If you're a junior or are taking the self-taught path in one of the various disciplines of design, organizations like those listed — and in your local area — are a much better use of your time and energy. Both in terms of real world impact on the work you do, but also in terms of getting real, practical, hands on experience with working on and dealing with real world problems.

Well said Reece. I wholeheartedly agree. One thing to note is that it's also more difficult for juniors to genuinely appreciate the value of this advice — which is thrown around a lot, for good reason — without having experienced value from both sides of this spectrum (e.g. surface level design to solving real problems)

The real question to pose, perhaps: How might we get juniors to trust in this way of thinking, without having experienced its benefits. It's been my experience anyway, that I only truly began to see the value in having "real, practical, hands on experience with working on and dealing with real world problems" much later in my career. Well past my junior years.

Then again ... blindly following advice isn't great. Especially when it goes against innocuous redesigns that will inevitably be phased out as the designer in question becomes more experienced.

Good :)