Five tips for hiring the right web developer
A closer lookHiring the right developer can make a significant impact on business growth, system efficiency, and even team morale. Tech is at the heart of modern business and if systems break down things fall off the rails all too quickly.
So, how do you know who to hire? You’re almost certainly not a developer yourself, so assessing skills can be a challenge. And even then, there is a wide variety of developer mentalities and as developers ourselves, we can say that we’re kind of a strange lot. So with that in mind here are five tips for hiring the right developer.
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The SEO tool you have and don’t know about: Lighthouse
One minute overview seriesThere’s a great little tool housed inside Google Chrome called Lighthouse. It’s a testing and reporting system to determine webpage performance and offer suggestions about speed, accessibility, best practices, SEO, and Progressive Web Apps. Don’t worry if you’re not a developer as this information is clearly presented and built into basic overall scores.
This test is run page by page (not website by website) so try running it on your home page, your product/post page, etc. Do some analysis of your site and see what needs a little adjustment to work well. And remember, this isn’t just for SEO, this is also for general user experience. Treat your visitors right and Google will reward you for it, so make that site FAST! Make it accessible, and keep your code clean and up to date.
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Avast Ye Scallywag! An example of tech keeping things fun in the workplace
One minute overview seriesWe believe that having fun is one of the most important aspects to business. Sure, there’s hard work, discipline, focus, and a few other things that are needed too, but having fun is the fuel for our creative thinking and motivation.
Automated reminders for a smile or a laugh are little gems that are worth their weight in gold, and this one just tickles us to no end. Whenever someone reacts to our posts a pirate shouts at us. At the moment this pirate has a limited repertoire of “FULL AHEAD!” for positive reactions and “ABANDON SHIP!” for negative ones, but we’re thinking of expanding this significantly. What do you think? Geoffrey Rush shouting orders as Captain Barbossa is as motivational as it gets. The possibilities!
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SAAS vs Custom Software. When and why
One minute overview seriesWe often hear the question “Should I build my own software or use off-the-shelf systems that are already out there?” and the answer is fairly simple: if you can find SAAS that meets your needs, use it. Because the development cost is shared by all of the users the price is low and the system is maintained and updated at no additional cost.
However, in most cases it is nearly impossible to find SAAS to actually meet your needs, and that is where custom systems come in. Custom-built web software usually pays for itself quickly and is a very good investment. It also allows for a much more innovative approach to business as it is tailored to YOU—if you want to try something different it can be easily built in to your system.
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Taking control of privacy with DuckDuckGo
Security and PrivacyPrivacy is complicated and every step in the right direction counts. Let’s start with web searches. We all perform web searches many times every day and Google tracks just about everything—it’s something that is alarming when you really dig into the nuts and bolts of what is being tracked and where that data goes. To quote Google’s privacy policy (05/29/2020): “We collect information to provide better services to all our users — from figuring out basic stuff like which language you speak, to more complex things like which ads you’ll find most useful, the people who matter most to you online, or which YouTube videos you might like.” - In other words, they are tracking everything and you have no privacy when you use their services. Not uncommon and not a path that should be followed without careful consideration. This is posted on Youtube—the irony is not lost on us and it’s a great illustration of how living in this era is always a careful balance and mindful compromise.
As with anything, if you don’t like it, don’t use it. DuckDuckGo is an alternative to Google with a simple privacy policy: “We don’t collect or share any of your personal information.” And that’s the sort of thing we want to see more and more of.
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Password misconceptions
Security and PrivacyMost people think of password hacking as someone in a hoodie singling you out and guessing what your password might be, and while this can happen, it usually is not the case. The fact of the matter is that most password hacking is done by computers running password cracking systems, and computers are quite good at that sort of thing. In short: be smart, and expect hackers to be much smarter.
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Process automation - Focus on things that you do best
One minute overview seriesAutomation of data processing is one of the easiest ways to harness the power of technology and reduce overhead. And not only that, it typically pays for itself within a short amount of time.
Whenever you find yourself entering redundant data, or transferring data, ask yourself if a simple integration could do the same thing instantly and accurately. Human effort is very valuable for complex tasks like problem-solving and customer service and that is where your man-hours are best devoted. Leave the tedium to the machines and automate wherever and whenever possible.
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