Officially Lucky

Jeremiah Owyan, an analyst at Forrester Research has a post titled “What to do when web developers get stale?” A seasoned web developer that knows Jeremiah expressed his frustration at the seemingly quickening pace of the web development eco-sphere.

This web developer had been programming and developing websites for nearly 10 years, but admitted he was having a very hard time keeping up with the younger faster developers that knew the new languages.

Jeremiah suggested that the individual in question try and move into a more business / production role. That was probably a good suggestion, but it’s not the only route this guy could take. Depending on whether or not this individual’s problems with keeping up with new technologies and techniques are a result of a growing need to focus on his adult/familial responsibilities he can still take some steps to keep competitive in the marketplace.

Here are four quick suggestions that can keep almost anyone in the game, development wise:

• Attend local tech meetups. These days there are a multitude of TechCocktails, BarCamps, Ignites, and more where you can meet people who are on the forefront of technology. What’s even cooler is that a lot of these are free to attend, you just need to know when they’re happening. But how do you keep up on all these events?
• Read blogs! No, really! If you’re interested in keeping up in development, there are a whole host of blogs where people are discussing the latest stuff. Read Ajaxian, if they link to someone’s blog that interests you, follow those links and subscribe to that guy’s blog. Keep it up and you’ll have a nice, neat little collection of blog to read and absorb each week.
• Go to big conferences to get inspired. Every time I go to a conference and surround myself with smart, ambitious people, a little bit of it rubs off on me. If you’re interested in Mac development, rub shoulders with the developers at WWDC. Interested in cool new web technologies? There are a dearth of opportunities from South by Southwest Interactive, O’Reilly Web 2.0 Expo, ETech, RailsConf, OScon, PyCon, The Future of Web Design, and tons more!
• Find a pet project or cause. Does something annoy you? Come up with a way to solve it and implement it in a new language or framework. You don’t have to bang out the solution in one night, work on it progressively over the course of a few weeks. Your blog software getting you down? Write your own. There’s no better way to learn new concepts than to find and itch and scratch it.

I’m sure there are tons more ways to get your inner-developer going again. Leave your suggestions in the comments.