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The Real Fruits of Our Labour

The Real Fruits of Our Labour

Tom Holder and Keir Moffatt discuss the things they have learned as a result of a long-serving, agency-freelancer working relationship.

This talk was delivered at Web Dev Conference 2010 in Bristol, UK.
http://webdevconf.com

Keir Moffatt

October 27, 2010
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Transcript

  1. The real fruits of
    our labour?

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  2. @iamkeir
    • Web Freelancer
    • HTML/CSS/UI
    • B-Boy, Mantis Wrangler
    • What does the web
    mean to Keir?

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  3. @tholder
    • Technical Director
    and Founder Simpleweb
    • ContactZilla.com
    • Climber
    • What does the web mean to Tom?

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  4. What does the web
    mean to you?
    • Answer...

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  5. The Internet has been
    switched off!
    (Even Facebook)

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  6. What are we left with?
    • Millions of lines of useless code (wallpaper)
    • An over priced laptop
    • More free time

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  7. One thing you will be left
    with are the relationships
    you have built.

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  8. Relationships with
    } Evangelists
    Colleagues
    Clients
    Users

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  9. Building good working
    relationships...
    Communicate
    Good Work
    Collaborate
    Good
    Relationships

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  10. Communicate
    • Be confident - know your team
    • Be responsive and react quickly
    • Be honest - about your skills, about your
    intentions, about your mistakes
    • Understand people

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  11. Communicate
    • Be genuine, be transparent
    • Inspire trust and confidence
    • Understand the client and manage their expectations
    • Share progress throughout
    • Sometimes, you have to turn a job down
    • Krispy Kremes

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  12. Collaborate
    • Not because you have to but because it’s fun
    • Whiteboards and ideas
    • Version control (Git) and Bug Tracking
    • Open Source http://github.com/simpleweb
    • Eat your own dog food
    • Don’t be afraid to ask for help

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  13. Collaborate
    • We don’t compete, we share the load
    • Share knowledge
    • Work on-site whenever possible
    • Respect other people's processes
    • Join mailing lists, Twitter, forums, communities

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  14. Good Work
    • Be obvious, not clever
    • Don’t reinvent the wheel - frameworks!
    • We work in an imperfect world
    • Pay your debts off sooner rather than later
    • Start simple and iterate

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  15. Good Work
    • Understand deadlines (realistic & justifiable)
    • Deliver on time (be productive, not precious)
    • Check the direction is right, constantly
    • ‘Be suggestive’ - you’ll get more work!
    • Be professional

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  16. The real fruits of our labour?
    Relationships
    Love what you do and the people you do it with.

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  17. Stuff we’re excited
    about
    • NoSQL Couch,Mongo,Hadoop
    • JavaScript, Node.Js - hot!
    • ActivityStrea.ms
    • Death of Flash!
    • HTML 5, Canvas, CSS 3
    • Perch CMS
    • Google Apps

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  18. Questions?
    • Getting a job/interview
    • Networking vs Not-working
    • Accumuniggles (little spoons)
    • Love Monkey
    • Bucket o’ Love
    • Hypersharing/social bullshit

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