The User Experience world is filled with many disciplines: information architecture, user researcher, interaction design, copywriting, and visual design — to name just a few. Each of these disciplines have a rich history, a deep knowledge base, and an extensive tool set. Each takes a lifetime to master.
While the successful team needs all of these [...]

From a user experience professional perspective, the current economy has a weird convergence happening:

Because of the economic downturn (due to the rising fuel costs and mortgage market crisis), some companies are laying off and some are disappearing outright.
Because executives understand the competitive value of creating great experiences, user experience professionals are in great demand.

This convergence [...]