The British Design Council has just announced a live webcast on Friday, 26 March about the implications of recessions, networks and on-job-learning for designers.

Are recessions good news in disguise for designers? Has the downturn forced designers to value their networks? Is on-the-job learning better than no learning at all? These are the issues we'll be debating in classic for-and-against style. And there will be no fence-sitting - each debate ends with a vote, for the online audience as well as the one in the room.

Digital design specialist Simon Waterfall is our compere for the morning and the pairs of speakers debating the motions are celebrated product and furniture designer Tom Dixon and creative industries number cruncher Mandy Merron; design business advisor Shan Preddy and retail design specialist Callum Lumsden; and graphics grandees Mike Dempsey and Brian Webb.

Please click here to register for the webcast. The discussion will be from 9:30 to 11:00 AM GMT so for people who live in the US this would mean a rather early start. However, the discussion will be available as an on-demand replay within 48 hours of the event, so you can still watch it then - even though not participate live in it.