2/07/2006
The “Artiste” In Me
I guess I should have said “L’artiste,” sorry to any Frenchies reading this. J
I recently spoke to someone who expressed frustration in the past with trying to get developers to commit to and meet deadlines. I told them that I felt this was the “nature of the beast.” Developers, much like artists, have to be “in the mood” to do seriously good work, in my opinion. I was fortunate in High School to have an art teacher that let us come in and work on our own time. Since I boarded, I was able to get my work done in the evenings and on weekends, when I felt more inspired. This actually led to a few awards in our annual art show.
It seems from my experience that many developers push work off until they are ready to accomplish it, and generally do pretty well when they get around to it. Of course, some programming jobs are not as creative, especially if adding mundane content to a huge site, which can be probably done half asleep. I am talking about actual creativity here, and I feel that SEO’s like artists, fall under the spell of “writers block.” I know most people have heard of writers block, and I think this applies to my work as an SEO.
Some days I cannot get myself to write content, other days I work on two or three projects over the course of the day. Some days are better days for working on linking, and some days are best for sales. That is what I enjoy the most about my job. I have such a variety of tasks that need to be accomplished, that I can always find something I feel like doing. For example, this evening I feel like blogging, et voila!
Of course, the end of the month brings reporting, and that is something that I have to do in a timely manner whether I feel like it or not. PPC management duties and responding to web forms are also “daily grind.” When it comes to creativity though, let me be “L’artiste!” I look forward to others’ comments…I am curious if any of you SEO’s out there or perhaps an occasional developer, feels this way too.
I recently spoke to someone who expressed frustration in the past with trying to get developers to commit to and meet deadlines. I told them that I felt this was the “nature of the beast.” Developers, much like artists, have to be “in the mood” to do seriously good work, in my opinion. I was fortunate in High School to have an art teacher that let us come in and work on our own time. Since I boarded, I was able to get my work done in the evenings and on weekends, when I felt more inspired. This actually led to a few awards in our annual art show.
It seems from my experience that many developers push work off until they are ready to accomplish it, and generally do pretty well when they get around to it. Of course, some programming jobs are not as creative, especially if adding mundane content to a huge site, which can be probably done half asleep. I am talking about actual creativity here, and I feel that SEO’s like artists, fall under the spell of “writers block.” I know most people have heard of writers block, and I think this applies to my work as an SEO.
Some days I cannot get myself to write content, other days I work on two or three projects over the course of the day. Some days are better days for working on linking, and some days are best for sales. That is what I enjoy the most about my job. I have such a variety of tasks that need to be accomplished, that I can always find something I feel like doing. For example, this evening I feel like blogging, et voila!
Of course, the end of the month brings reporting, and that is something that I have to do in a timely manner whether I feel like it or not. PPC management duties and responding to web forms are also “daily grind.” When it comes to creativity though, let me be “L’artiste!” I look forward to others’ comments…I am curious if any of you SEO’s out there or perhaps an occasional developer, feels this way too.
