28 July 2010

How relevant is the big stage?

Unless you are very early in your career, or intend to live your live in the cocoon of large corporations, the prudent strategy is to adopt a different criterion. For the majority of customers and users, large corporations are losing relevancy. The corporate culture is one of 'play to not lose' and risk mitigation, rather than innovation. You must have this sort of experience on your resume, but it can be a negative factor in building a significant body of work, particularly as a designer. The first rule to know is that you should look for a great boss... rather than a great job title or description. The second is to determine whether the role provides one of the following: the ability to do great work... and the room to do work that matters. If you can get both, you are doing really well... for most of you, just getting in a position for one of those will be difficult. Have high standards for these criteria and don't let go of them. The opportunities are out there.