UBM Tech Announces Karen Field New General Manager of DESIGN West

SAN FRANCISCO, June 13, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- UBM Tech today announced the appointment of Karen Field, Senior Vice President – Editorial Director, EE Times and General Manager of DESIGN West. In this new role, Field's main focus will be working directly with the global electronics community to develop cutting-edge educational/training programs and unique interactive events and exhibits where design engineers can learn and network with their peers. Taking on the dual role of Editorial Director - EE Times, Field is developing a unified content strategy for both online and events, with the ultimate goal of delivering a world-class, year-round experience for the global electronics community.

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A former mechanical design engineer, Field brings more than two decades of experience working in media targeted at electronics and electromechanical design engineers, including Design News, EDN, and EE Times. A hallmark of Field's work has been the creation of highly unique products and irreverent content types that frequently showcase community-generated content.

Field brought those skills to bear this year as Content Director for DESIGN West, through her creation of new, hands-on training centers on the show floor. Classes were filled to capacity as engineers clamored to learn and have fun while participating in activities such as programming their own mesh network propeller beanie and building a personal weather station.

Field has ambitious plans to amp up the volume significantly at DESIGN West 2014.

"The timing is perfect to aggressively build upon and expand the solid foundation of engineering education pioneered by the Embedded Systems Conference (ESC), which celebrated its 25^th anniversary this year," said Field. "Embedded is everywhere, and given the rise of the Internet of Things and the corresponding interest in hardware, engineering today is going through a kind of interdisciplinary entropy. Engineers who design and create products with electronics content are now involved in many more stages of the product design cycle--from production through to manufacturing. Plus, they have the diabolical challenge of integrating all the pieces together."

Expanded tasks frequently take engineers out of their comfort zone, which presents an opportunity for DESIGN West to deliver the hands-on training they need, case studies from their peers, and an environment where they can have fun and interact with other engineers grappling with the same set of issues.

Field added, "The content on EE Times has had a strong influence on the new strategy. In almost real time, we can identify which topics are trending in the design engineering community and which ones are generating the most comments. This kind of intelligence directly informs us on an ongoing basis of which specific topics the engineering community is interested and need to be included in our conference program." 

Starting this month, Field will be gathering more input on DESIGN West 2014 from the industry during a listening tour across the United States to meet with electronics companies and design engineers. Please contact Field directly at Karen.Field@ubm.com to schedule a meeting.

DESIGN West, the industry's largest and most comprehensive electronics technology event in the United States, will take place at the San Jose Convention Center March 31 – April 3, 2014. For more information, visit DESIGN West.

The event has a global footprint, with ESC/DESIGN India to be held July 17-19, 2013 at Nimhans convention in Bangalore India and ESC/DESIGN Brazil slated for August 27-28, 2013 at TransAmerica Expo Center in San Paolo, Brazil.

Join the conversation about DESIGN West on Twitter (https://twitter.com/#!/ubmdesign) and Facebook (www.facebook.com/ubmdesign) for all the latest updates.  
http://www.ubmdesign.com/sanjose/schedule-builder/list?cid=PR6

To become a sponsor or exhibitor at DESIGN West, please contact JoAnn Pellegrini at joann.pellegrini@ubm.com or 415.947.6233.

About DESIGN (http://www.ubmdesign.com/?cid=DWPR1)
Held in key strategic technology development locations worldwide, UBM Tech's DESIGN events are the global electronics industry's leading gatherings.  With cutting edge product demonstrations, visionary speeches and hundreds of essential technical training classes and accreditation opportunities, DESIGN is the ideal venue for the electronics engineering community to learn, collaborate and recognize excellence. UBM Tech's DESIGN events cater to the extremely technical, higher-learning needs of the world's top engineers while providing an unprecedented forum for the examination of the industry's pressing business challenges.  In addition, DESIGN West celebrates decades of unique local electronics industry culture, innovation and Silicon Valley's significant contributions to the global technology industry.

About UBM Tech
UBM Tech is a global media business that brings together the world's technology industry through live events and online properties.  Its community-focused media and events provide expertly curated content along with user-generated content and peer-to-peer engagement opportunities through its proprietary, award-winning DeusM community platform. UBM Tech's brands include EE Times, Interop, Black Hat, InformationWeek, Game Developer Conference, CRN, and DesignCon. The company's products include research, education, training, and data services that accelerate decision making for technology buyers.  UBM Tech also offers a full range of marketing services based on its content and technology market expertise, including custom events, content marketing solutions, community development and demand generation programs. UBM Tech is a part of UBM (UBM.L), a global provider of media and information services with a market capitalization of more than $2.5 billion.

For more information on UBM Tech's DESIGN West 2014 please contact:
Linda Uslaner, Marketing Director
T: 516.562.5843, E: linda.uslaner@ubm.com

Available Topic Expert(s): For information on the listed expert(s), click appropriate link.
Karen Field
http://www.profnetconnect.com/karenfield

SOURCE UBM Tech