It’s kinda gloomy at the moment, hey? The big ‘R’ word being thrown around left, right and centre and companies downsizing where they can. Digital media, as an extension of the marketing industry is caught up in the growing concern about job security and the general future of advertising agencies.

Those concerns may not be as accurate as they may first appear. We haven’t seen the economy in such a downturn in nearly 30 years, so effectively this is the first time Internet industries have faced this situation (ignoring the dotcom bubble burting days, which arguably Internet businesses brought on by themselves).

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This is a rant. Just so you know.

At work it’s been a bad week for our hosting partner. We found out on Monday that they had been serving Webalizer on our server without telling us for a whole year. So that’s one year of confidential marketing reports freely available to anyone who stumbles on the URL (which was not hard to guess). After ignoring my first request (marked urgent) they replied with a snotty email telling me it stats are installed by default, but these days they don’t do that. Of course, I was overjoyed to hear that their new customers don’t suffer this embarrassing lapse in security.

No apology.

On Tuesday I chased a new account request with them that wasn’t done from the previous day. An equally unapologetic response.

On Wednesday we realised that after repeated requests to have somebody who has moved to another team in my company to be removed as a contact, it still wasn’t done. They told us to go through every individual domain registered with them and to change the contact name listed. We responded with a firm ‘hell no,’ as we’re the paying customer and will not spend hours going through our domains because of their inability to create an efficient management tool. They responded back with what was effectively flipping us the bird, saying they’re not willing to make the changes.

Today they told me that the Senior Developer at Host wasn’t an authorised contact onour account. I sent them email proof that I requested Werner has the same authorisation as I do back in January. Their response was to tell me that we’ve got two accounts, and Werner’s only authorised on one. No apology.

I understand how it can be hard to say sorry. When something goes wrong, putting a ’sorry’ in an email takes guts. Although when you don’t do it, it makes you look cowardly and a little pathetic. We don’t doubt they’re good at what they do, and an apology wouldn’t change that view but actually help us in that we’d know they understood something went wrong and will make sure it doesn’t happen again.

‘Sorry’ for the rant. See?

The other week I met up with my old Technical Director whilst I was in London and spent a short while reflecting on how hard it seems to be to find developers, and then further to that how hard it is to find developers suited to agency work.

Now I’m in an agency where I’m the only Web Developer, I’m on the interview panel when it comes to finding other developers. This process has meant I’ve realised how hard it is to find people suitable for the job. There seems to be a mix of designers wanting to try their hand at developing and semi-skilled developers trying to go for a senior position before their time. The creative industry doesn’t seem to attract the talented developers it requires.

I’ve met a few other developers who are skilled but wouldn’t like working in a creative agency. They’re application developers, not web developers. When I asked, they said they actually make an effort to stay clear of jobs like mine. I was not going to be able to convince them to send me their CV. Finding Web Developers for our agency isn’t going to be so easy.

There are characteristics I think developers in creative agencies need to be born with or quickly acquire in order to survive:

1. Social skills. Geeks notoriously don’t have the best people skills, and when it comes to working in a creative agency where sitting in the corner keeping to yourself isn’t going to work, you’re going to have to face up to the fact there’s no getting out of going to lunch with the chatty project manager who thinks as a web developer you should be able to fix his X-Box. I’ve also had to feign an interest in sports a number of times, just to keep up.
2. Ability to work with computer illiterates. Being able to resist self-harm when I’m politely asked to download files and burn them onto a DVD as that is, apparently, what I do for a living. Oh, and I can also offer lots of advice about PowerPoint transitions.
3. Put a project down, picking it up again; repeat. This is more about developing in a way that allows the project to be continued after being put on hold for x amount of time. For example, I’d stop working on Project A because a more urgent Project B needs kicking off, then a number of weeks later I’d be asked to carry on with Project A from where I left off for a couple of days until Project C gets signed off. And no, I can’t get more time for Project A as it’s already over-budget and we don’t want the client back in for another meeting about timings as he eats all the best cookies and hits on the receptionist.
4. Explain yourself in small short words. Bearing in mind that some people in the office still think that a hyperlink is a new type of Japanese train, they’re not going to understand DNS propegation is the reason we can’t launch the website right now, after lunch on a Friday afternoon. Explaining technical concepts to non-technical people take a long patience and short words.
5. Fight for testing. Or test post-launch. Testing is something expected by everyone to be in the project plan, it even makes it into the Gantt charts the producer writes up, but it will be the first thing to go if the deadline looms a little too close for comfort. Or there may be a testing phase, but this is soon followed by changes to the creative that nullifies all testing done so far. Or there will be a testing phase, but only after the site has launched. I can’t point the finger of blame at anyone in particular, as it’s the way things work when you’ve got a small project with a tough deadline. The client asks for changes but the deadline won’t move. Proper testing seems to be a luxury reserved for those clients lacking extensive change requests and a clear understanding of what ’signing off’ really means.
6. See the design as the designer sees it. I’m anal about my work, so quite rightfully the designer will be anal about hers. A bad designer will never say when I’ve messed up a design because she’s scared of me, a good designer will tell me about a mistake I made, a great designer will tell me that I messed up and then tell me why it needs to be fixed. If I can understand the thinking behind the design, I can build it better.

I don’t think that working for a creative agency makes me a better developer, or a worse one. I do think it means I have to approach projects differently. I think working for an agency means you So there are quite specific skills that I think are needed to work in a creative agency as a developer. A lot of these skills are a little different from the stereotypical developer skillset. However, a lot of very talented developers do prefer the creative environment (I just need to find them). I like the small and exciting projects I do in a creative agency. I don’t have the attention span to stay put on one application for months on end. I’d rather download files and burn them obediently to a DVD for the TV producer who doesn’t know what a codec is, whilst performing self-harm here at my desk with a soggy cocktail stick.

Here’s an idea I’ve had and will never do anything about so I thought I’d put it out there and see what people think.

My problem is that on my Facebook (this idea could apply to other sites but in this post I’m just going to use Facebook) I have lots of people listed as friends. I have a few close friends, then I have friends who I know but who aren’t close – workmates, friends of friends and so on. Then the bulk is made up of the people who I haven’t seen in years, but for some reason are still my friend. The result is too much information for me to manage that isn’t effectively organised. Sure, Facebook lets me define who I want to hear more about and who I want to hear less about, but this is a manual control and I think it should be able to work this out by itself.

How can a system like Facebook work out which is more important to me: wedding photos from someone I went to school with; knowing that my flatmate ‘is bored at work’; or photos of my workmate’s new dog?
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Why do people I haven’t spoken to in years and haven’t thought about in nearly as long request to be my friend in Facebook? Why do I do the same thing to the other kids who lived in my neighbourhood when I was growing up? For the same reason: to see who’s fat, who’s failed and who still lives at home.

There’s the albino kid who dropped out of school; the sporty kid who was loud; the clever one who was obnoxious; the guy who I thought would never be a civil servant but is. All of the above: their lives aren’t quite as rosy as their school reports may have indicated.

It sounds elitist and terribly mean, but everyone seems to be doing it. Only the other day someone I work with said how she just saw wedding photos on Facebook of a girl she went to school with who punched her in the face once. She got fat and hadn’t aged particularly well, which had an immediate and positive effect on my colleague’s outlook on herself.

I think it’s all about self-assurance. The best way we can see how well we’re doing in life is to compare ourselves to those we started out with. Where are they and where am I?

Of course success is measured by the individual’s perception of what success is. The girl my workmate poked fun at may in turn see my colleague and think how she’s approaching 30, working too hard and still has no ring on her finger, and then there’s no sign of kids for the next few years at least.

The friends in your Facebook aren’t necessarily your friends. They’re individual benchmarks for you to measure yourself up against. Although be warned: the slow kid who wet himself in school assembly that one time who is now a successful entrepreneur with a supermodel wife may find you on Facebook and might just ruin your day.