Yesterday I was having a chat with someone from a large Australian site who do all kinds of interesting work. They’d have to be close to one of the largest Australian sites in terms of traffic, and do lots of innovative stuff. We were talking about how easy, or otherwise it is to find people to work for them, or even with them.

We got round to the issue of Ajax/Javascript, and the conclusion was “if you have good Javascript skills, you can name your price”.
In fact, I think that’s true even more generally - if you are a good, knowledgeable, standards based developer - if you know your XHTML and CSS, and particularly if you can throw some scripting into the mix, then you’ll be beating clients and employers away with sticks.

In fact, people frequently approach me to ask whether we know anyone who meets their needs, either for some freelance or for a full time job. Sometimes we can help out, but not infrequently, even we are stumped.

The demand is out there - but do you have the skills to meet those needs?

Here in Australia, it can be hard to get good training. That’s why a lot of us are self taught, but it’s also why we’ve put together the workshops we have at web directions this year.

Two in particular might really be useful for helping you meet the needs of the market right now (though in truth, they’ll all be good for that).

Ajax - buzzword du jour

Few people know more about Javascript, DOM scripting and Ajax than Jeremy Keith. At Web Directions, Jeremy is doing a whole day workshop on this area, DOM Scripting and Ajax. So, do yourself a favour, and don’t miss this really rare opportunity.

Web Design - you aint seen nothing yet

If design more than development is your thing, then few people won’t benefit from a whole day with two of the web’s best educators, writers and designers - Molly Holzschlag and Andy Clarke. In Extreme Standards Molly and Andy talk about “Using markup and CSS to create detailed, aesthetic and progressive site designs”. If you are a web designer, even if you think you know all there is to know about CSS, take a look at the outcomes for the day, and you won’t be disappointed.

Opportunity knocks

Australia is a long way for international speakers to come, that’s why we just don’t get the chance to see speakers of this calibre from overseas very often. We’ve already got a great turnout for all our workshops, but there still are some places. So take another look at the workshops, but just don’t kick yourself for missing out!