I am a programmer, developer and designer.  I’ve been doing this for quite a few years now, but until recently I have not had much project management experience.  Now that I am running my own consultancy, acquiring these skills are essential.  Effective Project Management for Web Geeks is a great article that I found useful.  It will introduce you to the basics of the project lifecycle, and provide you with tools to make your projects run smoother, faster, and easier.

Chris Pirillo shares his thoughts on  Internet Strategies for New Businesses.  There are some great ideas on how a businesses should use the Internet to engage their customers through the power of conversation.

The Blog is the New Resume - I’ve seen a few posts like this one lately, and I couldn’t agree more!  Resumes are usually simple one or two page summaries of your life experience, where a blog shows your ability to communicate, engage and reveal your passion.

In fact my last three opportunities have come directly from this blog and I was amazed at how much the potential employer/client knew about me from my blog.  If you’re looking for work or for new and exciting opportunities, I would highly recommend blogging - even if it doesn’t help you land a job, it will certainly help you build a great network and you’ll have fun doing it!

Feeling inspired to begin your own freelance career?  Check out this article titled - A Comprehensive Guide to Starting your Freelance Career - that covers a whole range of subjects from branding yourself to suggestions on where to look for work.  The source of this article is Freelance Switch - a site that has become a must read for me as I begin my freelance journey.  It a very new blog but it already has tonnes of great content.

Meri Williams has a relatively new blog called Geek|Manager that is full of great information about project management for geeks. One of her first posts - Starting Out in Project Management - is particularly relevant to me as I start my new web consultancy. Project management has always been an area of weakness. It’s not that I cannot do it, it is more that I love solving technical challenges more! The article explains quite nicely how people end up in a project management roll and then discusses how to make that transition from production guru to a PM.

Web Worker Daily is quickly becoming one of my favorite blogs. They post lots of great content that focuses on productivity and getting things done for us web type people. One of their most recent posts - Five Steps to Get Yourself in a Mood to Work - offers some great tips for jump starting your work and getting you out of any “procrastination funks” you might (often) get yourself into!

The Printable CEO™ Series is a series of beautiful forms by David Seah that will help you focus your time more productively and help you manage the day-to-day chore of achieving your goals. Take a peak at these free PDF documents to see if they can help you organize your days, weeks, months, tasks and goals more efficiently.

How do you stay on top of your game in an industry where the rules are constantly changing? Web Worker Daily offers a great list of suggestions to help you Refactoring Your Career. There are some great suggestions and strategies that may just help you avoid the same fate as the dinosaurs!

For the first time in my working career, I find myself unemployed! I currently have a couple of job offers on the table and have put my name in the hat for an amazing position at an incredible company! So until I figure out which opporunity is going to work out for me, I am available for short-term contract/freelance work.

I have close to 10 years experience in the web development industry. If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you probably have a good idea about the technologies I like to work with.  If you would like more information about my skills, please check out my profile on LinkedIn.

What type of project would get me excited?  Well anything involving Flex 2.0 (preferred), Ruby on Rails or PHP/MySQL would do the trick!  If you have a project of between 2 to 3 weeks in duration, drop me a quick email at jim.rutherford@digitalmediaminute.com.

Have you just started your own web company? If you have, you are probably wondering how much you should be paying yourself! Entrepreneur.com has a wonderful article that might give you some great ideas on Paying Yourself From Startup and Beyond.