designRoom Creative

The theme of the National Association of Addiction Treatment Providers - NAATP National Conference this year was Future Proofing Treatment: technology in a people-centered workforce. The venue was incredible, the food was outstanding and the learning was relevant and on point for what's happening in our world. The theme carried through the entire conference.

Congratulations to Philip Rutherford for winning the Dr. Peter Hayden award for Diversity, Inclusivity and Racial Equity. His commitment to doing good work is self-evident.

Always love connecting with a force in the industry Nikki Soda.

Congrats to Marvin Ventrell, Katie Strand and the team for another great conference – see you all next year!

Our team has been evaluating the best uses for AI in our workflow. Its a delicate balance of machine learning and human subject matter experts.

As a creative agency we do not want to hand over the best part of our job - the creativity, thinking, and problem solving. As Chad Gordon puts it: "The thinking is the important part. And that part is still very human."

At designRoom, AI Is Our Darkroom, Not Our Camera: Why Human-Led AI Strategy Prevails - designRoom There's a lot of noise right now about how companies "use AI." Most of it centers on speed, automation, or replacement. We use it for those things too. But that's not the whole picture at designRoom. We don't use AI to create ideas. We don't use it to think for us. We don't hand it a blank page and....

“Clear is kind.”

This idea was first sparked by our writer, Angela Simpkins, and it stayed with me.

I was reminded of this lesson again last week at the Entrepreneurs' Organization Moderator Summit in Las Vegas, shared by a young entrepreneur whose insight really stuck with me.

Andi Asay, I so enjoyed working with you on the Johari Window exercise. Your reflection helped me gain clarity around our theme for 2026.

The theme is clarity:
Clear with myself.
Clear with the organizations we serve.
Clear with our team.

Where could a little more clarity make a big difference for you right now?