Accomplishement Paralysis, Part 1
Jun. 4th, 2010 12:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elfsI had the pleasure the other day of attending the Seattle Web Designer's Meetup. It wasn't so much designers, though, as developers, and despite a membership of 66 on the list, and 14 RSVPs, there were only seven people there the entire evening.
We gathered names and current positions: two working, three unemployed, one dedicated freelancer with several contracts underway, and one who described himself as a "web-based small businessman."
As we discussed our current projects, I realized that I was probably the only guy there with any actual passion for design. I had a number of interests that I wanted to talk about-- developing for Django, for NodeJS, for MySQL and Mongo, for jQuery, even my stalled (like everything else) Flash Replacement Projects. I showed off a couple of the unfinished FRPs, and everyone was suitably impressed.
The businessman, it turns out, has a slew of web-based stores where he re-sells speciality items that he buys in bulk from other resources. Basically, he makes money sellings things at a higher price than Amazon, but by creating storefronts that cater directly to the purchaser, rather than a generic storefront that sells everything.
He sells a lot of woo: vitamins, new-age jewerly (think crystals and copper bracelets), yoga supplies, locally produced CDs. And he apparently makes a comfortable enough living at it.
Here's the thing, though: his websites are boring. They're pedestrian; flat colors, table layouts, little interactivity, no mobile compliance at all. And yet he's making money. They look like they came out of 2001, not 2010.
He wanted to hire me. I demurred, saying that I was already gainfully employed. He accepted that but suggested that we stay in touch.
It's still a little frustrating to realize that because he deferred excellence in my field, he's more successful-- by an absolutely essential metric-- than I am. He's willing to be a businessman, to put up cheap, simple stores that sell something people want, no matter how poorly, but in some sense better than the megasites.
We gathered names and current positions: two working, three unemployed, one dedicated freelancer with several contracts underway, and one who described himself as a "web-based small businessman."
As we discussed our current projects, I realized that I was probably the only guy there with any actual passion for design. I had a number of interests that I wanted to talk about-- developing for Django, for NodeJS, for MySQL and Mongo, for jQuery, even my stalled (like everything else) Flash Replacement Projects. I showed off a couple of the unfinished FRPs, and everyone was suitably impressed.
The businessman, it turns out, has a slew of web-based stores where he re-sells speciality items that he buys in bulk from other resources. Basically, he makes money sellings things at a higher price than Amazon, but by creating storefronts that cater directly to the purchaser, rather than a generic storefront that sells everything.
He sells a lot of woo: vitamins, new-age jewerly (think crystals and copper bracelets), yoga supplies, locally produced CDs. And he apparently makes a comfortable enough living at it.
Here's the thing, though: his websites are boring. They're pedestrian; flat colors, table layouts, little interactivity, no mobile compliance at all. And yet he's making money. They look like they came out of 2001, not 2010.
He wanted to hire me. I demurred, saying that I was already gainfully employed. He accepted that but suggested that we stay in touch.
It's still a little frustrating to realize that because he deferred excellence in my field, he's more successful-- by an absolutely essential metric-- than I am. He's willing to be a businessman, to put up cheap, simple stores that sell something people want, no matter how poorly, but in some sense better than the megasites.
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no subject
Date: 2010-06-04 08:24 pm (UTC)*sigh* I know, never let perfect get in the way of good enough, but that's redonkulous.
no subject
Date: 2010-06-05 02:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-05 05:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-05 03:11 pm (UTC)But the most important thing I learned from it is that web design in this market segment absolutely doesn't matter - neither to the website owner nor to the audience. The owners are totally happy with a website that looks like what they used to have on Geocities back in 1996. And as far the audience is concerned, anyone willing to look through web pages that sell Orgone enhancers, water revitalisers and electric gadgets that zap the viruses that cause cancer, then web design, coding and mobile compliance are absolutely the last things you should be worrying about.
Trust me.
// Frank
no subject
Date: 2010-06-05 04:21 pm (UTC)An important lesson
Date: 2010-06-07 04:07 am (UTC)I consider the amount of sh!# I've had thrown at me by "design experts" when, to take an example, I want to support IE6 within a limited amount of work hours instead of doing what some fanatic considers to be "good" break-the-browsers-and-then-try-to-patch-things-up design. They're like a bogus in-crowd in a typically dysfunctional high school.
It's an important fact that sometimes you can't properly serve
two masters, i.e. optimize for rather different criteria/goals.
If you focus on stuff like figuring out what people want to buy and how to market it, getting salable product, and actually selling it, you can sell stuff.
If you focus on jumping through a lot of extra criteria and pretend that there's no cost in time, labor, opportunity, etc., then you will get what you are focusing on, not what you are, relatively speaking, neglecting.
Your disappointing experience isn't just a valuable lesson for you--it's a valuable lesson for most geeks and nerds, should we be so lucky to run across it.