This question was sent to me a few weeks ago and I think it's great. The basic question is what are the best places to work. I'm sure we've all thought a bit about the different trade-offs with internal vs. external, different size/shape companies, types of industries, etc. And, I'm sure you'd love to know what other people think about this. So, this month's big questions is...So, this month, The Big Question is...
Points to Consider:
- What should be considered such as innovative work, interesting projects, real impact, pay, life style, etc.?
- What types of companies make sense in different situations?
- What resources exist to help make sense of this?
- How does this differ for different roles such as Manager, Instructional Designer, Trainer and Authors?
- Does this apply in the US, UK, India, etc. equally?
- If you aren't at a "best place to work", how might you make a transition?
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1 comment:
In general, where to work is a very personal issue. Some people are attracted by money, others by the environment and others by the work on offer. However, if we try to get a bit more specific with regard to the world of ID, personally I would consider the following to be key:
1) The opportunity to do concentrated, in-depth work on a small number of projects - quality not quantity of work.
2) The opportunity to work on projects that matter - e.g. safety work or work with an ethical aspect (e.g. consumer healthcare information or ecological learning)
3) The freedom to break away from traditional e-learning courseware or 'page turners'
4) The chance to get some time on research, development and experimentation
In my current position, I work with very high-profile customers but we still produce (generally) volumes of traditional courseware, developed fairly rapidly with rather standard courseware design. So, don't be fooled that big name customers will open the door to exciting or ground breaking work. Often their projects are rather mundane.
I also think you should look out for an organisation that is passionate about learning and not just the business side. Running the business well is necessary to allow the work to be done and to provide opportunity; but as an ID person it is not satisfying to work for a company just looking for the best profits. I'm with Steve Jobs when he said he started Apple so he could create something great; the money was only there to allow that to be done (I'm sure some of this is 'spin', but I think there is truth there too).
Oh, yeah, back to the general...I want to work for a PeopleWare type company.
I'm sure more thoughts will follow...mindful
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