This week, I come bearing gifts! The gifts? Some summaries and write-ups covering two days of ideas and inspiration from Web Directions North 2008 – a conference for web professionals hosted here in Vancouver, BC. I’ll start things off with two of the highlights, Jeffrey Zeldman’s opening keynote address, and a summary of some key insights shared by Josh Williams of Firewheel Design.

The Return of the King – Opening Keynote by Jeffrey Zeldman

Sometime back in 2003~2004, my brother lent me a book to read: Designing with Web Standards, by Jeffrey Zeldman. This was the book that set me straight and put me on a path towards designing for the web “the way it should be done”. While not an in-depth how-to guide, Designing with Web Standards offered me something much more valuable, it taught me how to think about design on the web, filled me in on the history, and set a bigger context for understanding the nuances of where best-in-class web designers were headed.

As the opening keynote speaker at Web Directions North 2008, Zeldman helped bring even more life to the lessons learned in Designing with Web Standards. One of the bigger take-aways for me was in Zeldman’s retelling of the history of WaSP – the Web Standards Project, recounting what it was like to rally around this idea that people could change the way big players in the web industry (in this case browser developers) operated.

Josh Williams – The Fire behind Firewheel Design

Anyone with any hint of entrepreneurial spirit working somewhere in the web industry today undoubtedly has a part of them that wants to make it big as an independent success – we all want to live the dream! Here’s someone who is, and lucky for all of us, Josh shared his insights on what it takes to go from “Bedroom to Boardroom”.

Josh is someone whose career I have been following from a distance. I first saw his work through Icon Buffet, the icon design arm of his company, Firewheel Design. Over the years, they’ve expanded the scope of what they do, or really actually shifted through transitions, the greatest transition of which has been to move away from doing client work towards working on independent projects.

This is a shift that many in the industry fail to make – many never even think about this distinction. I really believe that independence is the underlying motivation for independent success or “living the dream”. People often seek change when they encounter frustrations, and when you work in the web one of the biggest frustrations you are sure to encounter is working with clients who just don’t get it. Whether it’s through a lack of understanding (or a lack of effort to understand) or indifference, the unfortunate reality web professionals still face today is that there are still a lot of folks in positions of hiring or contracting projects who have no sense of what it is we actually do. As a result you often end up in situations where your work becomes less about the design, the development, the problem solving and innovation, and more about managing sales and client relations. For some web pros, that’s actually fine – all that really matters at the end of the day is that bread is getting put on the table. But for others (like myself) who work as a web professional because we thrive on the creative and problem-solving aspects of our work, this arrangement of working for the client, or working for “The Man or The Woman”, can sometimes change the nature of our work from actual web design and development, to managing client expectations.

One of the things that really struck me about Josh is the clarity with which he viewed the transitions he made with Firewheel Design. A repeating theme was this idea of “DNA” or “Designer’s Natural Aptitude” – your bent that is all about you, the one thing you were born to do – which grows from your personality, family and upbringing, education, interests, hobbies and passions. The recommendation: focus on your DNA to help narrow the service or niche you are going to enter. A particularly insightful suggestion: avoid projects that don’t fit your DNA, even the seemingly profitable ones. Deviating from your core and taking on these “misfit projects” can drag you down.

If they were handing out awards for best presentations at Web Directions North 2008, Josh would get my vote. This is just a small sample of the thoughts and experiences he shared – a more complete summary will be available later this week.

Also to come: more summaries of the different speakers and the experience of Web Directions North 2008.