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Abstract

Message: 4
Date: Mon, 03 Sep 2001 16:52:27 -0700
From: Richard Gaskin <Ambassador@FourthWorld.com>
Subject: Re: Is there a Future for Web Designers?

Peggy offers soem good insight here:

> Don't despair. Your skills are very valuable. You just have to

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> realize that where you fit into the marketplace will probably change
> throughout your life. You also have to realize that the average
> customer is not going to understand the difference between a real
> designer and an assembly line design. The important thing is that
> you understand the difference.

Things related to the Internet (and more so when Internet 2 goes public)
remain likely to be the most significant growth industries to occur in our
lifetime.

Most other culturally-significant technologies involve diminishing the role
of geography from human affairs, from shipping to rail to telegraph, and the
Internet is the most immersive and immediate yet. And it's still so young,
so primitive, so nothing like it will be in fifty years.

The only bad thing dot-bomb shakeout is that it didn't happen sooner.
Nearly all of the dead companies were those who thumbed their nose at the
only thing that has mattered in business for several thousand years:
providing true value to the end-customer. Somehow a lot of otherwise-smart
people started funding the most absurb business plans, and Ma and Pa
investor jumped in along with them (and lost their retirement accounts along
the way).

The good thing about the dot-bomb shakeout is that we don't have to wonder
if everything we knew about business was somehow wrong. It isn't, and the
failed companies allow us to confidently rely on thousands of years of
knowledge about how markets work. With the shakeout nearly over, we can all
get back to the business of business.

The ironic challenge facing US internet companies like yours and mine is
that the very technologies we deploy for our customers uniquely require us
to compete globally. Breaking down geographic boundaries not only opens up
new commodities markets, but new labor markets as well.

Two years ago industry leaders lied to Congress in order to increase the
number of H1b visas in the tech sector. Today, they don't need that: they
can broker labor online directly from the source, and they save travel and
US housing costs. From Bokoshe, Oklahoma to Bengal, India, there's likely
someone to do commodity work for less than it costs to live in Los Angeles.

But there's the clue about finding your own value: don't do commodity work.

There's only one Hillman Curtis in the world, only one Jared Spool. And, at
the risk of quoting Barney, only one you.

Find what most excites you, and you're likely to find what differentiates
you from any other provider on the planet. Whether its graphic design,
information architecture, usability, programming, project management,
marketing, writing -- somewhere there's something you can do uniquely well,
and nobody can touch that. :)

--
Richard Gaskin
Fourth World Media Corporation
Multimedia Design and Development for Mac, Windows, UNIX, and the Web
_____________________________________________________________________
Ambassador@FourthWorld.com http://www.FourthWorld.com
Tel: 323-225-3717 AIM: FourthWorldInc Fax: 323-225-0716