[Sigia-l] Career Questions

[Stewart Dean]

Hi Cathrine,

I can't really comment directly on the US situation but as an IA working in 
London things are boyant.

I personaly have a degree in Interactive System Design (a very IA type 
cource) and I have been lucky that I left a .com focused company a month or 
so before the boat went down and stayed afloat working within an advertising 
company. From what I can gauge IA is increasingly understood and seen as a 
vital part of a project. I work on many international projects and there 
appears to be less and less demand for the 'what you do' type presentations 
I used to have to do to new clients.

Alternative routes for those with IA skills include a role often described 
as 'producer' or alternatively if you are happy workng with clients there 
are always account handling roles. These tend to be for interactive 
agencies. On the flip side there are 'web manager' roles for most large 
companies with all major companies having teams to look after their online 
presence.

If anything the future is brighter for IAs than technical people as offshore 
sourcing becomes increasingly popular for developement tasks.

If you want to learn more about being an IA first port of call is 'the polar 
bear book' - 'information architecture for the world wide web' and also it's 
worth browsing the IAwiki site and listing to stuff on groups like this. 
Learn Visio as it's the defacto tool (as much as we don't like it) and take 
Jakob Neilsen with a very large pinch of salt. IA is only partly about 
usability and accessability - a lot of it is about marketing.

Not sure if that helps but good luck with things - there's stuff out there.

Cheers

Stew Dean

>From: C Wylie <cwylie1966 at yahoo.com>
>To: Sigia-l at asis.org
>Subject: [Sigia-l] Career Questions
>Date: Fri, 10 Dec 2004 07:26:32 -0800 (PST)
>
>Hi -
>
>I  earned an MA in Digital Media Studies from the
>University of Denver over four years ago. It  mostly
>seemed focused on theory and playing around with
>software rather than actual real world application. I
>was hired from my internshiip as a multimedia
>developer for a small marketing firm. When the dot.com
>crash started to happen and the economy went downhill,
>I was the first to be laid off. I then was in a bad
>car wreck that rendered me pretty useless in the job
>world.
>
>Now I am trying to see if there is any way I can make
>use of my old degree. I will have to spend some time
>getting the skills back that I either lost due to
>injury and illness or was never taught in the first
>place by my grad program.
>
>I am not sure anymore if becoming a web or media
>specialist focused on design technology is a stable
>career field anymore. I just keep hearing that if you
>aren't a web programmer, jobs can be scarce.
>
>I have been looking into the IAKM graduate program at
>Kent State Univeristy. It seems very concentrated and
>well organzied as far as course content and rigorous
>enough as far as theory and practical application.
>
>However, I am afraid of getting myself in more debt to
>upgrade my skills.
>
>What I would like to know is if there are a lot of
>opportunities out there for IA's and others related to
>the field. Is it possible to try and learn some of
>this on one's own or just take a couple of glasses. It
>would be nice if I could get some exposure and
>experience in this field without having to go back for
>a full degree program.
>
>Thanks for any advice.
>
>Catherine
>
>
>
>
>
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