Monday Blues, Ep. 3

As a member of a local Atlanta Web Developer Meetup group, I recently received an interesting email from another member through the group’s mailing list. Below is the email in its entirety:

I met a guy in this club in a VIP section last year. To my surprise, he turned out to be a web designer/developer running his own company.

Was awesome to bump into someone of similar caliber that knew how to “party”!!

Before leaving to go another area, we exchanged cards, and I got the following from him:

–          Free vista-print business card from one of their popular card themes.

–          Link to his website on the card was actually a template-monster template

–          All links to “work we’ve done” on the site was other template monster templates…some still with Lorem Ipsum Text..

For those not aware, Template Monster is a popular website where one can purchase professionally designed web layouts. Also, Lorem Ipsum text is placeholder text used on a website for visual presentation purposes.

Obviously, the “professional” was and maybe still is running his business venture purely on deception and false advertising which is an ideal recipe for disaster. Additionally, his practices may be affecting other professionals who take pride in producing their own, original work.

This email really does remind us that it pays to be honest and morals-driven in business and even in our daily encounters or one may just end up getting caught.

Enjoy the week everyone.

  • This brings us back to the hot debate about instituting some SOP’s in place that will guarantee the client certain quality. We need an association and we need to advertise its values. Other than that there is always going to be newcomers that will screw clients, make trashy websites, and charge low fees.

    I have nothing against the fellow developers that come into the game, but I do want them to follow certain rules. Rules from usability to business management. Once we have agreed to these rules, we should advertise them to the client and simply have the clint ask the potential developer if he/she is a member of {name} association.

    All this started with my idea of “clean web campaign”, i hope one day to catch on.

    • I agree with you Danny. It would be great to have something similar to the BBB but for fellow developers and designers like ourselves. This would help to some extent. It sounds like you have been thinking through this for a while. I don’t mind helping out with making it a reality. We all stand to benefit.