POP into Excellence 2026

Dealer designers are being asked to navigate more complexity than ever before.

Today’s projects move faster, involve more stakeholders, rely on more technology, and require stronger collaboration across every phase of the process. Designers are expected to think strategically, communicate clearly, adapt quickly, and balance creativity with increasing operational demands — all while continuing to deliver exceptional client experiences and accurate project execution.

Professional Development Sessions

Design Under Pressure: How Top Teams Deliver When It Counts

PANELISTS:

• Alena Fizudeen, Account Manager at CI Group
• John Toups, VP of Design at Frost Barber
• Kelly Bone, Senior Project Designer at Hyphn 

FACILITATED BY:

• Ali Oxley, Senior Director of Sales Success at OFS
• Alexandra Tseffos, Founder of The Design POP + Silent T Consulting

Behind every successful project is a team navigating tight timelines, shifting expectations, incomplete information, evolving client needs, and constant collaboration across roles. While every dealership experiences pressure, the strongest teams have learned how to work through it together—with better communication, clearer processes, and a shared understanding of what success looks like at every phase of a project. Just as importantly, high-performing teams don’t simply react to challenges as they arise—they anticipate them early, identify potential gaps before they escalate, and proactively create systems that keep projects moving forward.

During this opening panel discussion, sponsored by OFS, we bring together voices from across the dealership ecosystem to explore what really happens behind the scenes—from the initial sales conversation to design development, specification, ordering, installation, punch, and client follow-up. Rather than focusing on where projects fail, this discussion will highlight how strong teams create alignment across departments, navigate complexity together, and deliver a better experience for both clients and internal teams.

Financial Literacy for Dealer Designers

SPEAKER: Charles Zulli, Principal Consultant at Unalome Consulting

If you attended POP into Excellence 2024 or 2025, you probably remember Charles Zulli’s memorable message about protecting designer FLOW — the uninterrupted creative focus designers need to do their best work. Charles is back for another candid and insightful conversation, this time tackling a topic that directly impacts every dealership and every designer: financial literacy.

Designers influence far more than aesthetics and specifications. From workflow efficiency and accuracy to product selection and project execution, design teams play a critical role in the financial success of a dealership. Yet many of the financial terms and operational decisions designers encounter every day are rarely explained in a meaningful way.

In this practical session, we’ll unpack concepts including furniture leasing, depreciation, margin vs. markup, GP, gross vs. net, and net installed margin — including why these numbers matter to designers. We’ll also discuss why dealers participate in buying groups and how processes like double-checking, workflow management, and accuracy directly affect profitability, risk, and client satisfaction.

More importantly, this session is designed to help designers better understand how dealerships operate financially so they can make stronger decisions, communicate more strategically with sales and leadership, and increase their influence inside the organization. Along the way, we’ll answer some of the bigger questions designers often ask themselves every day, including: Why are we really doing so many double checks?

From Hire to High Performance: Dealer Designer Onboarding That Sticks

 PANELISTS:

• Becky Pippenger, Design Director at MOI
• Lisa Selan, Senior Design Operations Lead at Young Office
• Rebecca Beauchamp, Senior Designer/Account Manager at Apex Facility Resources
• Sarah Farag, Design Team Lead at Office Revolution

FACILITATED BY:  Alexandra Tseffos, Founder of The Design POP + Silent T Consulting

Bringing on a new designer takes far more than handing over logins and scheduling CET training. Great onboarding is a deliberate process that blends HR essentials, technology training, mentorship, cultural integration, and skill development—while adapting to where each new hire is starting.

In this panel discussion, dealer design leaders will share how they onboard designers across a variety of scenarios.  We’ll explore how teams assess skill levels, determine what training comes first, balance systems training with real-world application, and create onboarding experiences that accelerate confidence, productivity, and long-term success.

Values-Driven Design: Aligning Your Career with What Matters Most

SPEAKERS: Aga Artka & Jenny Rebholz

Authors of The Brand of You - The Ultimate Guide for an Interior Designer’s Career Journey

This mini-workshop helps participants uncover their core values and explore how those values can inform their own unique personal brands and guide their career decisions. As a vehicle to assist in moments of transition and life changes, The Brand of You can be critical in pursuit of happiness and professional success. Through reflection and storytelling, and practical exercises, attendees will be inspired to align their professional lives with what matters most to them.

Conscious Communication: Skills to Create Strong Professional Ties

SPEAKER: Dr. Kibibi Springs, Vice President of Workplace Experience at Hightower

This personal development session will explore the fundamentals of a Conscious Conversation, covering active listening, emotional regulation, and empathy. Attendees will learn techniques to truly hear and understand others, manage emotions effectively, and foster deeper connections. The goal is to elevate communication skills and transform daily interactions into meaningful exchanges that build trust, collaboration, mutual understanding, and purpose.

In the Margins: A Creative Reset for Designers

SPEAKER: Rebekah Jacobi Design Director at Pivot Interiors & Artist at Lavender Canyon Co.

Not every designer gets to fully tap into their creativity at work. Deadlines, customer expectations, and production demands can leave little room for creating simply for the joy of it — but that creative part of you still matters.

Join Rebekah Jacobi, Design Director by day and painter by night, for a creative reset designed to help you reconnect with creativity outside of work expectations. As we close out the first week of POP into Excellence, this session invites you to slow down, experiment, and create without pressure or the need for perfection.

 What You’ll Need

• Colored pencils, markers, or even your kids’ well-loved crayons.
• A comfortable place to relax and create.
• An open mind! This isn’t about perfection, but experimentation, play, and reconnecting with creativity. 

Included With Registration

• The first 50 registrants will receive three printed cards featuring Rebekah’s artwork mailed directly to them (you will be asked for your address at check out). 
• All additional registrants will receive downloadable versions to print and use during the session.

Technology Sessions

The Hidden Tax on Design Performance 

SPEAKERS: Jason Lund Director of Innovation & Solutions, Aura

Dealers of commercial interiors are quietly paying a hidden tax, not because of weak design talent, but because operational friction, outdated IT models, and inconsistent service delivery are eroding utilization, slowing project delivery, and undermining client confidence. Design teams lose flow to access issues, tool sprawl, performance problems, and rework, while IT remains trapped in a break/fix mindset with little accountability to business outcomes. The result? Lower margins, slower response times, frustrated teams, and missed opportunities to differentiate in front of clients.

This session takes a direct look at the uncomfortable truth: Dealers need their IT organizations focused on enablement, innovation, and adoption of new technologies (including AI) not just keeping the lights on. Dealers that modernize will outsell and out‑margin those that don’t. Dealers that remain legacy‑minded risk falling behind or out of the market entirely. We’ll explore how operational simplicity frees IT capacity, why AI fails in chaotic environments, and what design leaders can do now to demand service accountability, accelerate delivery, and position their organizations to use AI for efficiency, insight, and new client‑facing services, before competitors do.

Meet Dot. Inspiration with Integrity

SPEAKER: Kari Anderson Founder of Dot. | Principal at UX&Kari | Facilitator of Techbox Collective 

The manual effort of tracking specs and the "busywork" of data entry have become an accepted tax on the creative process—until now.

Meet Dot., the connection point where your vision meets certainty.

This session debuts a new way to ideate. We’re moving beyond the limitations of static lookbooks and rigid frames to a dynamic, infinite canvas where inspiration is backed by verified manufacturer truth. See how Dot. removes the friction to accelerate decision-making, sync your team, and ensure that product information is exactly where you need it, when you want it. Whether you’re a designer, a manufacturer, or a sales partner, discover a workflow that stays out of your way so you can focus on what matters: the vision. 

What You’ll Gain

• Manual Entry, Eliminated: See how to bring verified product imagery and assets onto your canvas in a single click.
• Accelerated Decisions: Learn how to move from a spark of inspiration to a confident "yes" by removing the search fatigue.
• The Infinite Advantage: Experience a collaborative workflow that breaks free from static layouts to keep your team in sync. 

All attendees will receive an exclusive "Founding User" access code to be the first to experience Dot. 

Pop into the Future: What's New with Configura

SPEAKERS: 

• Michelle Melendez, RID, NCIDQ, IIDA Configura User Community Ambassador
• Lindsay Voegele Configura User Community Ambassador
• Cecilia Vu Configura User Community Ambassador

Get a high-impact look at what’s new in CET 17.0 and Spec 9.0. This session explores  AI Photo, enhanced Web Viewer collaboration, Spec to Powerpoint, and more efficient specification workflow. Discover how these advancements are streamlining processes, improving collaboration, and helping teams work smarter and faster. Plus, get an exclusive sneak peek at what the UCA team has been developing as they help drive the next era of design.

Eliminate Boring, Get Back to Designing

SPEAKER: Kieran Luke, CEO & Founder at Cerulean

You didn't go to design school to work on data entry, doublechecking, or copy-pasting into PowerPoint. But somehow, these are the activities that eat up a large amount of your time at work, and make your days much lonnnnger than they need to be.

If AI is so amazing, why can't it just do this stuff for you?
That's exactly what Cerulean is building. In this session, we'll show you how our tools are handling the boring parts of dealer-design work:

• Port automates the quote-to-SIF data entry that used to take hours
• Atlas automates the menial production of budgets and look books
• Proof uses computer vision to help with the dreaded double-check

We'll walk through what's new, what's coming, and - most importantly - ask what boring work you want us to eliminate next. Come ready to commiserate, get inspired, and maybe leave with a little less on your plate.

The 4th Annual Techbox Collective Show & Tell

FACILITATED BY: Kari Anderson Founder of Dot. | Principal at UX&Kari | Facilitator of Techbox Collective

"How does that extension do that?" The question returns! Join us for the 2026 Show & Tell, where Techbox Collective brings together CET Extension owners to showcase the tools that power our industry. This year, we are focusing on the core of the experience: live demonstrations of innovative extensions that make designing and specifying simpler and more efficient.

What Show & Tell Offers You

• Manufacturers - Discover how your peers are leveraging CET Extensions to make their product lines easier to use and specify.
• Designers - See these powerful tools in action through live demonstrations and provide the feedback that helps influence future development.
• Developers - Connect with fellow creators, witness your products in the hands of users, and support your manufacturer partners.

The Collective Goal
Show & Tell is a collaborative event designed to bring the Commercial Interiors community together. By sharing how we use CET Extensions, we drive the practical innovation that makes our daily work better.

A special thank you to Haworth, Konsol, OFS, Sandler, Scandinavian Spaces, Stylex, Teknion, who were the first to step forward and volunteer to present.  

Special Thanks to Our Sponsor
This event is made possible thanks to Sigma by Encodec, the smarter way to search and specify in CET, empowering designers with exceptional speed while ensuring manufacturer products are effortlessly discoverable. We are proud to partner with Encodec, five-time recipients of the CET Extension Innovation award, whose expertise and innovative engineering bring platforms like Sigma to life.  

Like what you're seeing? Keep your momentum going. Activate your POP monthly subscription today, and it will begin automatically when your Learning Pass ends—so you can continue exploring our exclusive technology training, searchability in times of need, live Q&A webinars, and more without missing a beat. →SUBSCRIBE TO THE DESIGN POP