By Jayson Jarmon, CEO, LuxWorldwide.com
Back in the day, there were no schools or certification programs to train young people who were interested in Internet development. Indeed, most Internet companies between 1994 and 2001 were staffed with an eclectic group of software developers, writers, marketing people, and inspired enthusiasts who could see the promise in what was then a brand new field of endeavor.
As any industry develops, however, certification and training programs began to crop up to respond to the needs of the private sector. The results are mixed, as one might expect in a novel field. In my opinion, an opinion I've stated elsewhere, the people who are best suited for the Internet service industry are people focused not on software, information management, or marketing only, but on the liberal arts as a whole.
The field remains so eclectic, so challenging, and so diffuse, that those who focus too much in any one field of specialization can entirely miss the gestalt of the whole. Liberal arts students are able to see the forest for the trees and have minds supple enough to understand that the Internet is more than just a software development platform, more than just a vast collection of ever-changing bits of information … it is a cosmos unto itself-an economy, a library, a social network, and so much more that we can only guess at.
In practical terms, vertical specialization and training are necessary and there are some good programs in design and development, to be sure. I have seen promising but mixed results from the University of Washington's I-School (the notion that information management on the Internet is evolving out of Library management is itself interesting, and there are superb faculty members at the I-School including people like Senior Lecturer Mike Crandall). The I-School produces superb information architects several of which we have in our employ here at Lux, but it still is only a narrow slice of viewing the operation and, indeed, meaning of the Internet.
I always say this is a creative business, a technical business and a business business. The best training is still a generalized one that supports innovation. Learn to think and learn to do.
