I think people sometimes forget that business is business, the pitch might have changed but the game is very much the same. As long as there is a genuine long term demand for a product or service you provide and you are able to supply that product or service at a fair price you should be fine. Many of the problems we have seen in the big companies have grown from issues starting years back.

Personally I see the financial crisis like congestion on a motorway. The majority of the problem is down to people over-reacting. On the motorway, if one person brakes, their brake lights cause people behind to apply their brakes and the problem cascades. In this case the first numpty to apply their brakes is, the fat-cat bankers who noticed that their bonuses were slightly lighter than last year. They then panic and yell “shark!” and the news media say that this is the sign of a “Credit crunch” people see that, panic and spend less. This hits business, comes back to banks and the problem cascades.

Web Design seems to be one of the markets that are in the proverbial fastest moving lane in the motorway jam. The credit crunch will affect us but not as much as other markets such as advertising.

But at £30 for a quarter page ad in the local rag?! Let’s all advertise our services for cheap! It will help our business and help get their lane moving quicker too.

Dan

I’m located in Sunnyvale, CA aka “Silicon Valley” and have been self employed for almost 20 years. Boom and bust the typical cycle here, where at least the weather is pleasant. I’m a burned out, independent desktop and network IT support provider, moving into ‘your’ webspace. I was in commercial art production before the dawn of digital anything. The only computers were green screen, hard code, analog typesetting or early typesetting preview/layout terminals and such. All code driven interfaces.

CSS and XHTML are something, and something to learn! Really, what fun to finally be able to position and format content so precisely in a browser window. As someone just entering the field, I’m convinced that I must have a greater understanding and facility with the concepts and the tools than my competition. Or look like I do… I’m still figuring out which part of the web design space to take on, and am thinking in terms of scale rather than volume. As if my thinking has any bearing on the future. We’ll see what happens, the need to “get it up on the web” seems greater than ever. In the mean time, boom or bust, hiring or firing, you’ve got to hire the IT guy in to unlock their account or set up the next new user. Why is HE reading that book on CSS? Cheers!

First time visitor (I think), arrived via Aaron Russell’s great website.

I’ve been self-employed for three and a half years now, and even though the past two weeks has seen a decrease in new enquiries, business has been great, and I’m keeping busy. My rates have increased too, which helps with any slower than normal spells.

I’m happy I have low overheads, and even though physical premises do act as advertising, they have nowhere near the same reach my online presence brings.

Ciao for now.