Web Presence Analysis

By Taylor Rowand Design Studies major, Arizona State University November 2011

Table of Contents
3 Executive summary

Future Professional Web Presence

Graduate Objectives: Job Analysis: Interior Architect/Interior Designer: Professional LinkedIn Profiles: Evaluation Criteria:

Current Web Presence

Personal Search:

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Bridging the Gap

Strengths: Weaknesses:

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Appendix

Executive Summary
The following pages are my analysis of three job openings in the field of Interior Architecture, three online profiles of Interior Architects, and a current web search of me. The first two are described in an attempt to understand the characteristics of online Interior Architect profiles, culminating with a list of five criteria for evaluating them. Following that, I describe my current web presence then illustrate my strengths and weaknesses compared to those five criteria. I finish with how I could further my knowledge of what I must do on the internet to catch employers attention and stay competitive in todays Interior Architect job market.

Future Professional Web Presence

Graduate Objectives:
Following my graduation from ASU, I would like to gain some experience in an architectural firm and then move on to graduate school. I plan on going back to school for an MS in Interior Architecture; my thesis being on the topic of sustainable healing environments and the effects that they have on ecological activities and human psychology. With this type of professional career, I would be a participant in a design and development team collaborating with architects, interior designers and engineers focused on sustainable commercial design projects. My research will delve into the experience that people have of a particular space and what sorts of psychological responses are associated with different forms, colors, and textures. I would be primarily concerned with how buildings interact with the people living and working inside of them.

Job Analysis: Interior Architect/Interior Designer:

As an Interior Architect, there is a wide variety of spaces you are able to design. I would like to start off with one sector that needs a more focused approach to healing design. That is Healthcare Design, with three types of spaces to improve: Hospitals, Medical Facilities, and Long Term Care buildings. A future position that I could apply for is the Healthcare Interior Designer position working for SmithGroup JJR, a U.S. based international architecture, engineering, interiors, landscape and planning firm. This position would give me the opportunity to work with patients, 4

nurses, and doctors to improve the sustainability of Healthcare projects in the Phoenix Arizona area. My responsibilities would be to lead, model and develop interior finishes, space plans, furniture plans, elevations, conceptual and finished design presentation documents for healthcare interior spaces. The skills required are a professional degree in Architecture or Interior Architecture, client oriented leadership and strong communication/presentation skills. Experiences required include a minimum 5 to 7 years related interiors experience for Healthcare facilities, software knowledge of AutoCAD, Illustrator, Photoshop, Sketchup and Revit, as well as certifications from NCIDQ and LEED A/P. I would also have to direct, mentor and support staff and take on various roles on different projects working as part of a larger team. As I gain experience in the development process of sustainable healing environments, an interesting side path toward my understanding of the built environment would be as a Senior Environment Designer at Ziba Design. This company performs brand and marketing analysis for clients to specifically target brand DNA & identity through product innovation. My work would be to lead a team of designers and researchers to design and develop environments that enhance the users experience and create a meaningful connection with our clients brands. A specialty that I would bring to this company is knowledge of LEED ratings and involvement in new LEED projects. A fundamental change will occur in the next few years in LEED qualification with the incorporation of the Science of Sustainability. This underlies a need for data collection in LEED buildings after construction so as to understand energy trends, consumption patterns and user satisfaction. I feel that 5

working for a company like this would allow me to learn Zibas approach in data collection and research with branded environments and help my assessment of LEED projects. My job would be to map out the consumer/user journey, key scenarios and create multiple concepts for major programmatic elements. I must effectively communicate my perspective and possess strong rapid visualization skills. Experience required for this position are three or more years creating world class branded environments, well-rounded knowledge of 2D and 3D CAD programs, Illustrator, Photoshop, Indesign, and a degree in Architecture, Interior Design, Environmental Design or another related field. Skills must include an understanding of building construction, detailing and furniture/fixture fabrication, knowledge of current trends in architectural and retail design and lastly, that the designer is engaged in the contemporary design culture community. I must gain an aptitude for seeing a broader picture and understanding how to integrate multiple touch points and technologies to create a holistic consumer experience. A crucial factor is the ability to define visual direction of materials, finishes, furnishings and fixtures. This combines with a passion for design and a capacity to think differently in driving innovative solutions. A third position that I could apply for within 5 years is to be an Interior Designer for the Truisi Design Group. This multidiscipline architectural and interior design firm specializes in the definition, creation and execution of built environments. The required experience for this position is to understand a wide range of corporate, commercial and retail projects of varying size and complexity. Knowledge of materials, products and construction techniques is very important. 6

Also needed is experience from strategic planning and programming through construction and post-occupancy phases. Skills valued are exceptional communication, presentation and organization with proficiency with Revit, Adobe CS 5, and Autodesk 3DS Max. Finally, one needs knowledge of preparing design and construction document packages.

Professional LinkedIn Profiles:

The first LinkedIn profile I dissected was a private profile who works as an Architectural Designer at Stegman+Associates. This person has a degree from the Rhode Island School of Design in Interior Architecture. Described is that this persons path of study was sort of split between Architecture, Furniture Design, Industrial Design, and a focus of Interior Architecture. I gather that know multidiscipline in this career is a plus. I fall into the same category because of the many different design areas I have learned over the last few years. Specialties listed for this person are Rhino, Sketch-Up, AutoCAD, and others which prove to be invaluable to Interior Architecture design. The second profile that I analyzed on LinkedIn is Allison B. Smith, a professional Interior Designer, Interior Architect, LEED AP ID+C and design educator. I feel that her profile is very professional and descriptive of her talents. On her profile she writes about how she develops interior concepts after conducting feasibility studies, interviews and surveys. She touches the aspects of Interior Architecture that are crucial but not widely advertised like communication and presentation skills. Being that she is an educator, these skills are much needed, but they are also very important when working with building proposals and presenting 7

them to clients. The computer proficiencies she lists are CAD software; CDS and BIM; Adobe CS; Microsoft office. Lastly, I viewed this LinkedIn profile of an Interior Designer & Interior Architect. This profile does a great job at describing their team player skills which are essential to working in multidisciplinary teams. This profile covers team leading, managing and project experience from large scale luxury hospitality venues to high-end residences, restaurants, bars and cafs. Specialties listed are space planning, schematic and conceptual design, sourcing, sketching, construction documentation, and guiding/maintaining client specific design direction and subconsultant coordination. After reviewing the three job openings and their requirements, I discovered a picture of what I will need in terms of skills. When I researched people who are actually in the sorts of positions I will be applying for, I sought out understanding of the items that they consider critical to their own professional documents. This can be summed up in five criteria for determining an Interior Architects potential.

Evaluation Criteria:
1 2 3 4 5 What degrees do you poses? What is your Team/Managerial experience What sorts of interiors do you specialize/have experience in? What talents do you display in your portfolio? What are your Computer Programing skills?

Current Web Presence

Personal Search:
After performing searches on three different browsers, I quickly found out that there is little information about me on the internet that isnt private. What is kind of funny is that in all searches for my name, I came up only occasionally. It seems that the most hits go out to one specific individual with my name, just reversed. Rowand Taylor is a photographer in Australia and his pictures/articles come up on a search of my name way more often than me, Taylor Rowand. My first analysis was from a Bing, a search that came up with only my Facebook profile and a lot of links for that other Rowand fellow. Fortunately though, my profile is private so anyone who is not a friend cant see any of the information I have on my site. The following Bing pages are all filled with links concerning that other guy. A Google search, on the other hand, turned up more results of sites affiliated with me than Bing. Besides my private Facebook profile, Google listed my resume posted from my Wordpress, my Diigo public library of links, and my LinkedIn profile. What concurrently showed with this search was my account for Academia.edu (which is a site for searching research papers) and my resume a second time but on scribd.com. Once again, Rowand Taylor (the other guy) appears with a few links, but way fewer than the Bing search turned up. My third search was on the Yahoo search engine. This browser presented very similar results to Bing with lots of links to the other guy (Rowand Taylor) and only one link to my private Facebook profile. In the end, what was returned to me through these three search engines was neither good nor 9

bad. I can say that there is a lot I can do to improve my web presence, I will analyze that in the next section.

Bridging the Gap

Strengths:
In my current web presence, there is no threat to future potential employers with any embarrassing links, but on the flip side, there is not enough information to determine what kind of person I am and that which I am affiliated with. I should actually look at that as a good thing being that now it is up to me to create my own web presence in order to produce a professional web presence. So far, my LinkedIn profile is all that distinguishes my intentions for my future career and details about my education, area of focus, and skills. My LinkedIn profile displays three of my five criteria: what degrees I possess, what sorts of interiors I specialize in, and what my computer programming skills are. I feel that this is not enough to get hired in the specific type of career I intend to pursue.

Weaknesses:
I would have to say that one of my biggest weaknesses would definitely be in the amount of experience I have in my profession. I do not have any experience outside of studio classrooms and this is pretty evident. I plan on changing this when I take an architecture internship during graduate school. Then I will have some sort of experience in the architecture and interior design worlds. The second weakness I have is that there is no link to my portfolio online. Portfolios are very important 10

because of what they can tell an employer about your areas of expertise, so I must find a simple way to display it online. One way I have recently found is by a website that I actually found when accidentally clicking on one of Rowand Taylors links during one of my searches. I was brought to a website that targets creative works, and allows you to create a profile of with your portfolio and a great network to display them online and in front of the right companies. So in a fluke of clicking on the wrong link, I discovered a website that is perfect for my situation, TheLoop.com.au. I can use this site until the American one opens up to the public in the near future. A last thought to my future web presence is that I plan on designing a website for all my work and resumes that details my interests/experience and for any potential clients to realize what I am about. I feel that this will prove to be a very professional objective and make it much easier to display all of my work.

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Appendix
LinkedIn Job Opening URLs:
Healthcare Interior Designer http://www.linkedin.com/jobs?viewJob=&jobId=2231252&srchIndex=0&tr k=njsrch_hits&goback=.fjs_interior+architecture_*1_*1_Y_*1_*1_*1_1_R_true_ *2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2 SmithGroup JJRhttp://www.smithgroupjjr.com/ Senior Environment Designerhttp://www.linkedin.com/jobs?viewJob=&jobId=2223428&srchIndex=23&t rk=njsrch_hits&goback=.fjs_interior+designer_*1_*1_Y_*1_*1_*1_1_R_true_*2 _*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2 Zibahttp://www.ziba.com/ Interior Designerhttp://jobview.monster.com/Interior-Designer-Job-New-York-NY-US103348904.aspx Truisi Design Grouphttp://www.truisisuk.com/

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LinkedIn Profile URLs

Architectural Designer at Stegman+Associateshttp://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?trk=pp_profile_name_link&srchtotal =92460&authType=OUT_OF_NETWORK&pvs=ps&srchindex=8&goback=.fps_ PBCK_interior+architecture_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*2_*1_Y_*1_*1_*1_false_1_R_* 1_*51_*1_*51_true_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_ *2_*2_*2&srchid=785a45bc-93db-4539-9899-631ededda07c0&locale=en_US&id=62214096&authToken=HlUr Allison B. Smithhttp://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?trk=pp_profile_name_link&srchtotal =17246&authType=OUT_OF_NETWORK&pvs=ps&srchindex=46&goback=.fp s_PBCK_interior+architect_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*2_*1_Y_*1_*1_*1_false_5_R_*1_ *51_*1_*51_true_CC%2CN%2CG%2CI%2CPC%2CED%2CL%2CFG%2CTE%2 CFA%2CSE%2CP%2CCS%2CF%2CDR_us%3A0_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_ *2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2&srchid=2d3979f0-2846-4648-9267fe47e4babae9-1&locale=en_US&id=25790838&authToken=NHE3 Interior Designer & Interior Architecthttp://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?trk=pp_profile_name_link&srchtotal =92459&srchindex=18&srchid=785a45bc-93db-4539-9899-631ededda07c2&authToken=jj_r&authType=OUT_OF_NETWORK&pvs=ps&goback=.fps_PB CK_interior+architecture_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*2_*1_Y_*1_*1_*1_false_2_R_*1_* 51_*1_*51_true_CC%2CN%2CG%2CI%2CPC%2CED%2CL%2CFG%2CTE%2C 13

FA%2CSE%2CP%2CCS%2CF%2CDR_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_* 2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2&locale=en_US&id=27350584

Front page picture taken from Archdaily.com

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