Great response micberryman! Obviously I’ve misunderstood the pros and cons of both of these organizations and I appreciate you pointing out alot of the benefits provided to us by IDSA that are often overlooked or never seen.
I’m definetly familiar with the portfolio reviews held at the various IDSA conferences and how much they can help aspiring designers. I guess to evolve my thoughts further, I would love to see more and more of this kind of integration (as it seems most others in this post do too) between the two organizations. As your post and a couple of other responses have shown to me, one of the unfortunate realities with IDSA is the fact that their members aren’t as informed with the everyday news of the organization as Core77’s “members” are. This disconnect leads to confusion, and eventual contempt when asked what our money gets us. All most members see is Design Perspectives, Innovation Magazine, local IDSA events (which vary in quality), and Conventions (if they can afford to go). Though all of these are very well run, a cheaper and more frequent news source may be more beneficial to the organization and it’s members by informing them of IDSA’s current goals, it’s achievements, and any other noteworthy events (much like Core77). One suggestion might be taking the information that normally would go into Design Perspectives with an online replacement that could be updated more frequently and be more readily accessible.
All that being said, the discussions on this forum have definetly altered my viewpoint from my initial post, largely in part to yours and everyone else’s response. I’d like to think that this type of education on a much broader scale, like what I’m suggesting above, would continue to enlighten others.