I've been thinking of the best way to summarize this year, not just for myself but everyone I know in the industry. After much consideration one word will do nicely: Slammed.
From small companies to freelancers, everyone I know had more work than they knew what to do with in 2007 despite all the up-and-down news about economies and consumer confidence. Thankfully much of the work we did this year had little relationship to the Dow Jones or venture capital and from what I can see this will trend will continue into the new year.
A few weeks ago essays and comments were traded regarding the future of the syntax we use to craft web sites. It was a nifty exchange but I'd rather see that passion directed at the larger problem affecting this industry: The dwindling population of qualified, talented, and educated people who are available.
Do what you must to bring new techniques/frameworks to the market, but without more and improved labor to put it all into practice, it's just words on a website.
As an employer of a growing number of full-time and freelance workers I can tell you that it's becoming increasingly difficult to find good people. I have had several conversations with persons of top stature in the web design business who are of the same opinion. Their own businesses' have been slightly crippled this year due to work demand vs. human supply. Even non-web specific companies are having difficulty finding solid talent.
I don't see there being a quick turn-around for this problem but it will escalate if we don't spend time and resources to proactively help improve the situation (and hopefully with better results than with that other not-for-profit institution we all know and love). We can't rely on educational institutions to figure this out for themselves. Nor should we rely singularly on these facilities as we need to also embrace the self-starter with the same bravado and commitment that was given to web standards earlier this decade.
The work that most of us do is largely compatible, somewhat interchangeable, and with that in mind I believe it should be possible to come up with a simple curriculum—a guide for what a person can do to discover their strengths and weaknesses (designer vs. developer), understand the process of how a web shop operates, and set the standard for what is considered acceptable work for all disciplines. If we could do that much, and in a way that is inviting to persons so they will want to improve their own skill sets, then there is nothing to stand in the way of the next phase of success in our sphere of the entire industry.
I hope everyone has had a great holiday and a happy new year. Here's to all of us succeeding like wildfire in 2008.
Join the fray by reading through and commenting at the end.
There are 2516 incredibly talented people in this industry, and Google, Apple, and Yahoo know who 2515 of them are.
Amen brother. I'm right there with you on this. We simply need to spend less time bickering over semantics and minutiae and focus on more important issues; education being high on the list.
Like you I'll be thinking more on this as the year rolls one and we look to hire again.
Happy New Year and here's to a great 2008. Cheers!
You mean we're lucky to have you. ;)
Thanks for what you do for us at LexBlog Greg and continued success for the New Year.
Seems to be the state of the industry, so to speak. Everyone's hiring, but there aren't enough (qualified) people to fill the demand. It's good for us in the short-term, but I agree: Better education is the key going forward.
As for the whole HTML5 / CSS3 debate, I too am largely ambivalent. I've always been the type to want to build stuff, not pontificate over issues that have already been addressed (revive the font tag?). I would liken it to mathematics. Practical stuff like geometry, trig, and algebra always seemed applicable. When topics venture purely into the realm of theoretical, I lose interest.
Well put. Seems like we're always looking for 'more and improved' people (2 right now, actually). Not sure we're doing enough beyond that.
Maybe we need more job boards to lure the unsuspecting into the field. Fill up AEA sessions with confused accountants. Worth a shot.
See you in Utah.
I spent a large part of the beginning of my career in the animation industry where I watched it like a phoenix descend into ashes not solely due to a lack of talent but along with the 2d vs. 3d fight. It is now, I believe, once again rising up both in 2D and 3D and one of the things that has happened during this time specifically addressing the talent issue was the development of AnimationMentor.com by former and current Pixar Animators. Perhaps there is something to learn from their model, not so comprehensive as a lynda.com but infinitely more personal.
I try very hard to maintain a handle on all aspects of design and development, reading, studying, teaching myself as much as I can XHTML, HTML5, CSS, Flash/ActionScript, JavaScript, PHP, mySQL, Ruby on Rails. Being as well rounded as I can be because most if not all of what I do do outside of my 9 to 5 has required me to go from concept to completion on my own.
If there is a solution here outside of those that I rely on myself to keep up on the cutting edge of the industry, blogs, books, on the clock, etc. maybe this is it, to more formally and on a more personal level educate, all those who dare ask for the knowledge, ourselves.
I'm game to offer up what I know to any and all who may benefit from it, and for any who may have gaps to fill in their own teams from time to time I offer up my services for my own benefit ;)
J.
And on a side note, Zeldman I'm not real sure how to read your comment, my first instinct is to think that you feel that only the members of those teams are the true talent in the industry, while I would not dare question their talent certainly they are not the limit to the talent, surely it can't be your intention to imply that as well because I know that you yourself have an excellent team. Just a little hand holding on reading that one if you have a moment. A very happy and prosperous new year to each of you.
Cheers.
Thank you for writing this.
If there's anything I learned in 2007, it's that there are scores (and scores) of budding web designers out there. People that are still learning, still figuring out best practices (aren't we all?), thirsty for better ways to handle very specific problems that affect their every day work.
The perception within the tight-knit community is that the "educating the masses" battle is largely won. But I think it's far from it. And if there's one thing I fear from the recent syntax discussions and arguments is that it will cause more confusion and noise for those dipping their toes into better ways to craft websites.
Let's not let allow the debates to scare away the next generation.
Pity that CSS is doomed.
The typical solution to huge demand is to increase the price (i.e. web developer's salaries). This is the fastest way to get more people into the profession.
Excellent timing on the post Greg. I was speaking with a friend today about wondering how to train people up in this industry. And not just train them, but give them a passion for their work as well.
I do some web development for an international non-profit organization which has many bases established around the world. There's absolutely no way I could ever come close to working with each one, but with a group of talented and energetic designers and developers, we could make a change.
I think some sort of curriculum, or at least guide on what to teach/learn, would be very useful and if done well, well received. I've had to learn my strengths and weaknesses simply based upon jobs that didn't go off so well and others that soared.
This is something that I would be excited to see take off. Being involved in it as well would be superb! Do you have the little email list to put my contact details on for more info? ;-)
A good direction for 2008 to take!
Philip
As an aside, I'm a freelancer without a current project. I'm not going to pat myself on the back as top shelf quality and talent, but I know my stuff and am quick at the learning. Put me on your long list and maybe I can prove myself to the short one. In anycase, I'd love to know where to improve!
> There are 2516 incredibly talented people in this industry, and Google, Apple, and Yahoo know who 2515 of them are.
I think these companies keep a common pouching database. Within our own crew we've had two of those brands try to recruit away from Airbag in the last month.
> Maybe we need more job boards to lure the unsuspecting into the field.
Rather than more job boards, maybe we could use a recruitment website. I'd feel better about dragging in unsuspecting people if I thought our industry was mature enough to deliver on such promises. Still, that's worth exploring.
> The perception within the tight-knit community is that the "educating the masses" battle is largely won. But I think it's far from it.
Agreed. I think the battle to get the good news about web standards is on it's way to victory but there is still much work to do to raise the industry as a whole.
I'd like to hear how Airbag has amassed such a killer team itself. Do you seek people out or do they approach you to get on board? What's the recruiting process look like? Just wondering because I'm about to head down that road myself, aiming to hire skilled freelancers.
I'd like to think there's more going on than just a lack of people coming through the ranks and receiving a poor 'web design education'.
It's also that 'good companies' are struggling not with work demand vs. human supply, but with quality of work vs. quantity of work, and I suppose it's up to each company to figure that out for themselves which is more important.
Also I wonder if it would be in the 'good companies' interests not to try and recruit those same 2516 incredibly talented people as Google, Yahoo and Apple, but recruit the 5032 incredibly nice people with huge potential and help turn them into the web design rockstars of tomorrow. That to me seems a much more sustainable recruitment model, not just for the company but the whole industry.
A roadmap, compiled by some of the good minds above and others besides, a kinda online or virtual internship would be invaluable. Particularly for me.
Lost in the greytone world of Finance I have some database and code skills. My less than well exercised creative gusto wants out, and has forced me into HTML CSS Javascript.
My newfound friends are Coda, Pixelmator, Wordpress, Lineform and I wanna make the leap, use them every day and only pull Excel n Numbers out for fun.
All help in this, greatly appreciated. Thanks.
> I'd like to hear how Airbag has amassed such a killer team itself. Do you seek people out or do they approach you to get on board? What's the recruiting process look like?
Remember when Murdoch and Face would always have to find clever ways to get B.A. to eat/drink/do something that would make him black out so they could get him on a plane? It's a lot like that. I think Drew still has a mark where the 2x4 landed.
Besides that it's all about who you know. I either got to know these guys personally (I've worked with Russ for many, many years at the Cathedral and Ryan was one of the first Airbag readers/commentors from back in the day) or they came highly recommended by peers.
> quality of work vs. quantity of work...
Well I don't know about you Pete but at Airbag that's never an issue because we work very, very hard to achieve both. We only fail at the clients request because they don't know what they're doing.
As for your recruitment model, by the time you trained half of those people and improved their skill set they will seek employment elsewhere for more money. There has to be a tight balance that I don't believe can be managed on a large scale, otherwise your business turns into a vocational school.
> Lost in the greytone world of Finance I have some database and code skills.
I know I'm just a simple web designer but from everything Marketplace has taught me aren't you making fist-fulls of money and yacht titles? I know money isn't everything but go make it big and then buy an army of monkeys to do your bidding online.
Talk about facing qualified team shortage. We have just landed a massive contract with a company most creative types love to hate (hint - rhymes with Hell) and that means, among other things, to look for and hire dozens of new talent as soon as possible to help with the volume of work such a client brings in.
Problem is, local talent is pretty much like domain names now: All of the really good ones are taken, and what is still available is a mixed bag of so-so choices, or imply a serious compromise to sacrifice quality of work to invest in training, at least temporarily. You can't have all the IT rockstars to yourself. We are seriously reconsidering all aspects that make a candidate worthwhile for us, since some trade-offs may be in order but at the same time trying to minimize the impact this may bring.
"I believe it should be possible to come up with a simple curriculum"
Ahem. Yeah. Maybe for self-learning. But getting a curriculum adopted at an actual institution of higher learning? Not so much. The politics involved can be those of local industry & personalities, rather than the actual best practices or even the needs of the marketplace.
"it's all about who you know"
Maybe there needs to be a little more mixing it up? Look outside of the 2516 to the less visible, but still quality, web designers.
That, and a willingness to help people who don't know yet get up to speed. I'm to this day proud of how much I was able to help two different assistants in a previous job. They were both people with newly-minted (associate) degrees, but very vague on what I needed. What they both had was a willingness to learn, and they both learned like crazy.
I'm having a problem right now finding a way to break into web design. I'm not at a stage financially where I can go it alone, or spec my way into a job. Finding a firm that does real web design is next to impossible. There is a job gap that makes getting entry-level positions in current techniques next to impossible without packing up and panhandling in Palo Alto. This is preventing people with the chops but not the experience from moving up, and adding value to established firms.
> quality of work vs. quantity of work...
I'm not suggesting that Airbag or myself are having these types of issues. But I am aware of other good companies that are (like Beto), due to winning extra work that's causing them to bring on hires that aren't, shall we say, the most quality focussed.
>Recruitment model
So employees training budgets and peer reviewed work of 'junior' staff is bad thing, that will create the Aibag industries vocational school for the HTML gifted?
Personally if I was to ever become an employee again these things would be mandatory (the training and the reviews, not the school - although the school would be cool, it could be like the X-mansion!). I completely agree, you need to keep a tight balance on this type of thing and it's dependent on the existing skills of the team around you, perhaps a 'mentorship' is a better metaphor.
Yes, people will leave and do so for a bunch of reasons, not just because they've mastered the art of the floating div. But when they leave you've given them not just the skills to build a web page well, but the very best practice process around building that web page in a team environment. Hopefully, they put those skills to good use to teach others.
I'm a bit caught in the middle. Our company is small where we hire freelancers to fit the job, and getting well qualified ones is difficult. Even Authentic Jobs really didn't bring the candidates.
OTOH, we are not spilling over with work as Greg is. That could be from a lack of business development, a lower profile or whatever. Too much work isn't a problem we have yet and we need to find a remedy for that when not working full speed. Tough balance.
Lastly, as a part time educator, I can say a way to get an immediate impact on the curriculum of colleges is to go to the industry reviews that most schools have at the end of the term and go over what skills you are looking for with the students AND faculty. Good faculty respond to what the industry wants to see.
I think Matthew hits a good point here as well. There must be more than the 2500+ quality people that the top brands have scooped up. But more than companies like Airbag or any of the other firms commenting here figuring out how to find them is helping these skilled freelancers, most new to the real business side of it, learn how to be found.
From experience (both past and current), I know it's very hard to find that good work. Because while the firms want quality employees, I want quality projects! Because half of my portfolio contains projects too minor to impress the guy at Sweet Web Firm who's looking for a freelancer who's got the punch to put his new project out there successfully.
So I think there are a couple sides on this. There is a need to train up the next wave of quality designers and developers, but there's also a need to teach people how to break in to the industry, especially one that is pretty tight-knit up top.
Does that make sense? Am I way off base on that?
> There is a job gap that makes getting entry-level positions in current techniques next to impossible without packing up and panhandling in Palo Alto.
That's an interesting observation that I had not considered. That requires further thinking.
> Too much work isn't a problem we have yet and we need to find a remedy for that when not working full speed. Tough balance.
We are working on something, that, I hope, will help remedy this. I can't say anything right now but know that our best minds are on the problem.
> I can say a way to get an immediate impact on the curriculum of colleges is to go to the industry reviews that most schools have at the end of the term and go over what skills you are looking for with the students AND faculty.
I've never heard of such a thing. What's the process for being invited to these events?
> There must be more than the 2500+ quality people that the top brands have scooped up.
Of course there are, don't take Zeldman's number to be anywhere near verbatim.
> ...learn how to be found.
When I was twelve I was told that to get a job you have to be presentable and tenacious. The same is true today. The meek may inherit the Earth but they're not going to get good jobs unless they speak up, and often (it helps to have talent too).
> When I was twelve I was told that to get a job you have to be presentable and tenacious. The same is true today. The meek may inherit the Earth but they're not going to get good jobs unless they speak up, and often (it helps to have talent too).
A wise man once told me that when you don't have a job, your job is to look for one... 9 to 5, 40hrs a week if need be.
(and of course there are more than 2500 people out there, I meant that to mean how are they to be found or reveal themselves? A: see what you said above!)
We need to educate employers, not employees, about the things a good designer should have under their hat, so we don't have non-designers in management roles and print designers in a web capacity and all the real talent down in the basement coding it all together for half the pay, overlooked and ignored despite their talent.
In my experience, the truly great designers are those that have gone for it out of a passionate desire to create. They teach themselves, and rely on their own mind, not a curriculum or an outdated indoctrination.
> The meek may inherit the Earth but they're not going to get good jobs unless they speak up, and often (it helps to have talent too).
Great advice. I wish I would have heard that 12 years ago!
>I've never heard of such a thing. What's the process for being invited to these events?
Greg, I got on the list by placing job listings on the school's job board. Now I get emails all the time from the school. Here in OC where you and I are, there is The Art Institute of California - Orange County, but I know JCs and other institutions do this.
Here's a bit from their last email:
Portfolio Show
Joe's Garage
36 Auto Center Drive, Tustin CA 92782
» December 12th
1pm - 3pm: Students Family & Friends
4pm - 7pm: Industry Profesionals Only
Presenting at portfolio show:
Bachelor of Science Programs
- Game Art & Design
- Graphic Design
- Industrial Design
- Interior Design
- Media Arts & Animation
- Interactive Media Design
Associate of Science Programs
- Graphic Design
- Interactive Media Design
I'll forward the email to you off line. Check your spam filter.
I've been to a portfolio review, that's where I found Stephen, but I don't recall being invited to discuss their web design based curriculum.
Ah, sorry. I didn't mean to imply there was a formal process for curriculum input.
Just informally, these events are an opportunity to let students and faculty know that when hiring for positions A and B, you (industry pro) are looking for X, Y and Z. Good faculty should steer their coursework to best prep their kids in the skills and thought processes the industry is looking for.
Sounds like at least you found some talent. That's good.
Greg, do you do any in-house training or provide/encourage your employees to further their knowledge and experience in the field? For many employees, these type of things can be a major perk. The benefit for the employer is that it can be an opportunity to guide/mentor/mold someone to the enhancement of both parties. Perhaps an investment in your employees could pay dividends.
> I didn't mean to imply there was a formal process for curriculum input.
Ah, well there should be. It would make their services that much more valuable to students and their bottom line. The first design school that can get Zeldman, Cedarholm, and Meyer on their board of advisors will see an increase in applicants immediately. It's a pity that educators don't have eyes for such opportunities.
> Greg, do you do any in-house training or provide/encourage your employees to further their knowledge and experience in the field?
Always. Started when I managed clerks at the grocery store as a teenager, continued when I managed a collection of coffee shops and then continued the practice in the design and development world.
Any employer who doesn't actively encourage continuing education and mentorship is an idiot and/or a ruthless profiteer.
> I know money isn't everything but go make it big and then buy an army of monkeys to do your bidding online.
No. I want to leave the monkeys behind and do my own online bidding, thus the help you're suggesting is a breath of fresh.
There is tight 'n' well established community in the US, where Australia is still cultivating its own. This, I want to be a part of.