranking. Who other than the CEO of KIDP is better positioned to achieve a feat of this magnitude's This is the mission with which I have been mandated and for which I strive. I most certainly intend to play a definitive role for the advancement of Korean design in the global arena. nw

An inside view of Korea Design Center

KIDP President & CEO Lee Il-kyoo says, "It is the very mission given to me and I would like to play a major role in realizing "esign myth"to upgrade Korea's design to world level.