> 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
>
>
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