Yes, I am an IT geek, I work for a web development area and with a range of IT services behind me. I have come from various fields of client services, support and sales and I think over the years I have pretty much seen it all, heard much of it and thought, until today that I could not be surprised much any more, but alas, I was wrong, or more specifically, excellent, I was wrong.

A request came to our group, as a part of a web team, asking that…
“A person put a typo in some correspondence and they want to redirect viewers from the web site address avc.com.au/section to abc.com.au/section”

I often think of real-world synonyms in these cases and wondered if I replied with my first thought, would it help…
“No we can’t do that redirection of your mail, however since you put the wrong address on your reply-paid envelope, perhaps we could just put your house in the way of the other mail-box temporarily”

Then we got another one…
“When I do a search for my name, I get three pages in to the results and click on a cached page version and it redirects me to some porn, how do I remove it?”

My first thought was probably not going to be appreciated…
“However unfortunate, it could be that you do in fact share a name with a porn star and doing web searches will bring up some interesting results. Like it or not, content may be quite valid to be on the Internet and no matter how much I call myself a webmaster, I can not delete everything you find upsetting. In the case of Internet porn however I will make it my mission to download and remove as much as possible.

I also remember the one that asked if we could put a redirection in for their posters now going to print. Intranet.place.edu/security to send viewers to their full page within their sub-department. I contacted them, he asked the question again (the one I just read from the help desk request) word for word, and I said, gently and slowly.. ‘No’. I could hear the right eye-brow raise in a questioning look, “Oh, why not?”. I slowly replied, in a manner befitting an educational institution, “Because we don’t provide a redirection service for the intranet host”, and of course got the.. “But we have printed all the posters” reply. “I recommend next time that you get the job logged and approved before wasting your money on printing posters with incorrect addresses then” or something similar. I also considered the analogy, just because a telephone number isn’t being used doesn’t mean you will get it if you print your business cards. I never heard back from them on that one.

I did read an article the other week about how web producers are under appreciated. There is no really proper understanding of how much work goes into making a web site run. The article started with the query that a guy was contacted, by a mate to do a web site for his new business, everything was in place and funded except the mighty web site which was going to make it all come true. He replied saying that yes, he may be interested for a worthy amount of dollars or a piece of the company should he find it a worthwhile investment.

The reply came back that it wasn’t anything much, really, just something this programmer should throw together for them to make it all happen and the business will be up and running. He wrote the article concerned that there wasn’t enough respect for what web developers do, much less being a strategic part of their business idea and one that needed proper funding and continued maintenance.

It’s been like that for me, I want to make web sites on the side and after work for people, friends and small business but at that level in particular they just don’t get it. I got together with a graphics designer thinking that we could work together on projects, pull in business from both sides and do our part in developing packages of web sites and published material that work work well, but even that was a shaky idea.

We got together on a project for an organisation, non profit and all I would configure a full system with forums, galleries, advertising and a full multi-user cms all looking nice with a basic but working template. Then their committee got hold of the idea and realised that one of the members’ sons can do web sites. So three months later I was shown a half built waste of space done by some teenager that really didn’t live up to expectations. Hmm, over three weeks I put together my idea and got it done. Now they have a big members list and it’s working ok.

So what makes the the overall understanding of this stuff come at a point where the the uninformed think they know what it’s about and the informed seem to ignore what they already knew?

I had an idea…

If some person calls me and wants me to do their web site, you know, just throw one together for me and it will make my business, then I have the answer.

“Sure, happy to do it. I will drop everything and dedicate myself to this project for you 100%. Not only will I get onto it right now I will host it for you, register the domains, setup mail accounts and provide full reliable backup systems and failsafe security measures. Not a problem, I’ll be there before you can put the phone down.”

Do you think that might get their undivided attention?

“No more needs to be said, without any help from you dear customer I will put the site up within a few weeks, register domains and host it for you for no extra charge. Your staff will get full supported email and I will train them on how to best use it. They will also get trained access to the web site so they can post information on anything they need to present at any time. I will be there to help 24/7, consider it done!”

The client will undoubtedly be stunned.

“My life does not come cheap, for me to be your slave round the clock at your beckoned call and whim I do so at a charge. If I am to dedicate my life to your project, in exchange I require money, the commodity you have yet to even consider offering. What is your business worth, everything, nothing, somewhere in between? Is there a price you can put on your business, on your income or your future? Is there a price you can put on mine?”

“I offer nothing less than my complete attention and full time to your project, ongoing. What are you willing to offer and pay for that?”

Now, for some reason I am still working for an educational institution and they pay me fairly, if I am lucky, somebody else might actually call my bluff… but until then… I blog.

I await another decision to manage my life as I fall under the category of groups of academics who believe that any web site the university has presented over the last 10 years is awful and doesn’t work and should be shelved. They believe that we can trash the old stuff and re-create it in 6 months and they have no idea or sympathy that there are over 100 people that make this content, manage the structure, create the sites, and all the while we are getting thousands of page views per day. I think it must be easy for upper management to propose these things, and always hard work for those that actually are assigned the task of doing it on their behalf.