From the course: Jeffrey Zeldman: 20 years of Web Design and Community

The new generation

- I've always taught since I've started doing web stuff. But, I formalized that a few years ago, by becoming a faculty member at School of Visual Arts in New York. In the MFA, Interaction Design program. I am teaching something that most design schools forget to teach and certainly nobody taught me when I was in school. What I do in my class is bring in other designers and I get them, with gentle questions, I get them to talk about their career experience. What worked for them, what didn't. Who they are as people because it's not just, where you work or what kind of work you do. It's what kind of person are you and will you be happy. There's a kind of personality that's going to do really well at a start-up and another kind that would be absolutely miserable. So, this class is about exploring what job you'll want to take. So this week we had Josh Clark come in and he is now a consultant. He works with some of the smartest designers and developers around, to tackle projects that would ordinarily go to much bigger agencies. So he was able to talk about how he manages to do that and work with people because someone in my class, whether they know it or not, that's going to be where they end up. Maybe not immediately, but that's going to be the right path for them and they can get it in their mind now so they can work toward it. It's really nice to see the faces and become familiar with the faces of the next generation of interaction designers. There's a new Facebook design and my student from 2 years ago did it. Created it, you know. The names, everyone's gonna know the names. Everyone's gonna talk about-- By the time they're ready to speak at An Event Apart. I may not be running at An Event Apart. But, they will be carrying on the work. It's really important to touch the next generation and share the ideas with them. The community that I work with and love I call "People Who make Websites." That's been the slogan of A List Apart since 1997 for people who make websites. I've been really lucky to be able to have a positive affect in that community and I'm not done. So. Lots more to come.

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