Lately I’ve been spending a lot of time learning on the web. I’ve temporarily put blogging and all the social stuff on hold in the name of focusing on teaching myself things I’ve always wanted to learn, as well as essential skills that, as a freelancer, help me deliver value to clients and broaden my skill set. When I initially decided to take a few months off to do this, I spent the first few weeks in discovery mode trying quite a few different sites – some I stuck with, some I dropped. Here are the ones where I’ve been spending most of my learning time, where I think the value really is -
My Favorite Learning Hubs:
TutsPlus
This one is by far my favorite learning hub, so much so that I subscribe via email so I don’t miss anything. It’s actually a network of blogs that post daily tutorial content on Photoshop, Flash, web development, graphic design, photography and video creation. Most of the content is free, but for $9 a month, you can get access to their archive of premium video tutorials, screen casts and tutorials, which I do. It’s not all great, but 75% of it is – Jeffrey Way’s screencasts on PSD to HTML to WordPress alone are worth the price. Many of us spend more than that on any given weekend in Starbucks. Believe me, if you’re already at an intermediate level with multimedia creation and want quickly build a broader skill set, this is the place to go.
Kelby Training
Adobe Photoshop is a linchpin application. So many higher-level skill sets these days depend or build on Photoshop that you just can’t get by doing anything front end or visual without it. I’m not saying that Kelby Training is the only place to learn photoshop, but it’s almost certainly the best. For $25 a month you get access to a constantly updated stream of online video training by Scott Kelby (president of the NAPP) and a host of other experts . The content is all targeted towards creative professionals and focuses on Photoshop and the rest of Adobe’s creative suite, as well photography and DSLR videography. Most of the video sessions are over an hour long, and they’re segmented into 5 to 10 minute targeted chunks so you can skip around and just focus on what you want to. Great time value for money and I never leave without feeling like I learned something.
O’Reilly Media
O’Reilly continues to publish some of the best tech books available on the market. The Missing Manual and the Head First series are great. A lot of thought’s put into the delivery of the information in both series which is an important thing when you’re trying to learn quickly and get bang for your buck. The Head First HTML with CSS and XHTML is still a book I go back to frequently for refreshers. I’m still waiting for O’Reilly to expand it’s offerings into a Kelby Training type of video-lecture format, I’ve got to admit that sometimes there’s just no substitute for one of these books when you’re trying to build foundational knowledge, especially when you can download them. Almost all of O’Reilly’s books are available as ebooks via the website and if you follow them on Twitter, they dish out daily $9.99 ebook deals.
Smashing Magazine
Last but certainly not least, this site deserves a mention. It’s a great source for information and tutorials on graphics, coding, and design inspiration and tools. They often have great freebies. In particular, it’s one of the best places to get an idea of current design trends and tools in web design.
Final Thoughts
For me, what differentiates the sites I’ve mentioned above from others is the value I get for my time and money. It takes thousands of hours to get good at web design, creating media and using creative tools like Photoshop. Any resource I can go to that allows me to focus my energy and feel like I’ve learned quickly and effectively is a plus – and at prices like these, you can’t really lose. It actually makes me question whether traditional schooling is even necessary these days. Why would you pay 50-100K to go to college to become a creative professional when you could spend a fraction of that to get access to really recent content, interact with industry experts and get the same skillset? That’s another topic for another time, I guess, but I’m happy to discuss it here with anyone in the comments.
What are your favorite places to learn web design, development and multimedia on the web?
This morning I got a pleasant surprise. The mail man dropped off a hardcover copy of Seth Godin’s new book Linchpin sent from a new friend. Totally made my day. Luke, thanks for reminding me again why I love to write this blog, and why helping others and giving generously are the best ways to connect with others.
It’s been almost a year since I read The Age Of Turbulence, but I find myself repeatedly returning to a few of Alan’s thoughts on human nature and self esteem that resonated with me. Despite being discussed in the context of human factors in economics, the following passage in my eyes stands easily on its own and speaks volumes of truth about what drives us all and why we have a strong, fundamental need for connectedness. Any time I find myself in a discussion about community, authenticity, accountability, open source or the economics and culture of “free” on the web, I come back to this. Does this speak to you?
As I’ve traveled across the globe for nearly six decades, I have found that people exhibit remarkable similarities that by no stretch of the imagination can be construed as resulting from culture, history, language, or chance. All people appear motivated by an inbred striving for self-esteem that is in large part fostered by the approval of others … People have an inbred need to interact with other people. It is essential if we are to receive their approval, which we all seek. The true hermit is a rare aberration. What contributes to self-esteem depends on the broad range of learned or consciously chosen values that people believe, correctly or mistakenly, enhance their lives. We cannot function without some set of values to guide the multitude of choices we make every day. The need for values is inbred. Their content is not. That need is driven by an innate moral sense in all of us, the basis upon which a majority have sought the guidance of the numerous religions that humans have embraced over the millennia. Part of that innate moral code is a sense of what is just and proper. We all have different views of what is just, but none can avoid the built-in necessity of making such judgments. This build-in necessity is the basis of the laws that govern every society. It is the basis on which we hold people responsible for their actions.
A week has gone by since I eagerly placed the order for The Wisdom Book on Amazon. To tell you the truth, I can’t remember the last time I’ve been this amped to get a book in the mail. When it got here this morning, I was genuinely excited. The box is massive (because the book is), and opening it felt deliberate and ceremonious – like the size and weight of the book was symbolic. I’ve been flipping through it for a half hour and I’m grinning. I normally don’t get worked up about binding, design and photography the way I am right now – I generally read happily on whatever surface, wherever the words happen to be – but I feel some empathy for true bibliophiles today. The book is gorgeous. Read More
Over the break I had the chance to read Malcolm Gladwell’s new book Outliers. The book’s been talked about a lot since it’s recent release, and for good reason. It’s engaging, thought provoking and well written – everything we’ve come to expect from Malcolm. One of the main arguments of Outliers is that becoming an expert takes about 10,000 hours of hard work.
Seth Godin recently posted some thoughts on what’s becoming known as the “10,000 Hour Rule” – this part in particular stuck out:
“For me, though, some of the 10k analysis doesn’t hold up. The Doors (or Devo or the Bee Gees) for example, didn’t play together for 10,000 hours before they invented a new kind of rock*. If the Doors had encountered significantly more competition for their brand of music, it’s not clear that they could have gotten away with succeeding as quickly as they did. Hey, Miley Cyrus wasn’t even 10,000 hours awake before she became a hit.”
I’m glad he used the word “hit” and not “expert” because I think that the difference between an expert who produces a hit and a hit itself is a critical distinction that clears up a lot of the confusion around the 10,000 hours debate. Hat tip to Seth. He’s cleverly drawn that distinction. The reason that the 10K Rule doesn’t work for superstars like Miley or Devo is because it doesn’t apply. A hit can come out of no where because it instantly fills an uncontested niche that was begging to be filled (a new kind of rock (The Doors), for example). Another good example of this type of instant hit would be the invention of “Chunky Spaghetti Sauce” (If that sounds like a strange reference, check out the video below). Said another way – a product/song/idea can become a hit because it fills a need in an uncontested space, which, of course does not require 10000 hours of expertise.
The reason for the confusion is probably that Outliers misses when it explicitly combines the 10,000 hours rule with the opportunities arguments, and leaves out sub 10K examples. Bill Joy and Bill Gates, for example, put in their 10,000 hours in a time when the programming space wasn’t highly contested, so when their “born in 1955 opportunity” put them in prime position to be the leaders in their field it allowed them to put their expertise to good use at just the right moment. Theirs was an issue of potential energy (like squashing a spring and letting it go at the right time) AND getting through The Dip, as Seth argues (spending 10K on something that requires at least 5K). The point is that some “hits” don’t require the 10K, they just require the right timing and an audience that desperately wants something that it hasn’t gotten yet.
For those that are interested, Gladwell’s argument in this video illustrates exactly what I’m talking about – how filling a need in an uncontested niche can create a hit. In this case, it was chunky spaghetti sauce.
Before I dive into the pros and cons of this book, I think it’s important to acknowledge how significantly the book has impacted the way thousands of Internet publishers use and understand Adsense. At this writing, the book is just over a year old and it has been heralded as an instant classic in the growing world of Internet marketing. After making the New York Times best sellers list in 2006, The Adsense Code firmly established Joel Comm as an authority in the world of contextual advertising. Regardless of what I say in this post, the numbers tell the story. This book was a hit. Here’s why.
Although countless millions of websites run adsense ads, very few sites actually generate enough traffic to really see large, consistent adsense earnings. When web site traffic is low, infrequent and unpredictable, it’s tough for site owners to see how small tweaks in the placement or configuration of ads on a page affect click rates and earnings. This makes maximizing your adsense income difficult. But big numbers don’t lie. When a website is getting large amounts of consistent traffic, small changes in the way ads look and where ads are placed can make a big difference to the number of clicks they get.
Consider this excerpt I pulled out of my book notes from Stumbling On Happiness:
Nothing more than feelings? What could be more important than feelings? Sure, war and peace come to mind, but are war and peace important for any reason other than the feelings they produce? If war didn’t cause pain and anguish, if peace didn’t provide for delights both transcendental and carnal, would either of them matter to us at all? War, peace, art money, marriage, birth, death, disease, religion — these are just a few of the Really Big Topics over which oceans of blood and ink have been spilled, but they are really big topics for one reason alone: Each is a powerful source of human emotion. If they didn’t make us feel uplifted, desperate, thankful, and hopeless, we would keep all that ink and blood to ourselves. As Plato asked,”Are these things good for any other reason except that they end in pleasure, and get rid of and avert pain? Are you looking to any other standard but pleasure and pain when you call them good? Indeed, feelings don’t just matter — they are what mattering means.
Huh.
