With thousands of new products and fine design on view at Chicago’s Merchandise Mart, Merrilee Hertlein, Cassie Kromnacker, Gwynn Zivic and Rachel Raterman made their way to this year’s NeoCon show – the largest design exposition and conference in North America.  During those three days, they checked out all the best resources and latest products.  After seeing hundreds of new design ideas, they took special note of the variety of benches on the design scene; the new flexible furniture; quiet personal-space chairs; the return of brightly colored fabrics and ethnic prints; how technology is being directly integrated into furniture; and the latest in video-conferencing.  Merrilee especially liked the workstation with a built-in treadmill.  Keeping up with current trends is right in step with Mackey Mitchell’s goal of life-long learning.