Is marketing considered a creative career?

Is it possible to transition from a career in marketing to interaction design or design-focused product management?

• I've been very successful in marketing, but my passion has always been designing quality interactions and products. I've considered going to graduate school for this (either an MBA or interaction design program), but it's difficult to leave a successful career to pursue a career where I'd probably have to start from the beginning, and have insecurities that I'm too old to move into a new profession and gain enough experience to re-move up the corporate ladder. Would you recommend that I pursue the academic route, or is it possible to make this transition without starting over?

• Answer:

  It's never too late to pursue something you truly love. So that's the first question you'll need to answer for yourself: is interaction and experience design something you think you have a true passion for, such that starting over from an entry-level position (which you probably won't, but we'll get there in a moment), isn't so much an impediment or a risk, but an opportunity for you to learn a great deal about something you care deeply about? If you're not sure, then the answer is "no" and you can save yourself the considerable effort of switching career tracks. But if you *are* sure, then here's the good news: you are not starting from scratch, and you likely have a lot of skills that will serve you well. Do you know how to perform market research and analyze the results? Score! Have you experience reviewing customer feedback and deducing the next step in product strategy? Excellent. Do you know how to navigate the personal politics of a large organization and rally a group of professionals with disparate opinions and business objectives with the goal of launching or improving a product? Congratulations, you have something most Interaction Design program graduates will spend the next 5 years learning how to develop. In a lot of ways, you're way ahead of the game. Some "hard" skills - learning how to conduct ethnographic research, usability testing and other qualitative research will take a little getting used to. Mastering the nitty-gritty of low-level interaction design - what patterns to follow when, and when to depart from an established pattern altogether - will take a few years to get the hang of. But by far the hardest transition you'll have to make is this: you will need to learn how to listen with the objective of understanding, rather than responding. For someone with deep experience in marketing, if you've spent a lot of time thinking about how to influence customers, stimulate demand, and create aspiration for a product - you'll need to dig deep and start to let go of that perspective. By far the hardest part of creating an experience which people will enjoy - for me, anyhow - has been learning how to listen to people's needs, desires and goals, and create something which enables them. Because often this means taking a well thought out strategy, a business objective in which I (or a client) are emotionally invested in, and throwing it out. You will have to stop asking "how do we make people want this," and start asking "how do we make this something people want?" If you're ready to make that leap, my advice is to find someone/somewhere that will let you do it in practice, rather than pursuing a new degree. That's my personal preference - I'd rather hire someone with a deep interest and experience getting things done, and train them on the fundamentals of a specific tool or approach - but I think you may find opportunities to bring your experience to bear in a new field to which your skills will translate, if you can show a willingness and ability to alter your perspectives.