John Connelly, President & Founder at Sensus Media
I won’t waste your time with a long post that highlights all the benefits of learning coding fundamentals or use the cliché ‘you have to try this’ spiel. No. Instead, I’m going to share an anecdote with you.
Almost 10 years ago, I was a fairly recent college graduate living in California who got smacked in the face by the 2008 Great Recession. I was engaging, eager and enthusiastic, but also young. As such, finding a job in my field was impossible and my fallback industry wasn’t fairing too well either.
I’ll be completely honest. Paying the bills and surviving the 2008 Great Recession looked bleak.
I had learned search engine optimization and search engine marketing on my last job at an online media company. I actually got quite good at it. However, I was dependent on developers to create the digital structure I needed to execute my job well. I decided I’d add a new skill to my repertoire—coding websites.
“I didn’t consider myself a ‘computer’ person…”
I’m a quick learner and like a challenge. Coding websites, though, was a challenge unlike any other I’d taken on. I didn’t consider myself a ‘computer’ person nor did I know the most basic concepts of how a website was coded.
Fortunately, California offered free classes in almost every field imaginable and, yes, coding, was one of those fields. I took classes and got exposed to the basics—HTML and CSS. I learned about servers and email.
In addition to those classes, I knew a few friends who were also intermediate web developers. I leaned on them a lot when I needed help and had questions. I didn’t want to be overbearing and limited my questions. In reality, I approached web development with a decidedly scattershot strategy—unknowingly.
I dedicated myself to web development over the years and can say I’m unquestionably grateful for the opportunities the field has created for me—on top of surviving the Great Recession. I reflect often on how far I’ve come in field I once knew absolutely nothing about.
The macro and micro of web development.
I do however circle back to a nagging thought. ‘What if I hadn’t taken a scattershot approach? What if someone taught me the macro and micro of web development in my early days?’
Well, I want to be that person. I want to teach aspiring or curious web developers the things I wish I knew back when I started. I want to show others just how possible it is to become a web developer and become indispensable to an organization.
And that’s what I’ll be doing on May 10th at 9:00am at Joining Vision and Action. I invite you to join me as I share the fundamentals of web development while teaching participants how to build an agency-quality website at “Get Your Geek On”.
I promise it won’t be a typical computer class…
Sign up today!
Note from JVA
John Connelly is a changemaker in our co-working space. This space provides you access to Colorado’s most robust in-house nonprofit and social enterprise training program and the chance to rub elbows on a daily basis with Colorado’s most successful and creative nonprofit and social enterprise leaders.
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