Project Management & Entrepreneurship

My dear friend Eric Ping pointed out I only had a few days left before I’d break my year and half record of posting at least every month. I was wondering what to write about, and last night I figured out what to write.

Yesterday after going to dinner with Joanna, my wife, we went to our guilty pleasure store: Barnes & Noble. Since I already have the entire Wheel of Time series to re-read for the upcoming books, I walked over to the technical section of books. I looked over the majority of titles, most of them for beginners learning a new type of language. It got me thinking. Over the last five years I have spent most of my time and energy working on becoming a great web developer. I’ve been working hard on my design skills, searching the web for examples and resources. I’ve been trying to make my PHP code more maintainable, efficient and clean. These last years I’ve been asking myself over and over “how can I do this better?” “How can I be a better developer?”

I can honestly feel that this hard work has paid off. I feel my skills as a web developer have grown greatly, I have an awesome job as a web developer that challenges me every day, and I really enjoy doing what I do. However, there is one caveat: I don’t want to be a web developer for my entire career.

Don’t get me wrong, I love doing web development. However, in twenty years, I don’t want to always be the guy doing the web development. I’ve always wanted be the guy in charge of the developers, talking with clients and developers to direct and guide the process.

So after looking at the programming books, I decided to check out another section. I started browsing the small business section and selected a book called “The E-Myth Revisited.” Between last night and today, I’ve read about half of it and have really enjoyed it. It has its flaws, but overall a lot of the ideas are really good, and many of the pitfalls I’ve seen in a lot of small businesses are addressed.

I’ve decided over these next few years to study up on running a business and project management. I think with my current employment there is a lot potential for expanding my career. I feel if I start studying and learning about being more than just a web developer, when opportunities present themselves I’ll be ready to seize the moment. I’m still going to keep on learning more and more about web development, but I feel broadening my learning will be a great benefit.