You are invited to attend a special alumni reception with Carnegie Mellon professors, Dr. Peter Boatwright and Dr. Jon Cagan, on September 23, 2010 from 6:30-9:30 p.m. at the new Amazon.com offices at 426 Terry Ave North in Seattle. Drs. Boatwright and Cagan will be speaking on their newly-released book, Built to Love: Creating Products that Captivate Customers.

Why do some companies create captivating products that energize the marketplace and set the standard for what customers want and expect, while other companies create products that fail to generate enthusiasm, or even just flop?  In this talk, and in their new book Built to Love, Professors Peter Boatwright and Jonathan Cagan reveal why product emotions are critical to the long-term success of a product, whether business-to-business or consumer, and whether physical or software or service. Using a combination of industry-based research and laboratory experiments, Boatwright and Cagan describe how to create products that people love so much they can’t see themselves without them, and companies can't afford not to produce them. 

Peter Boatwright is Associate Professor of Marketing at Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business, with an appointment in Mechanical Engineering. Jonathan Cagan is the George Tallman and Florence Barrett Ladd Professor in Mechanical Engineering with appointments in the School of Design and Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University. For more information, including videos of the speakers, please visit www.BuiltToLove.com.

The event is organized by the Tepper Seattle Alumni Chapter and the Office of Alumni Relations at CIT.  It is open to all Carnegie Mellon CIT and Tepper alumni and their guests. Alumni are asked to register online at: www.tepper.cmu.edu/alumni/sea. Attire is business casual. 

Appetizers and drinks will be served. The registration charge will be $20.00 for those who register online with advance payment and $25.00 at the door. 

Copies of the new book will be available for purchase (cash or check only) and the authors are available to personally sign the copies.

Our sincere appreciation to our alumni at Amazon for providing the venue.  For more information, please contact Geoffrey Bent (MBA '07) at: gbent@amazon.com.