Courage To Quit: Starting, Maintaining and Growing Your Own UX Business - IA Summit 09 Panel

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This presentation is from a Panel given at the Information Architecture Summit in Memphis, March 2009. Summary of topic:Information Architects have an opportunity to structure and evolve their own work environment. There is potential to influence where they work, who they work with, the type of work they do and who they do work for. As a freelance IA consultant,there can be a lot of flexibility, but also a lot of uncertainty. Creating boundaries that help define the work we do and how we do it can be difficult, and these boundaries change as the field changes and as we as IAs mature.This panel discusses what it is like to create ones own work environment - the motivation for taking this entrepreneurial path, what it has been like, what we’ve learned, the ups and downs of such a work life.

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The Courage to Quit:

Starting, Growing and Maintaining Your Own UX Business

Sarah A. Rice, Whitney Hess, Jenn Anderson, Chris Fahey

Seneb Consulting 1 of many

http://www.wordle.net

Seneb Consulting 2 of many

Who We Are

Sarah A. Rice

Whitney Hess

Jenn Anderson

Christopher Fahey

Whitney Hess

3 of many

Seneb Consulting 4 of many

Seneb Consulting 5 of many

Seneb Consulting 6 of many

Seneb Consulting 7 of many

UX Strategy & Design

User Research

Branding

Design from the outside in

“More high-income workers are

freelancing their way to wealth

through multiple part-time gigs,

changing the way we define a

successful career.”

The Daily Beast, January 2009

http://tinyurl.com/7htdt9

Source: Survey conducted by The Daily Beast and Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates.

Five hundred employed U.S. citizens aged 18 and over were interviewed via the Internet on January 8-9, 2009.

74% Say they have personally felt some impact from the economic crisis

1/3 Americans in survey are now working either freelance or two jobs

45% Have taken on additional gigs in the last 6 months

These new alternative workers

are not low-income—they are

college-educated Americans who

earn more than $75,000 a year.”

Zigzagging from outie

to innie and back

a little background…

1 9 9 0 1 9 9 5 2 0 0 0 2 0 0 5

Carnegie Mellon

E M P L O Y E R S E D U C A T I O N

User Research

Information design User Experience Strategy & Design

Brand identity

Becoming an innie

assumptions easier to drive consensus

pick & choose

control the direction of product

Becoming an outie

assumptions less connected

control my own time

frenetic

Becoming an innie

the good deep domain knowledge

camaraderie of peers

thought leadership

support staff

conference $

networking opportunities

Becoming an outie

the good getting it, touching it, delivering it

autonomy

exercising my nimbleness

variety

Becoming an outie what

it takes flexibility

willingness to be part of client’s team

courage to step away when it’s time

thank you

jenn@3across.com

55 of many

What’s your experience?

Q&A

Seneb Consulting 56 of many

http://www.wordle.net

Seneb Consulting 57 of many

Contact

Sarah A. Rice

Whitney Hess

Jenn Anderson

Christopher Fahey

rice@seneb.com

whitney@whitneyhess.com

jenn@3across.com

chris.fahey@behaviordesign.com

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THANKS!

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