I will admit that I don’t get asked this question out loud a lot, but I can see it in a lot of people’s eyes when I start talking about everyone needing their own website. I can remember several years ago when I started talking about everyone needing their own personal computer… I got the same kind of looks. Many people still look at me as if I’m just saying that because I’m in the website (or computer) business and I want to sell more websites (or computer services).
Actually, I’m in the website/computer services business because that’s where things are going in the future. That’s not entirely true. I’m in this business because I am passionate about computers and programming and logic and making things work and helping people.
I love what I do. I would do it (and often do) even if I didn’t get paid. I consider myself extremely blessed that my passions fall in line with where I believe things are headed in the future. I really don’t think that’s an accident. Looking back I can see where God led me every step of the way.
From getting my first personal computer to getting a full scholarship to Austin Peay to getting my first programming job to being able to work from home as a free-lancer, I’ve seen God’s hand every step of the way. I truly believe that He gave me these passions and then made the path for me to be where I am today!
When I got my first job out of college, I couldn’t believe that I could actually get paid to do something I truly loved to do. I also remember feeling guilty when I moved from being a mainframe programmer to programming a personal computer. I felt like I really got paid to play while some of my other programmer friends were still working down at the other end of the hall where they programmed the mainframes.
For those that don’t know, mainframes are gigantic computers that require their own air conditioned rooms so they won’t overheat. We used data entry machines in our offices to create punched cards or put the information on huge floppy disks so that we could take it to the computer room and transfer the data to the computer. It was too cold to work in the computer room all day entering the data. Later we got computer terminals (monitors) on our desks that were connected by wires or cables to the mainframe. But, I got off track…
When I say that everyone will need their own website, maybe I should clarify that a bit. I think the internet is in a state of change. The boundaries between websites is changing. Before long, and already in some cases, you will just sign in to the internet – no more signing in to each website. You can already use your facebook login to sign on to many sites besides Facebook.
Websites will start working together more and more so that before long, you won’t know where one starts and the other ends. The internet has already replaced the backyard fence and local hangouts as the social spot for a lot of people. We can do most of our shopping online and even attend church online. Mobile phone apps connect to websites behind the scenes to make their apps work correctly. Everything is moving online.
Whether you need a website to connect to family and friends, run your online business, market your local or global brick and mortar business, find a job, catch up on the news, spread the news, keep up with your group, educate your family, or whatever the reason, I see a time when everyone will need to have more website/internet skills. Our children are almost born with these skills now. It seems to be in their DNA.
When I was growing up, I thought computers were only in science fiction novels and now they practically run our world. That really hasn’t been that long ago.
When everyone was worried about Y2K, it really woke me up to the fact that most everything we do from pumping gas, to buying bread, to going to the bathroom (we now think we need water and electricity in most cases), to writing a check is now dependent on a computer of some kind. Computers are here to stay. And the internet, and websites, in some form or fashion, are here to stay as well.
A lot of people are much smarter than I am about how the internet works and why things work the way they do, but for me, it’s certainly helped to know how things have evolved over the last 30 years. My boys often tell me how bad the computer graphics are on a game they are playing. I just look at the screen in disbelief. The graphics look amazing to me because when I look at the screen I see EVERYTHING that’s going on behind the scenes.
When I was in college, one of my projects was to make an animated scene. I had to program each pixel (little dot on the screen) separately. It took me a good long while to get every little pixel working perfectly together. How dare them say the graphics are bad and make fun of the early video game graphics! Another project required me to build a computer from scratch just to show the digits from 0 to 9. It took a lot of work and a lot of time.
My understanding of what is going on behind the scenes gives me a much better appreciation for what is happening online today. I believe it makes me a better programmer to know and understand what’s really going on under the hood, not just how it works today, but how it got to this point as well. Just like I want my mechanic to not only know how to replace a part, but to know why the part needs to be replaced and how that part will work the best and why I need that specific part in the first place.
The more my mechanic knows about how those things work, the more I trust him and the better job I believe he will do. I don’t necessarily have to know everything single thing about the part or about my car, but the more I DO know, the more I know how much I appreciate my mechanic. I also know how much I can trust my mechanic.
I guess I’ve gotten a little carried away in this post. When I started, my intention was to share with you my number one reason for having your own website right now today is so that you can start your own home business. Not necessarily so that you can go quit your job tomorrow, but there are many, many reasons why you should have your own home business – even if you LOVE your full time job and never have any intentions of quitting.
I am willing to bet that there are several thousand people that wish they had had something to fall back on when they lost their jobs in our recent economic downturn. I believe that it’s time for us to take control of our financial destiny. I’ve watched too many friends and family members hurt by recent events in our world and our economy and it breaks my heart.
I see SO many opportunities online every day for people to make a few (or a lot of) extra dollars. But, many of my friends and family, no matter how upset or discouraged, just don’t believe that they have what it takes to get online and make things better. Or maybe it’s that they don’t believe it really could happen, and especially not to them. Or maybe they believe I’m just trying to take advantage of them because it sounds too good to be true. I’m not sure, but sometimes I feel like I’ve got the cure and yet no one wants to take advantage of it.
I need to stop here for today. I do have work that needs to get done. Maybe tomorrow I will have time to go into other reasons why I believe everyone should have their own home-based business.
Hopefully, someone reading this will see my heart and somehow it will connect with their heart and they will begin to believe again that dreams really can come true. And sometimes those things that seem too good to be true really aren’t.
If you get nothing else, please believe that nothing is impossible! You can do anything you set your mind to do! You can have anything you desire! You can be anything you want to be! But, you gotta believe. And no one can do the believing for you.
