In my own evolution of late career changes, I flirted with coding, programming, script, whatever you want to call it. Due to collapsing economies, age, and the psychological wear and tear of owning a small construction business for years, I turned my attention to where I thought the job market was going. Computers obviously; everyone worked in the digital space. I soon learned that that field was as broad as the entire job market, seemingly, with thousands of sub-specializations and offshoots.
Going back to school, I was strongly encouraged into the networking field, only to observe that everyone else were in the classes on a continuing education basis, I being the sole ‘newbie’. I disliked the dry sterility of the subject matter on a practical level but did and do value the underlying knowledge. I understand how this set of ‘packets’ is making your reading this a reality, right this very moment.
I then gravitated to webpage technologies, getting closer and closer to subject matter that really interested me. I learned HTML, a simpler form of coding. I was like a kid in the candy store to make my own first webpage models. By this time, I was starting to get some entry level work exposure to these fields, learning yet more about the tech that powers your web experience. After thinking I was making serious progress down this road of digital web expertise, I quickly learned, I had barely passed the ‘first turn’ in a field that required huge proficiencies in knowledge sets that I had difficulty assimilating. This was compounded by the fact that the goal of obtaining a BS in a reasonable late career timeline and also learning the actual skillsets needed to be up to date in my chosen field, these were almost diametrically opposite goals.
Programming, or coding (other than HTML) is a skillset that I understand conceptually but have very little ability to focus enough to master. In theory, I probably could have if I went into a bootcamp cave for a month, but while that kind of environment works well for a budding fourteen- or sixteen-year-old coder, it would have been ridiculously impractical for an older adult. My web technician career shipwrecked on the shores of coding. I can’t say that I was too disappointed in as much as I eventually learned that that career was also dry compared to where some of my deeper interests lay. In the space of a few years, most of what I was trying to learn became the domain of globally hosted cloud platforms. What I originally searched for, hardly existed any longer. I refocused on web content and graphic skills, found even more interest in broader communications dynamics, until at last, coinciding with what is functionally considered semi-retirement, I now simply speak my mind.
Ultimately, my education did come in handy. While the past couple generations of web platforms have become easy enough that total non-web people can learn and post reasonably good-looking websites, I’ve definitely benefited from having some knowledge of the underlying tech. It enabled me to self web-publish at a point where most others would have been spending thousands of dollars to launch anything. It’s enabled me to keep tabs on further web platform advances. Combined with some broader formal training and some self-experienced learning and practice, I can speak to where we’re going in digital media.
I’ve stated numerous times in other essays, that we need coders more than pundits. I say this as a pundit, but also, having had one pinky toe in the broader pool of web coding technology. I addressed some of the larger web platform issues recently in my article, ‘The Hidden Digital War That Will Change Media Forever’, and now I have a message for would-be coders and especially for other pundits and influencers that would wonder how they could make the biggest difference for conservatism.
To fellow pundits and influencers: It’s really tempting to simply want more voices and to set up young people to stand for public office. These too are sorely needed and in fact, more young people will have the aptitude to do that than to code. It’s really easy to set up a 30-year-old for their first run for entry level local office; it might only take several thousands of dollars, mentoring, and a smile.
Coding, in the context of the conservative mission, is a much tougher nut to crack. How many among you/us really understands the platform evolution that’s in play in our digital media? Why did Facebook evolve from college project to a censoring global monopoly in a mere twenty years? Even though several other platforms are climbing the ranks to challenge the hegemony of Big Tech and Big Media, consider that it’ll take a lot more platform entities to survive the Darwinian process that happens to all tech, and to anticipate where tech will go. It isn’t enough to build a new Facebook-esque site that probably won’t ever compete on bells and whistles.
A new platform will have to win by being both better and simpler. Or how about an entirely new concept? Who will supply that vision? More so, where will the money come from? That’s a world $ I’m not so familiar with, but I’d be willing to bet, almost all monies expensed for conservatism are being desperately poured into candidacies and think tanks. Well enough as far as that goes, until 2020, when we experienced too much and too late that Big Tech and Big Media owned most of the ‘streets, railroads and utilities’, to use a Monopoly game metaphor, and they attempted to run the board. If more foresight for digital media investment had been put forth, the end of 2020 might look a lot different. Better late than never. Maybe experiencing a digital ‘Pearl Harbor’ is what it takes to get more money and gifted coders into the conservative cause.
But how about coders? How about other supporting technologies like people that understand SEO, hardware, security, new cutting-edge technologies? How about venture capitalist? You’re out there, mostly working for others, maybe even under the radar in Big Tech. Your hour is now, and a window is open. Just today, 48 states filed anti-trust motions against Facebook; a digital media war is now started and turf will be opened up to claim. This is a once in a generation opportunity. You know what’s out there now and it can be surpassed. The infrastructure of the web was made to be free and for free speech. You’re the key link to keep it that way.