[Sigia-l] is it just me, or is it really hard to find IAsright now?

[Giovanni Fortezza]

I understand both sides well. I have lived both, they are equally
frustrating and both have upsides and downsides.

However I have found that most companies would rather hire freelancers
because they do not understand the value of Information Architecture and
User Experience. I have heard many times from Account managers, Project
managers, Creative directors the words: "This is the IA, he writes the func
spec, it's a big document"

Would I prefer to work full time? Obviously I would, I am not a big fan of
going from place to place I'd rather be building a UX practice at a company
that would give it a strategic role, promote research prior to building
something and usability along the way. Yet corporations prefer to hire
freelancers because it is far cheaper from a budget perspective, even though
I agree it is a waste of time for the people the IA works with at the
corporations. 

The freelancer culture has finally gained momentum. Yet I would rather be a
full timer with a nice salary and health care.

Giovanni 


-----Original Message-----
From: sigia-l-bounces at asis.org [mailto:sigia-l-bounces at asis.org] On Behalf
Of George Olsen
Sent: Thursday, March 31, 2005 9:35 PM
To: sigia-l at asis.org
Subject: Re: [Sigia-l] is it just me, or is it really hard to find IAsright
now?

On 3/31/05 1:48 PM, "Dave" <dheller at gmail.com> wrote:

> I've been a hiring manager on both the agency side and now for a
> software company. I have to say that freelancers to me are a waste of
> my time. Why? B/c it is knowledge unretained.

For software and web-based companies with UX departments, that can be an
issue. But not everyone's at that kind of company. Two examples:

Currently, I'm doing work for a company whose product is web-based. However,
they're so small that it doesn't make sense for them have senior-level
expertise on staff permanently.

At a past job, I was in-house at a large financial institution building a
global extranet. However, once it was built they weren't planning to expand
it -- it was really going into maintenance mode and they didn't really need
my skills for that. I left because I would've gotten bored to death, but
they would've been wiser to hire me on contract.

Another frequent reason to bring in freelancers is to get an
independent/fresh perspective (although that's more at the consulting end
than the contracting end of things). A lot of big companies do that in other
fields, even though they may have the expertise in-house.

As with everything there's always trade-offs, it's just a matter of choosing
which ones make sense.

George
___________________________________________________
George Olsen                                Principal, Interaction by Design
650 329 1728                            george at interactionbydesign.com

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