Continue Your Progress

Once you start the job you want or move forward along your career path, 0:00 it's important to continue your progress. 0:04 As you move forward, it'll be natural and necessary 0:06 to acquire new skills that complement the ones you already have. 0:10 Working with others and continuing to be an active networker online 0:14 should expose you to new technologies, strategies, and tools 0:19 to try out and potentially adopt as your own. 0:23 At a recent visit to a local design agency, 0:26 it was clear that staying current is a challenge that both job seekers 0:29 and existing industry professionals must overcome. 0:34 >>When we look to hire anyone, whether it's designer or developer, 0:37 one of the most important things in my book is not necessarily— 0:41 yeah, I mean it's great to have the prerequisites as far as the technology is concerned. 0:44 But technology is moving so quickly on both the design and the development side 0:47 that it's really important that the folks that we hire 0:54 are passionate about learning. 0:58 You know, we provide a lot of on-the-job training and those types of things 1:00 for the individuals here, and because of the shifts, it's important 1:05 for people to have that desire to get up to speed on the latest technology 1:10 or learn something new. 1:14 That is probably the single most important characteristic 1:17 of any new hire here at our company. 1:19 >>Industry blogs and networks continue to be powered 1:22 by the energy of its audience. 1:25 Continually seeking out new and better ways to advance their design 1:27 and development projects. 1:32 And you can count on Treehouse as well 1:34 to continue to develop new courses based on the demands of the tech industry. 1:36 >>So there's big misconception of trends in the industry. 1:40 And I believe it was Paul Rand that said it. 1:46 It's harder to be good than it is to follow a trend. 1:49 Because following a trend, you're just jumping on the boat and saying 1:55 hey, this person did it, and after a while it's just going to get dummied down 2:01 to nothing, and you'll probably end up seeing that design at Wal-Mart. 2:04 Right? Where being good, you're not really setting your own trend. 2:09 You're just creating a timeless piece that will work well. 2:16 >>That's one thing that's great about our industry, and that's why when I first started 2:23 speaking was that, just by our nature of our industry, we're so open, 2:27 that we have to share our information 2:31 in order to get better, but also to continue on, because it's not going to happen otherwise. 2:34 >>Yeah, it is hard to stay current. 2:41 I rely on Twitter a lot to just get all of this new information. 2:45 So I read a lot of blogs, but I kind of find out about them through Twitter. 2:50 I think that that's a really great tool, because you can see what 2:55 is on people's minds right at that moment. 2:58 They don't have to take a long time to craft some big long blog post. 3:00 You can see what other designers and developers are thinking about 3:04 and working on right at that moment. 3:06 And I think a lot of staying current, too, is just being willing to just 3:08 try something new. 3:14 So recently I just tried Sass for the first time. 3:16 And I hadn't used a CSS preprocessor before, 3:21 just because I've been doing CSS forever, and it works, right? 3:25 I'm used to writing it, and so I can just write it and I'm fine without a preprocessor. 3:30 So I had never taken the time to learn that, 3:35 but I finally just was—I'm just going to give this an hour and try it out. 3:39 And I really enjoyed it, so a lot of times I think we think that we have 3:45 to devote like, okay, now I'm going to learn JavaScript. 3:49 And I'm going to take the next six months to do that. Don't think about it that way. 3:53 >>An easy way for your skills to erode is to stop using them. 3:58 Your day job may have a certain focus, meaning that some of the skills 4:03 you've learned in the past may become marginalized 4:07 in favor of others. 4:09 Sometimes the degradation of skills is simply a part of your evolution 4:11 as a tech professional. 4:15 Certain languages, techniques, and best practices become antiquated 4:17 when new apps, versions, and platforms emerge. 4:20 As long as you're staying current, you'll know when it's time to move on to something new. 4:23 But if you have a skill you're not using, and you want to keep it, 4:29 find ways to flex those creative muscles. 4:33 Seek out freelance or even personal projects 4:36 that can satisfy some of those needs. 4:39 But always be on the lookout to integrate the skills you're most passionate about 4:41 into the work you do or a future job or project. 4:45 >>That's what web development is. That's why we're professionals, right? 4:49 You know, for Treehouse, you can learn different techniques about 4:54 how to do maybe one thing even. 4:59 There's going to be best practices, and those will always rise to the top. 5:01 But, you know, right now you just got to think it's a no-man's land. 5:04 I decided to do two things, and one of my core concepts is always be learning. 5:08 We're never the smartest, and if you are, you're about to get humbled in a big way. 5:14 So I always want to be learning. 5:19 So I came up with two goals that would help do that. 5:23 One goal is to finish a book a month. 5:28 And I don't really have a lot—I say this. 5:30 I don't have time to finish a book a month, 5:35 but I do, if I quit playing iPhone games and stuff like that, 5:38 I do, I have an amazing amount of time 5:45 to read a book a month, so I've been trying to do that. 5:47 Also, another goal of mine was to spend about at least like a dedicated four hours 5:49 a week learning something I don't know 5:55 for programming, and I have this list of shame. 5:58 Of things I want to learn, and I'll tell you, I'll just out myself. 6:02 I've not used Backbone like I need to, and I just need to learn it. 6:06 I don't use Grunt. I should. I just need to use it and add it to my workflow. 6:11 Or maybe go—I call it full yamin, but like—or yomin, full yomin 6:18 just like get on something, some sort of package manager for my front end 6:22 work, but then again I don't know if I'm the target audience there. 6:27 But there's a lot of other stuff, but those are kind of my big things. 6:32 It's like, gosh, this is stuff I talk about and I want to do, but 6:35 I just, for whatever reason, haven't done. 6:39 So I'm trying to dedicate at least four hours a week to learning that stuff. 6:42 >>In the tech industry, there is a continual fear that much of what you know now 6:46 will soon be obsolete. 6:51 It may take years or only months. 6:53 But the speed at which this industry moves 6:56 can be both exciting and intimidating. 6:58 In the end, the best advice is don't ever stop learning. 7:00 Seek out people that inspire you. 7:05 Blogs for research. Projects to practice your skills. 7:08 And get used to the process of finding and integrating new technology. 7:12 The better you are at adapting to the industry, the better your chances are 7:16 at continuing your progress. 7:21