Adding to the following posts.
RE: “… yet I firmly believe that Interaction Design is, in-fact, Industrial Design…” (Chris Gielow)
My design education was in interaction design & I’ve been a practicing interaction designer since the early 90’s working in tech. Interaction design is not industrial design. Its role is architectural. It does embraces ID as it does ethnography, design research, graphic design…etc. Interaction design is parallel to film direction or architecture. I’d be happy to discuss this further off-thread. I draw these parallels based on the required rigor in education & training, the required breath of multi-disciplinary knowledge, and the way interaction design collaborates and lead other creative, science, engineering, and business peers in a team. Despite having no peers when I first joined, I found IDSA (mostly IDSA-NY) enriching & accommodating as a design association. And despite the lame 20th century name, IDSA brings under its umbrella many design and non-design disciplines. Other associations I belong to cover similar disciplines but done are creative centric. And I am happy to contribute to the evolution that IDSA (and its investments in education) is making so that interaction designers are the future key drivers of the organization. I hope you will be interested and enthusiastic in contributing.
RE: “…individuals seem like we can advocate far more effectively…“…Right now IDSA is a $300 subscription to a bad magazine. There has to be a lot more to it than that…” (Michael DiTullo)
There is alot more. In my experience, professional organizations like IDSA are far more effective than individuals because it functions like an open source platform for its members to contribute & change, so everyone evolves & thrives together.
Highly effective professional orgs do 3 things:
(1) Provide legitimacy through licensing/accreditation for members i.e. definition of qualifications & legal responsibilities, and assuring high standards of practice
(2) Define core values of the profession and promote them e.g. education, job training, outreach, & political advocacy
(3) Provide community & content for members to foster collaboration, & extend their professional friendships/networks
Community & content: (a) Supports members to mentor educators, students, and new professionals; (b)Support members in networking; (c) Develop programs/resources for members to improve skills and knowledge; (d) Support members through different career stages; (e) Be the historical archive of the profession
While item 1 is a non-starter as far as IDSA is concerned (as well as AIGA, HFES, SGICHI, IxDA…etc), IDSA has been super aggressive and show continous improvement in terms of effectiveness in 2 & 3. Since my student days, I’ve always believed IDSA is valuable because I’ve always pay for it myself. To me, IDSA is a $300 opportunity to add to the source code and create benefit to my peers and future peers.
I would be happy to discuss how I can help you contribute. Bill