What next?

Posted on March 13, 2007 by Melissa Worden

Check out the career development discussion Ryan Sholin’s having on his site with fellow bloggers about what he should learn next.

Some say business, some say databases, some say Flash.

It’s a tough call that depends on your long-term career goals. I think Flash is a common denominator to them all, so getting a good foundation in that will help in any direction you go. Sort of like learning to add before using the calculator.

I’m fascinated by the number of responses he’s received, proving that 1) blogging is helpful in many ways and on many levels and 2) this industry is so young that we’re defining our education and career paths as we go.

Comments

2 Responses to “What next?”

Patrick B on March 14th, 2007 8:39 am

Though I’m not proud to say this, I still don’t “know” Flash.

I can navigate in the GUI, and make work what I need to work. But I’ve yet to feel the need to devote the time needed to learn Flash.

In today’s innovate or die environment, Flash just isn’t on my radar. Things that are on my radar (as Ryan mentions) are: Django, MySQL, Python, (more) JavaScript and Adobe Illustrator.

I’d also like to learn some database theory.

The problem with Flash, is that it’s hard to change how content is delivered in the long run. Sure, Flash can add much to telling a story.

But can you cite a recent start-up that uses Flash to change how we ingest and use content on the Web?

I can’t…

That’s not to say I wouldn’t be interested in learning Flash someday — perhaps when I become a artist (which could be never).
Beau Dure on March 14th, 2007 11:08 am

Cool. I responded.

But if you really want to advance, you need to get noticed somehow. So just learn to do one really cool thing to impress an editor. You’re all set from there.