As bad as things seem, the complexity of what's happening is so far beyond what even the people in the middle of it can understand that this sort of thing is premature. There are too many interconnections in how debt has been allowed to work (which is part of how we got into this mess) to understand how it will play out over the next year.
That said, It's easier to slice up the standing of the company you work for, than how a profession as a whole will fair. A good pile of companies that died in the 2000 dotcom bubble were very weak, fragile companies without much of a story, and little sense of long term thinking. I expect the same to happen. Also, the strength of your employer is easier to evaluate than the strength of a profession, and will have more to do whether you'll be looking for a new job or not. As Andrei pointed out, specialists are often first to go for obvious reasons - having many proficiencies can make you more valuable. But if the company can't make 15% of its payroll for December, it doesn't matter what talent or job title you have. -Scott Scott Berkun www.scottberkun.com -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Andrei Herasimchuk Sent: Tuesday, October 07, 2008 4:10 PM To: IXDA list Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] Resiliency of IxDA Jobs in a Major Recession On Oct 7, 2008, at 4:44 PM, Damon Dimmick wrote: > I just thought I would throw my thoughts on the list, see what other > people think, and help stir up some opinions on how IxDA (and related) > practitioners can continually show their value in a market that may > become very tight, very very soon. Simply put? If you don't yet know how to create clean, simple visual aesthetics, then learn to do so. Also become an expert at using Photoshop, Illustrator or Fireworks to create production level digital assets for this work. Visio won't cut it. If you don't know how to write good HTML+CSS markup, or have a good enough grasp of JavaScript to be able to work with something JQuery, then get some books and get to learning how to code. Axure doesn't cut it. WSYWIG approaches to this won't cut it. Designers in the technology sector that have these hard skills will become the ones that survive should the economy force companies to start serious cutbacks. Why? Because designers who can do these things can also contribute to a project at a deeper level and cover multiple jobs where cost cutting is happening. The good news is that these skills are possible to learn in one's personal off time, and it's easy enough to create personal projects to force you to pick up the skills. That being: build a personal website, blog or whatever suits your fancy. -- Andrei Herasimchuk Principal, Involution Studios innovating the digital world e. [EMAIL PROTECTED] c. +1 408 306 6422 ________________________________________________________________ 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
