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Wednesday, May 05, 2010

Working Mom Wednesday - Career Change

Happy Cinco de Mayo! It's time for another Working Mommy Wednesday, brought to you by "Work, Wife, Mom Life" and "This Mommy Works"!!

What would you do if you could change your career?
Before I got into the toy industry 10 years ago I was very passionate about green design. I read Victor Papanak and a multitude of green designers, put a ton of research into job opportunities and found it to be a very small field of established professionals who didn't have enough budget to bring in someone "green", right out of school :(

Immediately after graduation I was offered a position in a small toy company and I've stayed for 10 years. I've tried throughout these 10 years to introduce green design into plush toys and found it to be cost prohibitive. The cost to produce a green product is about double the cost of a regular plush and therefore the cost in the market is almost double and the average customer is not willing to pay the additional cost. A vast majority of plush toy makers need to join together to buy only "green" materials, then cost of materials will come down and the prices of green toys can be affordable to the average consumer.

If I were to change career's it would be a shift into green design, finding solutions to product development and not relegated to toys. Meanwhile I'll keep looking for ways to change my current industry!

5 comments:

Lisa said...

It is a shame that it has to cost so much more to make better toys.

It sounds like you have an awesome job though - I would love to develop toys :-)

Miss. C said...

The "green" push is big right now in the grant world and I love what my clients are doing with the money we get to make the "green" thing happen!!

I would love working with toys, it makes me think of Tom Hanks in the movie Big!!!

Julia Ladewski said...

bummer that it DOES cost more b/c I really think it would make a big difference in our kids' health!! keep drumming up ideas.. you never know! ;)

Grit said...

but we can all change the world in little ways, and if we accumulate enough little ways it turns into a big force, so keep going forward with your aspirations!

R. Molder said...

Thanks ladies, I'll keep working on my green ideas!