The general questions were centered around: The importance of passion.

In the Boagworld podcast, there were quite a few thoughts and options to the questions since it was an interview with the Clearleft crew. So, you got the perspective of not only Paul Boag and Marcus Lillington from Headscape, but also Andy Budd and Jeremy Keith. The discussion centered mostly on how one finds the time to keep up with new trends, technologies, etc in the web design industry. The general consensus being that there’s a very blurry line between the work-life balance when it comes to this kind of thing. One of the important takeaways from listening to Andy talk about it, was that if it’s not making you all jumpy and gitty to want to know what’s changing, what the new hot trend is, or what new technologies are coming out, that it raises a red flag and you should really take a step back and re-evaluate if this is really your passion. Of course, you could just be burnt out. As Paul mentioned that he does the majority of his RSS feeds reading in bed on his own time, it’s important to remember, most of us would be doing this anyway because it’s what we love to do.

Although, not exactly the same question, the same topic was brought up in a different manner on the StackOverflow podcast. This time in regards to what technology to choose to learn for future profit. Specifically, the listener was not interested in coding in Objective-C for the rest of his life, yet concerned if Ruby on Rails would still be a viable way to make a living in the area he currently lives in. To this question, both Jeff Atwood and Joel Spolsky answered similarly with:

• “Joel and I concur: it probably doesn’t matter what language and toolchain you use, as long as it has a certain level of critical mass. What you should be more concerned about is the product you’re creating.
• If you’re happy with your current tool chain, then there’s no reason you need to switch. However, if you can’t list five things you hate about your favorite programming language, then I argue you don’t know it well enough yet to judge. It’s good to be aware of the alternatives, and have a healthy critical eye for whatever it is you’re using.
• Most programming languages don’t evolve particularly well over time. They’re usually replaced by other languages rather than new iterations of themselves. Why? What languages would you point to as the best example of growing and evolving in useful, relevant ways?”

While neither Joel or Jeff mentioned anything along the lines of picking something because it’ll make you a lot of money. I can’t imagine either of them would even come close to making any suggestion like that to anyone. Picking something just because it’s the new “money pot” or pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, is just asking for short term gain and potentially, long term unhappiness.

In the End

It’s my own opinion that you should not do or choose a path just because it has the potential to make you a lot of money if it doesn’t interest you at all. More so, if you have some inner hatred for Objective-C and think you should just suck it up and make something for the iPhone because it can net you a lot money. It’s not my recommendation, but do as you will.

What are your thoughts on Doing for the Money vs Doing for the Love?

That said, I do still have my own legal issues to be aware of. Recently, I have started up my own company, which brings even more legal nightmares. As for my design and development work, there are quite a bit of legal things that I needed to be aware of.

Copyright

These are pretty easy to register. At least in the U.S. it is. I’m not so sure about how other countries work. For the U.S. head on over to the U.S. Copyright Office’s website and do the online registration. It costs about $35 per copyright. This is good for just about all design work and also includes the programming code.

Licenses

These are the ones that have most recently driven me crazy. You can license your code, design work, photos, etc with various different licenses such as Creative Commons, MIT, GNU and many more.  There are a lot of resources available online for these and Creative Commons helps you pick the license you want to use.  My confusion comes from having both a Copyright and License on the same material. As a general understanding, everything I write and put on my website is Copyrighted. But at the same time, I have some code that is freely available for downloading and modification under MIT license both on my website and also on GitHub.

Another issue I am working on figuring out all the legalities of, is how to properly license out work to a client. I have seen quite a few articles online and even some books stating that it’s best to retain the Copyright for the websites I design and build, while licensing out the design to the client. That’s a great idea, but there’s no legal paperwork or explanation on how this whole process works. AIGA has a pretty good write-up for designers.

I’m still trying to figure this all out, but I have run into some good resources.

Additional Resources

• Copyright Basics for Graphic Designers – AIGA
• U.S. Copyright Office
• Creative Commons Licenses
• Open Source Licenses – Open Source Initiative
• The legal guide for designers – .Net Magazine
• Legal issues in starting up – a primer – SitePoint
• Logic Sold Separately – Legal Issues for Developers – SitePoint
• Thwart the design thieves – .Net Magazine
• What to Do When Someone Steals Your Work – FreelanceSwitch
• The Uncomfortable Facts About Plagiarism – Freelance Folder
• FYI: Do You Know Your Freelancing Rights? – Freelance Folder
• Startup Company Lawyer Blog
• Startup Lawyers: When Can You Do It Yourself? – OnStartups

Price Comparisons

For the 77 Core Books the total savings if you buy all the Kindle versions instead of the Print version is $135.57. As for the Supplemental books, your savings would be $19.51. It is important to note that there is actually one book currently available in Kindle format which would be cheaper to purchase the Print version. That book is Judgment by Noel Tichy & Warren Bennis.

Below you will find the same list found on The Personal MBA Book list page, but with the additions of whether or not the book is available in Kindle format and if so, the corresponding prices in Print and Kindle formats.

Disclaimer: Prices subject to change per Amazon.com decisions and book list subject to change per The Personal MBA’s decision.

Getting Started

Productivity & Effectiveness

Psychology & Communication

Design & Production

Marketing, Sales, & Negotiation

Entrepreneurship

Management & Leadership

Strategy & Innovation

Finance & Analysis

Personal Finance

SUPPLEMENT: Business History

SUPPLEMENT: Business Reference

What are you thoughts?