Looking back on her time in College of Design studios, Mia Blume [\u201905 BGD] notes, \u201cI think that was the first moment where I really realized my two passions, art and technology, could be fused into a career.\u201d An interdisciplinary perspective has undoubtedly helped Blume in her current post where she leads the product design team at one of the hottest social media companies in the world, Pinterest. The company is based in the trendy SoMA district in downtown San Francisco, where walls are constantly being torn down to make room for more office space to house the growing number of \u201cPinners\u201d who work there.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had been a \u2018Pinner\u2019 [an avid user of Pinterest] before I realized I wanted to work at Pinterest,\u201d Blume recalls, \u201cWhen I worked at IDEO, Pinterest was a tiny startup literally across the street from our building. Every day that I went to lunch or walked down the street, I passed Pinterest and I was always kind of curious.\u201d While those lunchtime walks didn\u2019t directly lead to Pinterest at first [she had several other ventures in between], Blume was quick to get on board when the opportunity arose. \u201cPinterest was a product that I enjoyed using on a regular basis. It brought out a lot of my inspiration and creativity because it was a product that I was so passionate about personally. It was inevitable that I was going to become part of the team to help build it and make it better than it is today.\u201d<\/p>\n
Blume wears many hats at Pinterest. Her work is focused on \u201csetting the product design team up for success,\u201d as she puts it. Blume seeks out new talent for the company, supports individual designers on various assignments, leads new design projects, and works closely with other team leaders to build a company culture that helps \u201cbuild awesome stuff,\u201d as she likes to say. Pinterest\u2019s mission is poised at the intersection of art and technology and the company is currently situated in the hottest place for such fusion to occur, Silicon Valley. When asked about the company\u2019s mission, Blume turns philosophical. \u201cFrom a people perspective, I feel that both technology and design are trying to accomplish the same thing \u2013 create things that allow people to do things that they couldn\u2019t do before,\u201d she says.\u00a0 \u201cBoth designers and engineers are problem solvers. There\u2019s an alignment around what we want to achieve, but the skills we bring are different so we\u2019re a perfect blend of talent and collaboration. If our designers aren\u2019t sitting next to an engineer, prototyping and collaborating, they\u2019re not going to build the kind of product we want to build. Designers and programmers have to learn each others\u2019 languages in order to build a more holistic, well-rounded product. There\u2019s not some designer sitting in the corner coming up with some magical idea then throwing it over the fence to engineering. That just doesn\u2019t exist here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Blume notes that the last few years have been especially fruitful for collaboration to flourish, emerging in particularly dynamic ways in Silicon Valley and New York. \u201cThat model has existed for a longer time in the physical world but not the digital world.\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow we\u2019re starting to see a much higher bar for what a great product looks like and feels like that is evidence of that fusion of technology and design. I think it was kind of inevitable.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Using Pinterest, users create their own unique experiences by developing galleries akin to traditional thumbtack boards \u2013 a type of visual digital diary that is half personal identity and half personal wishlist \u2013 which simultaneously personalizes contributor content and generates an organizational framework for individual experiences.<\/p>\n
Coming full circle to her thoughts on design education, Blume is quick to cite the importance of design fundamentals. She finds close parallels with the fundamentals employed at Pinterest and the ones she learned while at the College. \u201cA lot of the fundamentals are the same \u2013 understanding the fundamentals of design, the history, and what it means to give and receive feedback. Without those, you\u2019re not going to survive.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo matter what the skills are, the things we build are out in the world.\u201d she says. \u201cI would advocate for a design curriculum that supports more collaboration with technology and engineering \u2013 to push the boundaries of building, not just designing. Getting into the construction of what we\u2019re making, not just the craft, but the product thinking \u2013 which is a fusion of business and technology and design. That is where we\u2019re headed!\u201d<\/p>\n