FACT: The Internet is powerful playground for Advertising, Marketing, Retail, Software Companies, Media, Entertainment, Travel and any other industry worth speaking of.

FACT: The development of the World Wide Web and the user experience behind it is entrusted to groups of individuals who follow a set of shared standards of professionalism, raise the bar to social and professional interaction for all industries, and follow a body of knowledge uncommon for any other industry.

FACT: Very few people can actually define who the web industry workers are, what they do, what titles they carry, and what the titles really mean.

Several months ago A List Apart released its 2007 Web Design Survey. The report features Age, Gender, Ethnicity, Geographic, Education, Salary, Commitment, Perceived Bias, and Skill-set distributions among 33000 survey participants.

What the survey does not say is the fact that very few web or non-web professionals can actually define what each title entails, and more significantly, what an information architect, web developer or a web designer’s roles really are!

A List Appart’s survey along with Zeldman’s “Respect!” presentation at SXSW ( a brief summary here )
both raise a burning question. How do we communicate who web designers and developers are, and the importance of their role in the big bang of Internet growth?

The reasons WHY we should begin to communicate are many:
1. There is little recognition of the existence of an industry in the first place.
2. There are very few if any educational institutions providing consummate professional education in web related roles
3. There is no centralized institution pursuing and defending the interests of the internet guild
4. There is no central source of information for the outside world about web related matters. No set of quality standards that a non-web professional should consult by. No clear-cut guidelines on requirements for internet projects, resources, costs, awards and many more.
5. There is little understanding of roles with in the industry, duties, criteria for career growth, salaries, etc.

In business, when an industry is booming the best thing to do is to set standards, identify goals, and ride the wave as far as possible, before your competition does so. When things are coming to a stand still though, there is nothing better than a reflection on the ride, the bumps that came along, and the best ways to resolve them. As the internet industry is now more than a decade ahead with both high and low market times is about time we define what it means to  learn, work, grow, and succeed as a web worker.

Posted by: Diana Zink on Saturday, 22nd Mar, 2008