Letter from the President - September 2017
It’s September, which means it’s back-to-school time! As a kid, I always hated to see summer go, but shopping for school supplies was some consolation. Even today, I find myself craving fresh new pencils, crisp notebooks, three-ring binders... never mind that I rarely use those things anymore! The fact that we’ve gone digital just makes the nostalgia stronger.
It’s not only the sales on crayons and safety scissors that made me choose to write about education for this month’s letter. AUGI is focused on two big events right now that tie back into that theme: the Salary Survey and Autodesk University 2017.
The results of the 16th Annual Salary Survey are published in this month’s AUGIWORLD. Once again, Melanie Perry has collected data from thousands of design professionals just like you and turned it into a fascinating picture of compensation trends across a variety of demographics, including education level, job title, and firm size. If you’ve ever wondered how your job stacks up against those of your peers, here’s your chance to find out. And if you’ve used the Salary Survey before to see where you stand, it’s a great opportunity for a status check, to see what has changed from year to year.
It might be a bit of a stretch to call the Salary Survey “education,” but I think I can make a case for it. One definition of education is “the acquisition of knowledge,” and learning how your salary compares to that of people in similar jobs certainly qualifies! By educating yourself on the state of the industry, you gain an understanding of your own value. Then you can begin to make a plan: either to educate your boss about why you deserve a raise or to educate yourself to gain new skills and earn that raise!
If you fall into the latter camp, Autodesk University is a great place to start. This year’s event in Las Vegas has something for everybody. Whether you are just beginning to learn a new program, are trying to develop your management skills to advance at your firm, or want to see what cutting-edge advancements are happening in your industry, AU can help you find what you need. The classes I take each year are always different, yet somehow they’ve always been what I was looking for.
If a trip to Las Vegas (or one of the international AU events) isn’t in the cards this year, consider online learning. Browse the AUGIWORLD archives for invaluable nuggets of information, or take a deeper dive into topics with recorded conference sessions from AU Online—much of it provided by instructors who are also AUGI members!
Speaking of AU, have you looked at the AUGI Wish Lists lately? Now would be an excellent time to peruse the current wishes to see if there are any you would like to rank or buy (with your virtual Wish Cash) to help us generate this year’s Top 10 lists, which will again be presented to Autodesk at AU 2017.
Like the Salary Survey, the Wish Lists depend on your participation. Every member’s contribution improves our results. There are over 400,000 of us worldwide—what power our voices could have! Imagine if every AUGI member logged in and voted for their top 10 wishes. That would be four million wishes for the products you use every day. Pretty impressive!
So, login to AUGI.com today. Vote for wishes. Educate us on what you want. We might all learn something!
