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Thinking out loud about my career and what next
Monday April 3, 2006
I have been feeling extremely anxious of late, which may seem a bit odd given that at no other point in my career as a web developer have things been so good. In a month or two I should be out of the red and back in the black; a first in 6 years. So why the worry?
Well, because I feel I am on my way to becoming obsolete, I am going out of fashion, I am a breed of web designer that is dead in the water; I am not a fully blown graphic designer nor a programmer, I am somewhere in between and master of neither. If I rest on my laurels now I have one or two years, at best, before I am going to be of no interest to anyone seriously involved in producing websites in this day and age.
Lest I forget Internet Explorer 7 will change things; CSS development will become much easier if the world’s most popular browser has decent support for the standard.
Right now, in 2006, in a world that is dominated by Internet Explorer 6 and all the problems that entails, as someone who can develop, design and build a site using well written XHTML, a little CSS magic and some applied common sense I am doing alright, but I think it’s time to specialise (further) or die. Basically, if I stay stood still, in a year or two I will be back to doing just little, unprofitable, jobs.
I am fortunate, though, I have had the opportunity to peep into what is likely to become the norm. I have had the chance to work, and am currently working on, some not unsubstantial "Web 2.0” applications.
I am hired because, I hope at least, I can do a good job of writing lean, clean, semantically rich HTML and that I can take other people’s designs from storyboards to working pages and do so in an organised manner.
But even now employed simply as a CSS and XHTML “developer”, there are expectations on the job that have surprised me and are going to become more commonplace in the future; learning to work within frameworks, be that Ruby on Rails or something else, and, of course, there is the standard statement: ah! you don’t do JavaScript, do you?
So what to do? How to specialise?
Become a graphic designer
Some people, I get the impression, have me down as a graphic designer and the simple truth is I am not one of those. I have learnt to accept that I am a designer of sorts, and thinking about it, I have been a designer all of my life, it just so happens that I spent a large amount of my time designing food.
Where it stands with graphics and me is simple; I can do it up to a point. If someone wants a website building relatively cheaply I will show them sites I have designed and let them decide if they are happy with what I am capable of, but I am not afraid to know when I am out of my depth with graphic design; I know when to call in a specialist.
Examples of things I just won’t do professionally are:
- Design for print
- Design logos
- Artwork for CD covers or labels
In 2 years I could probably seriously improve my graphic design skills but I look at the likes of Cameron Moll, Jason Santa Maria, Mark Boulton, Denis Radenkovic, Veerle Pieters and Jon Hicks and can’t help but think I really don’t have the natural ability to be that good.
Besides, I get a real kick out of working with talented people’s creations. Joshuaink is a prime example of that; Denis provides me with a show stopping illustration, I plop some relatively simple graphics over the top and get on with the job of CSS and XHTML; working with that level of talent makes me happy and I enjoy the challenges it presents.
I am happy to offer my graphic design skills to smaller businesses who, perhaps, can’t afford a team of 7 on a web project and I am happy to keep watching and learning from the masters but can I see the day when I will stand up and say I am a graphic designer? No, to be frank, I don’t see that day ever coming.
Become a creative director/user experience designer
I’ve done this job before, only it was called Head Chef last time.
I like coming up with ideas, I like solving problems creatively, I love working with other people, I get a real buzz out of working with people who can take an idea and turn it into something real. But I also like to be hands on, I enjoy the process.
Essentially, this option is not one I would reject but I am not sure I am quite ready to pursue it as a full time career just yet; I still have the strong desire to be at the coal face.
Become a writer and a speaker
Joshuaink, you will often hear me whine, is a mixed bag; on the one hand it’s served the somewhat unexpected purpose of getting my name out there (which has its advantages, I freely admit) and (because of the nature of the content) it has allowed me to improve my writing skills in a relatively criticism free enviroment. On the other hand it’s not exactly the vehicle any serious web developer would choose to get themselves from point A to point B.
How this has manifested itself in reality is that, thus far, any writing gigs I have been offered have been because the first or second choice has dropped out. Don’t get me wrong, being even third choice is a pretty cool place to be and an opportunity is an opportunity and I am an opportunist, I’ll take it if I think it can help my career.
But will these finished works (yes there is another little something coming) propel me further down the path to a career as an author? Do I really want to pursue this line? If I do, hadn’t I better take some English lessons pretty sharp-ish and brush up on my grammar?
In short the answer is that I like writing and if someone wants to pay me (or give me exposure) in exchange for my own take on all things web, then I am happy to do it, but do I really think I have a future as a professional writer? No not really.
My work here at Joshuaink hasn’t exactly given anyone any reason to ask me to speak either, now has it? I mean what are they likely to think? If Oxton gets up on the stage what’s he likely to say?
Heeeyy yer fucking cunts, web standards-based design is great, I loves it I do… err… that is all!
To the point, agreed, but not exactly a ground breaking thought. Speaking, even if I could get a gig, is probably not for me; the space is already crowded and I don’t think I have anything unique enough to offer to bother pursuing that line any further.
Besides all that, when I, occasionally, wake up in the morning in a bad mood, it’s good to know I have a place I can go to where I can shout FUCK at the world; so getting all serious about Joshuaink in the hope that the world will call me expert is unlikely to last very long anyway.
Become a front end developer/engineer/architect
Thanks to the likes of Nate Koechley, Garrett Dimon and Jeremey Keith I am already well down this road. JavaScript is the gaping hole in my skillset but, though I claim to be at a standstill, this is really what I have been focussing my efforts in the last year or so but I have stalled, I am hesitating.
Much of my work is pushing me down this route anyway but is it really want I want? I am after all a frustrated graphic designer, author and speaker but I think I have more chance of succeeding down this route than any other, and I had already started down this route with Flash and ActionScript.
Shortly before I unequivocally dropped Flash as part of my skillset (making it profitable was proving difficult), I was very much getting to the point where Flash, for me, meant handling data coming in from a database and turning that into something the user could interact with. I do often wonder where I would be with that now if I’d have stuck with it; skint and wondering what I should do next I have no doubt… oh, wait!
So here, I think, is where my future lies but to give it the commitment it needs really does mean abandoning all else; I have three kids remember, plenty of time is not a luxury I enjoy.
Or there is one final option:
Go for the master plan
I have an idea, who doesn’t, but it’s been in my head for months now and I still think it’s a good idea. I have talked to other non-techie people about it and they think it’s a good idea too.
I am not going to discuss it here because the idea is so simple I know any day soon someone is going to have done it and I will have missed my chance. Actually the truth is, it has been done and is being done over and over again but it’s done so badly that I do actually have the niggling thought that there may be time yet.
What do I need for this idea to come to life? A bloody good programmer, a bloody good front end man, an angel investor and probably about a year to get to launch.
Of course it all sounds so simple but even getting to the point where I can present the idea and not have someone just walk off with it is difficult.
Ah! the master plan, the ideas of day dreamer, maybe one day I’ll develop sufficiently large testicles to take the leap into the unknown.
Conclusion
Well there isn’t really a conclusion, these are the thoughts swirling around in my head right now; writing them down hasn’t really helped much but I may, at 4.45am, be able to sleep now I have emptied my head out.
