A Web Design and Development Blog
February 23rd, 2010
Apparently I seem to have lost a decade somewhere… Maybe down the back of the sofa? No? Oh, that’s right, it went mostly on building websites, with occasional sitting in pubs ranting about usability. I thought, given that it’s 2010 and clearly the future, it would be worth distilling some of the wisdom of ten years worth of web shenanigans.
Especially the ranting parts.
Read the rest of Thoughts on a Decade of Professional Web Jobs
February 19th, 2010
That’s the rather broad, but exciting, question that Multipack are attempting to answer tomorrow. Let me explain…
The whole thing began back at the Multipack Presents event last year, Being Green, where Paul gave a presentation about his frustrations with waste in the web industry (particularly conferences like SXSW and their regularly-binned goodie bags). Paul envisioned a grassroots coalition of webby types working together to reduce our environmental impact.
After some brainstorming amongst interested parties the name a.green:focus stuck, yeah it’s a CSS joke, but that’s endearing right?
Tomorrow’s event has taken a while to organise, but Hack the Planet is something I’m genuinely excited about. The concept is simple, run a Hack Day, where the objective is to build something to lessen our impact on the environment. There’s a lot of talented people descending on Brum to put our brains together and build … something. The exciting part is we don’t yet know what! Oh sure, there’s ideas floating about like the virtual conference goodie bag, but somebody might suggest something awesome at 10am that gets everybody fired up and takes on a life of its own. That’s the fun of it!
It’s not just a local thing, which is nice, Cole has chipped in by designing the poster for the event and the nice foks at Campagn Monitor are sponsoring. It’s got that nice feeling of an event where people pull together.
Final details are here, if you fancy coming and helping build something in a day.
December 7th, 2009
Recently I gave up the life of a University web developer and moved to the exiting world of semantic web and library web services.
One of the nice things about the whole experience has been that Twitter has worked as a great bridge into the new role. It’s that whole ambient intimacy thing. Before I’d even set foot in the organisation as an employee, I had connections with people within it. More importantly, in a way, I felt connected to it.
Once I’d announced my acceptance of the new job, I had a raft of employees and well-wishers from the company’s sphere of interest, all making me feel that I was already part of the place before I’d arrived; Helping me with my transport queries, sharing useful knowledge, making me feel part of the culture and so on.
That’s a powerful thing. Feeling you’re welcome, appreciated and valued, before you’re even in the office.
The point here is that the untapped use for Twitter is bridging transition into new employment. Given that the tech industry is fairly notorious in its inability to retain talent from offer to actual arrival, that feeling of belonging to culture, which twitter can create, is a powerful tool in the recruitment arsenal.
Of course, I only applied for the role due to a tweet by Rob Styles, who I originally followed as another web person in Birmingham. So it’s a double edged sword, what helps you integrate new employees might also allow your talented employees to be lured away…
© 2008 Matt Machell