by David LeMieux
First, this post by Jared is a good one. Having experienced what you might call "failure" recently it is a good time for me to reflect on all the lessons I have learned and then use the good to my advantage. I also love that video from TED.
Secondly, I often times wonder what it is like to work at a well known design and development firm/company. I have worked for the school and at other places but none of these were wholly creative companies. In fact, at the school I am usually the only web guy in the office and, with a few exceptions, whatever I say goes. I also worked at a web development company but the very nature of their product dictates a slightly different work environment. Or does it? Other than these example I have done a lot of freelance work and haven't really had the opportunity to work at an office with other creatives or developers. What do they do all day? What do the people working at gSkinner do all day? How does their work flow? What about Lee Brimelow? He works at Frog Design but what does he really do? I am sure that I actually know the answer to this, but in my head I have it that what I do on a day to day basis is nowhere near as exciting as what other people do.
The other day I was looking at pictures of different internet startup companies' offices and was actually amazed that these people had as many employees as they did. Why shouldn't they? I dunno. Maybe because I am used to having only myself as a resource I forget that the "big guys" actually have teams of people working on projects together. Need a better way to parse RSS feeds? Have these guys work on it. Can't figure out the bug in the video player? Have someone with more experience take a look.
So what am I getting at? I am getting at that I sometimes feel inadequate and that I will never be able to compare to the people at the big companies. But this is silly, because they are a team of full time employees and I am a lone freelance developer that also works and goes to school full time. It is like comparing apples to oranges, but because they are my role models I can't help buy want to be like them.