Startup Weekend just put together a video called Rise of the Designer to encourage businesspeople and developers to befriend their local designers and collaborate with them. Not familiar with Startup Weekend? It’s essentially a 54-hour business incubator where people pitch ideas, build prototypes and show off demos. Pretty much any given weekend, there’s a Startup Weekend happening somewhere in the world.
Kyle Kesterson is leading the charge to bring designers and creatives into the mix. Last January they hosted a “Rise of the Designer”-themed Startup Weekend in Seattle and increased the regular attendance of designers from about five to 37. He says they’re in talks with local organizers in San Francisco and New York to do more Rise of the Designer weekends later this year, and eventually do them in Europe and Southeast Asia, too.
This is totally what we were talking about in our last video about how designers fit in startup culture. Designers who are looking for a new job or trying to make a career change need to get comfortable working in the online space and learn to improvise with startups. Learn more about the concept and how it works in the video below:
Awesome video, glad to see that designers’ value and contributions in start-ups is becoming a trend more people and organizations are focusing on. Kudos to Startup Weekend for getting behind this!