There’s a huge catch in all of this though. Web developers are quite possibly the dumbest professionals on the earth. No other industry sees it’s standard salaries and income vary as much as the web development industry. Imagine trying to pick between one lawyer who charges $300 / hr, or one that charges $10 / hr. The cheaper one sounds enticing, but we all know you usually get what you pay for.

That’s the trouble with the web. Because so many developers are willing to provide services for next to nothing (for a variety of reasons), the entire industry suffers. There’s just not much consistency in what people expect to pay for professional web dev services.

And now, professional companies are starting to get into this mindset as well. As I’ve been trolling for steady jobs, I’ve seen tons of positions open for senior web developers that pay $15 to $20 / hr.

That’s an insultingly low rate to pay a senior web developer. The skillset and intelligence required to perform solid web development duties is typically on par with my own background in structural and civil engineering. This stuff is complicated, and $15  / hr isn’t reflective of the skill required to successfully create and implement a good web app.

So, what will likely happen, is good paying jobs will be more geo-centric to tech hubs throughout the country (New York, San Francisco, etc..), and the remaining web development work will be limited to implementations of the products that come out of those areas.

The variety that’s made the web so intriguing for years, will likely fade to a much more bland version of the web, filled with millions of cookie-cutter websites about uninteresting products and services.

It’s frustrating, because even some of my closest friends feel the need to undercut their services to get work. My own colleagues and buddies are helping to enforce the un-sustainability of our own careers.

While there was definitely a lot of good talks during FOWA, a few really stood out for me: Jason Fried, Joel Spolsky, and Gary Vaynerchuck. Since I was recently laid off, I’ve been looking for some guidance in how I’m going to approach working independently. The take away from those three speakers was: Don’t learn from failure, but success, eliminate distractions when working on code, and ‘Care’.

Jason Fried, founder of 37 signals and one of the creators of Ruby on Rails, spoke without slides to aid him. He spoke about business and startup strategy. One of the more impressive things he said, was that he never failed. He furthered the point stating he’s “tired of people talking about learning from failure”.  Another quote: “Does that mean you gotta fail a million times to figure out what works?”.

I’m not going to fail.

Joel Spolsky‘s speech could have easily been taken as a pitch to hire new developers. The extent to which his company makes developers feel comfortable, and strides to stay out of their way, is awesome. He talked at length about how developers do the most amazing work when they’re “in the zone”. Interrupting them only serves to keep them out of that zone, and limit the production that can be realized by them.

I’m not going to let stupid shit interrupt me when I’m working.

Gary V‘s speech was definitely the most enthralling of the event. That guy is definitely one of the most incredible people I have ever met. His speech was actually pretty short, but he took a lot of Q/A to fill the space. One attendee asked Gary something about marketing strategy. Gary’s response: “You wan’t a frickin marketing strategy? CARE”. He went on to talk about the number of existing marketing strategies that only serve to make a one time purchase / sale, and how damaging that is to a brand.

Gary Vaynerchuk at FOWA Miami 09 from DamianVoltes.com on Vimeo.

I will care about what I make and what I do.

So that’s the take away for me. I’m not going to fail or let myself get interrupted, but I’m sure as hell going to care about what I’m doing. I’m incredibly excited about everything that’s possible right now.

It’s probably already been said, but I can’t thank the people at Carsonified enough for putting on this show. I had an awesome time, and I really appreciate the effort it must have taken to pull it off.

I found an excellent article by Bob Selden about this at lockergnome.com. I use much of that article to convey my point here.

One of the things Bob points out is how much people rely on visual and audible cues in conversation to understand the meaning of what is being communicated to them. In any type of written word, that variable is lost, opening the floodgates of potential interpretations of what you’re trying to say.

Consider the following sentence:

“You’ve didn’t give me the report”.

I interpret this as accusatory, though it may not have been meant that way. Maybe “the report”, is a laborous task that the writer doesn’t want to recieve, and is grateful for not being given. It may very well be an accusatory statement, but without the malice behind it that a reader might believe.

For those of you who’ve been to college; I’m sure you can come up with some textbook example of ways to make sure that your point is taken verbatim. However, that relys on the concurrent thinking of the reader. By assuming that using well documented rules of writing will ensure your message is accurately recieved, you assume the reader is abiding by the same rules.

Quite frankly, that can be a big leap.

The flip-side of this discussion is; if you believe someone offended you in something they’ve written, take the time to be sure that they actually have. This may sound defensive, given the point of view I’m writing this from. However, I honestly believe that unless you know someone is being rude or inconsiderate to you, give them the benefit of the doubt.

Some things are, usually, more certain cues that you are, in fact, being persecuted by someone

• All caps writing (YOU DIDN’T GIVE ME THE REPORT)
• Foul language (You didn’t give me the d@$% report)
• Superlative statements (You never gave me the report)
• Excessive punctuation (You never gave me the report!!!!)

In short:

• Before you write: think about it (re-think if you need to)
  • If someone’s feelings can be hurt by what your writing, they probably will.
  • If what you’re saying can be taken out of context, take the time to write each of your statements so that it cannot.
• Before you react: think about it (call someone if you need to)

The following links have some information well worth reading:

http://www.lockergnome.com/nexus/windows/2006/03/28/email-etiquette-whats-the-missing-link

http://online.uwc.edu/Technology/onlEtiquette.asp

http://www.cadence90.com/wp/index.php?p=2793

http://www.cafemama.com/etiquette.html