I get to see a lot of good interaction design shops in the US. Smaller shops, 5 to 30 people. Today, it simply doesn't matter where you are if you are good. In fact, if you are good (and can run a small business and develop a pipeline) it's an almost universal truth that you're going to be better off running your own shop. All that great work that folks get by being in SV? The shops in Oklahoma City, Austin and even Omaha get those calls too. I see it every day and I see companies try to BUY those shops in whole because they are having such a hard time hiring design talent.
This is a hard thing to see in a world of NDAs and projects that never see the light of day but I'm probably in a unique position in my role in that I get to see this so I thought it might be helpful to share. The good news is that IxD is incredibly valuable right now. The bad news is it won't stay that way if we can't find a way to grow the capacity of the discipline. Inherently I think a lot of good designers know this and if you're in the enterprise and/or a corporate environment it can sometimes be hard to procure IxD talent. Please note I'm not I'm not saying that there aren't great opportunities in the enterprise or corporate environments (it's where I am too), just that it's a harder and more nuanced sell and even I'm drawn to allure of the small agency these days. A few years ago I too considered a relocation to SV and when I did the math it just didn't make sense. As a more mature designer with a family of three children and wife that just stopped working I just couldn't make the math work (I also live in an inner ring suburb of Chicago which has crazy prices too so I'm already coming at this from a warped perspective, NYC, LA and SV might be the only places more expensive). The challenge with places like the Bay Area and (increasingly) NYC and Seattle is not getting started there, it's settling there. Once you want to buy a house, have kids, etc. things spiral out of control quickly. In fact if you want to buy a modest house in Silicon Valley (and by modest I mean standards the rest of the US would apply--a few thousand square feet for the house and modest lot size like 50 feet by 150 feet) you're going to be looking to spend from 750k for what I would consider a complete dump and upwards of 1 million for something that would afford a nice quality of life. That house where you'd WANT to live? We'll the sky's the limit. (These are based on my own experience in looking around the Valley. A 1400 square foot Eichler for a million bucks in Sunnyvale was not getting my family too excited about a move to California. I think David M is being a bit kind too, I'm not sure the salary ranges he's quoted would even get you a middle-class lifestyle in SV these days if you've got a family. But let's not sell this short. Places like New York, SV and (increasingly) Austin, Seattle, Ann Arbor are expensive because these ecosystems and that proximity IS important and VALUABLE. If you're a young designer getting started I think it's a GREAT idea to spend a few years in one of these places to get your skills pulled together. Although today I would argue that doing a turn in Asia for a few years is equally if not more valuable. Chris Bernard Microsoft User Experience Evangelist [EMAIL PROTECTED] 630.530.4208 Office 312.925.4095 Mobile Blog: www.designthinkingdigest.com Design: www.microsoft.com/design Tools: www.microsoft.com/expression Community: http://www.visitmix.com "The future is already here. It's just not evenly distributed." William Gibson -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Robert Hoekman, Jr. Sent: Wednesday, February 20, 2008 7:24 PM To: Andrei Herasimchuk Cc: IxDA Discuss Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where are all the designers? > Not to take away from the very real issue of what the cost of living > here is and how it puts a strain on people, but it certainly doesn't > require earning $150K to $200K a year. Depends on your lifestyle. For example, $100k can do significantly more for you in Arizona than $150k can in Silicon Valley or SFO. When I explored positions in SV, I realized very quickly that I would be paying twice as much money to live in an apartment half the size of my house-and that was just the beginning. In the end, it just wasn't worth it. The other factor, though, was the thought of becoming a sort of "cog in the machine" in SV. Working for a big company like Apple or Google, you can lose your whole identity. At Apple, for example, they wholly condemn the idea of going out and speaking at conferences unless your name is Steve, and I was told outright that my speaking schedule would have to come to an untimely end. I couldn't see sacrificing all the great things I get to do as a consultant to work at one of the bigs. Again, not worth it. And as far as opportunities go, well, let's just say I'm doing just dandy living outside of SV. Sure, I'd probably get some very sexy commercial projects working in SV, but sexy commercial projects aren't my focus, so it's a moot point. I'll leave the sexy commercial projects to the youth. :) -r- ________________________________________________________________ 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
