What's the best piece of advise you've got as an emerging architect or design professional

This is applicable if you intend starting your own firm:
1 The best marketer in the world can't sell a piece of s......t
2 You can have the best product in the world, if you do not market it properly you may just as well try to sell pieces of s......t.
3 80% of all marketing is a waste of money, there is just nobody alive who can tell you which 80%
4 If you dress like a menial laborer you'll be treated as one.

Try and find a firm where you can learn the most and get exposure to design and documentation.

Be flexible and don't force your vision down others throats. It isn't the architect who tells a client what they need who is the artist, it is the architect that takes a program set forth by the client and turns that into a piece of art, who is. Ego based architecture had it's place, and I suppose it still does, I suppose, but I get calls all the time from clients who dumped the inflexible guy. Be creative, see what you can do to help, not impose.

Advise and advice are two different words. You can get and receive advice, but you advise someone. 1st one is a noun , 2nd one a verb.

Stay true to your design. The client hired you for a reason, don't let them talk you out of your design. Your the professional not them.

Try to get experience across a range of scale and type of projects (from design to documentation) - it's important to get a sense of the variety of projects when you first start out to figure what you like/are good at etc. Above all, a good mentor can change the world. :)

AIA's IDP program is 50 years out of date. Like the curriculum in most schools of architecture it looks back to the 1960s and is ill suited to helping new grads survive in today's economy. There are 30% more architects than are needed. The magic number of designers to population is one architect to 10,000 people for traditional services. To survive the boom/bust cycle which AIA refuses to deal with; the business model must be reinvented. New markets must be served. New products invented. Architecture can only survive according to business strategy profs...if it gets into contracting or engineering. AIA's push into digital media is too little, too late. The animation and simulation world has been taken over by MFAs with computer backgrounds. People will only build beautiful things if they can afford them. The USA is losing ground economically. Traditional architect aimed at glorifying corporate and government elites is dead.

I just published a blog about this very question. Check it out at www.roguearch.com

Build without Wood if you want a long last career. Watch the slideshows, http://bit.ly/1NZyoWb

Make sure the front door and the dumpster are in the right places... everything else will fall into place.

Learn about Money and Time. Most Architects dont know much/anything about how much things acually cost or how long they actually take to source and build/install. In learning about these 2 things (study the program and cost plan) you will be forced to understand construction. If you understand Time, Money and Construction you will be INVALUABLE and have a corner office in no time. You will also be sort out and be able to actually Design beautiful things that will actually get built.