> Christina Wodtke > Sent: Tuesday, October 07, 2008 8:59 AM > > I think a lot of the problem is designers > aren't willing to give up the design title to move up > in their career. If you are doing product strategy for > a company, you are probably a VP of product strategy not > a VP of strategic design.
I'm convinced this is 80% of the problem. There is a career path for everyone in general management. Designers (in my experience) rarely choose to take it. I've seen plenty of engineers and testers go back an get MBAs to prep themselves for this track, but I know very few designers who have done the same (I admit my sample might be weird. What have you seen?) I'm convinced the design world has a shortage of: a) pioneers willing to move into general management roles, to pave the way for more power for designers and stronger career paths underneath them. b) entrepreneurs starting their own product companies (not studios/consultancies) where they define the entire philosophy around product design and engineering. You don't get more power for any discipline by staying within the discipline: minority roles are never sources of power. Someone has to go into general management and work to change the distribution of power. Being a VP of design rarely signifies anything to anyone in the company who is not a designer. There's rarely much power in being VP of a discipline: there's magnitudes more power in being VP, or a general manager of any true product team (e.g. including engineering), of an actual product. -Scott Scott Berkun www.scottberkun.com -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Christina Wodtke Sent: Tuesday, October 07, 2008 8:59 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] The biggest problems here you go: http://www.slideshare.net/cwodtke/paths-for-designers-ias I think a lot of the problem is designers aren't willing to give up the design title to move up in their career. If you are doing product strategy for a company, you are probably a VP of product strategy not a VP of strategic design. But many folks have switched to a new fork and are climbing... On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 5:43 AM, David Malouf <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I think our biggest problem is lack of career path. This stems from no > formal relationship or expectations (yet) between industry and > education. > > So many other problems stem from here: from what is our place inside > the organization to how to find mentoring or how to enter the > profession. > > -- dave > > > > . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . > Posted from the new ixda.org > http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=33964 > > > ________________________________________________________________ > Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! > To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe > ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines > ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help > .................. http://www.ixda.org/help > ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
