I used to think that I was a hired gun, coming into to a business to learn their trade and shooting down projects as they were handed to me. This is how most people attack their day and at the end feel pretty accomplished.
I used to think that way.
I am a Team Mate.
Now I realize that for any business I work with, I am a team mate. I am someone who comes in, learns the game and helps the team take it to the goal and I play all positions. I am defense with a healthy dose of frontline development security in preventing a multitude attacks in the form of cross site scripting, SQL injection and other nefarious ways to beat up a system. I am offense, constantly looking for ways to get an edge up on competition or putting in the hours to get that project into production. And when needed I am the coach with over 15 years in web development and marketing, programming and project management I can create a plan, execute direction, pivot nimbly and support the team to reach its goals on time.
I am a Behavioral Scientist.
Part of the work of any website architect is to closely monitor and research how users want to use what you have put in front of them, letting your user's behaviors guide you in the right direction in fine tuning the design of any website. Tracking behavioral metrics, quickly testing new ideas against baseline data and making decisions that add qualitative and quantitative value to the business; this is what makes website development work exciting. In the end, if you want more sales, leads or just something that people are going to stick around for a long while, it can be done.
I am a Jack of All Trades.
... an expert of a few and several that I am pretty darn good at. When it comes to website work necessity is a grand teacher and I have had the fortune of being able to focus on specializing in a number of areas including website programming, web page design, SEO tactics, web services and solid database architecture. Working with experts in their fields has helped me step up my game across the spectrum and if anything I do attains great height, it is because I stood on the shoulders of giants in their respective fields.
Now, at the end of the day, I feel like a million bucks if what I did for the day added value to the company and my team.
