“Who do you work for?” It seems like an innocuous question, so I respond with a simple answer. “LEVEL Studios.” My inquisitor looks at me, upper lip juts up, eyebrows narrow, a slight nod of comprehension. Unfortunately, he is unfamiliar with LEVEL. “I do user interface development, CSS, HTML, JavaScript. I’m based out of their San Jose office.” More nodding ensues. He still has no idea what I do for a living. “I work mostly on [SiliconValleyGiantProtectedUnderNDA.com] and other [SiliconValleyGiantProtectedUnderNDA] projects.” “Ah ha!” He then replies, “Wow, really? That’s awesome! Do you know a guy named Joe? He works for them…or at least he did.”
This is a common interaction, and similar to the ones I encountered at the most recent An Event Apart . AEA 2009 was held at The Palace Hotel in bustling downtown San Francisco. This 2-day conference for web designers, developers and other technorati is organized by Happy Cog and the folks who publish the famed web-journal, A List Apart . The event covers topics like “Seductive Interface Design” and “Gems from Amazon.com”. Moreover, it’s a place where web geeks like myself can make jokes about IE6 and everyone LOLz; even the newbies.
Most of the attendees come from a web or publishing background and are well abreast of the issues facing web standards, accessibility and browser compatibility. As one would expect, the web is not just a Silicon Valley phenomenon; I met people from all over the US and Europe, most of whom work for well-branded dot coms. In short, they are the ones who literally “make the web”. AEA co-founders and speakers, Eric Meyers and Jeffrey Zeldman , have literally written the books on standards for the web and are credited with fathering modern web development.
Working as a web developer in Silicon Valley is much like a sous chef working in Paris – you are surrounded by people that ooze creativity and innovation, who exist on the bleeding edge of new technology. You learn to speak the lingo and to tread carefully on certain subjects, such as Flash development and accessibility.
I attempted to describe the overall sense of living and working in Silicon Valley to one guy; I’ll call him Missouri Jim. Unfortunately, my conversation with Missouri Jim took place at the AEA after party, and I had already taken full advantage of the open bar.
I said something like, “You’re, like, HERE, man! This is it! This is where it all goes down, ya dig?”
What I meant to say was that the Bay Area has a pulse, and for those who work in it, who live in it, there is no greater place on Earth. The Bay is where “VC” is a household acronym, and start-ups rise and fall like the Pacific tide. It’s where Titans of the web battle for online supremacy. One long draw of the air here, and you’ll get that raw, competitive energy that flows through Valley and pushes you to work better and faster than the next guy.
Unimpressed, Missouri Jim was less than amused after I told about the median price of homes in Silicon Valley. Jim was mortgaging a house in Missouri for about as much as a room with a bunk bed rents in Sunnyvale. This got me thinking about the cons of living and working here.
One downside is the secretive nature of the business, and the fact that, generally speaking, all work is done under a non-disclosure agreement (NDA). This is obviously done to protect the intellectual property of certain companies, but it often means the designer or developer feels unaccredited after months of hard work. After all, the best part of working hard on something is sharing it with your peers and co-workers. NDAs can feel like a dark and dirty secret. Even when my wife asks, “How was work?”, I have developed this gag-like reflex to obfuscate my answer. I reply, “Who do you work for?”. I believe this paranoid sense is contagious and is something I caught during the past few years while working in the Valley.
Judging from the folks who attended AEA 2009, I’m not the only one; I found that people were more responsive to “What kind of work do you do?” than “Who do you work for?”. The latter implies something like, “What websites have you built, and what are you working on now?”. Maybe that’s just more paranoia.
All of the attendees at AEA, both Valley natives and from abroad, could agree that the future of the web is undefined. And if history is any teacher, the next big thing will come from someone who thinks big, innovates and has a working prototype [http://aneventapart.com/speakers/jeffveen/]. Whether or not Silicon Valley will produce the next Facebook or Google is unknown. Maybe it’ll be Missouri Jim.