Hi, On 10/21/07, Katie Albers <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: [snip] > this is starting to sound like some of you expect the people you work > with to stay 100% current with whatever it says, all the time and to > me that brings up the problem of making assessments of how to spend > one's time most usefully.
ALA only posts new content every few week, and then it's only one or two articles... so reading just ALA is not a huge time investment. That being said, I have an RSS feed of 10-15 blogs/sites related to my job that I read daily, as time permits. This is where I learn 99% of new techniques and advancements going on in the industry. Using the information from these site is what enables me to build great sites for our clients. The web moves fast and staying current is a big part of my job. If I'm working with a developer and they tell me something can't be done, generally (and i mean *generally*) it's because they aren't doing their research. > I'm not clear when staying up-to-date on A List Apart became a proxy > for staying up-to-date with our field, but it sounds like a false > comparison to me. [snip] In the context of this thread, it did become a proxy.. and I agree, it is a false comparison. I think the conversation just moved in that direction. > In any case, frankly the entire thread is taking on a thoroughly > unpleasant note of superiority and absolutism. Can we experiment with > the idea that serious, professional people prefer different resources > for almost every purpose. I don't think anybody is implying that you have to read specifically ALA to be a good web designer/developer. My comments are more general, and refer to many different resources, sites, and books. Again, the thread has turned into a discussion about staying current rather than about ALA's readership. At least that's how I've read it, and my replies are in that vein. I would in no want say that everybody has to read ALA daily. > Furthermore, if there are a "disturbingly high number of web > professionals" who don't follow ALA, I'd say that's a pretty good > argument for the data being skewed by the venue. You're absolutely right. The ALA survey is not 100% accurate, nor is any other survey. The research results are still interesting and still represent a good number of people though, and shouldn't be dismissed outright. This isn't about elitism... it's about passion and involvement in our industry and community. To a certain extent, in order to move forward in your career you have to keep up with the latest innovations, whether that means reading websites and books or going to conferences... I still maintain that passionate web professionals will read a lot of daily online content about what we do... which in the end is all I was trying to say. -- Matt Nish-Lapidus email/gtalk: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ++ LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/mattnl Home: http://www.nishlapidus.com ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://gamma.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://gamma.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://gamma.ixda.org/help
