IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2016 - 48

What about ethical
and social responsibility-
those are certainly hot
button issues right now
in corporate America.
Do you see those issues
on the rise in design firms?

SILVERMAN Millennials want to work on stuff that matters. It's not just necessarily
someone's definition of social responsibility or sustainability, but they want to do
meaningful work. And quite honestly, not all firms are focused on that. We find
success with that in the small non-profit work that we're doing.

We just had all of our reviews (all nine of them!) and we asked the staff what
projects meant the most to them. And it wasn't the ones we were submitting for
awards or spending lots of money photographing. For most of them it was "that little
barn restoration that we did for the Girl Scouts"-stuff they can relate to and stuff
that matters to them. When we're interviewing people, they're asking not just
"What am I going to work on?" and "What's my role?" but they're also asking, "What
can I bring to a project?" I love that people care about that. You know, who knows,
in a couple of years, if the economy isn't doing as well, people may not have that
luxury. But right now, designers can really look for firms that can give them an
opportunity to do something positive. And that's a good thing.
MARQUARDT HDR is an employee-owned company so that may have something to do
with it, but they put an incredible amount of resources behind community work. It's
very normal that I see the young architects working on pro-bono projects after work.
They're really involved in education as well, there are a number of other people in
the office besides me who teach, which is nice. At my firm, we used to build a house
for Habitat for Humanity in El Salvador every summer, in the same village. It was
great. It actually started because we used to buy all of our clients steaks every year,
and we started to think-isn't there something better we could do with this money?
And then when we figured out we could build a house for what we were spending
on steaks? It was a great experience. We put it out on social media and it actually
brought people into the office, new employees, which I thought was so interesting.
SILVERMAN

Speaking of politics,
we're in an election year,
and water cooler talk
about candidates and
debates seems unavoidable.
Does political chatter have
a place at the office?

Designers certainly know
how to put in the hours.
Does spending so much time
with our colleagues make
the line between personal
and professional difficult to
navigate? How does social
media play into that?

Absolutely.

SILVERMAN I've always tried to steer clear of political discussion in the office, but it
seems more difficult this election!
MARQUARDT It's hard because some of the things that are going on are just so
ridiculous-how can you even intelligently talk about it? When you're in a room
with a bunch of well-educated, directed people doing work that's important to them,
to me, that's the focus, and the other stuff can just become chatter.
ENIGL I think you should be able to talk about it. It has a lot of implications for the
future, especially in design. You just need to be respectful, say "I'll listen to your
point of view, but if you would do me the same courtesy, I'd appreciate it." You spend
all day at work, you know? Might as well.

SILVERMAN Social media means that our personalities are just out there. Our likes or
dislikes, our interests, passions-things that when I was a young employee, working
at a design firm, no one ever would have known. But on social media, you share,
and people know who you are in a different way than they might otherwise know
you as a colleague. Oftentimes I think that's a good thing. (Though being the boss,
I'm always very hesitant to friend somebody!) But it's nice to see, oh this person has
this family thing going on, this person is attending this concert-you realize you
have connections you might not otherwise know about just in the daily course of
working together. It helps to break down some of the political barriers that can come
up. I think the politics comes from not really knowing each other. And social media
helps break those barriers down-you can get to know people beyond the office,
discover who the person is you're working with twelve hours a day. And that's
a good thing. (Until, you know, someone says something really stupid on Facebook
and then you have to fire them. Ha!)

{Boisterous laughter from the group}

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