As many of you are aware, a few months back I decided it was time to pursue a job outside of my own freelance work. Income just wasn’t coming in, and I felt that there was a lot more that I could learn by joining up with a company.

Well, it took me three months and a lot of foot work, but I am happy to announce that I finally secured a job, and a pretty good one at that!

I will be taking a Web Designer position at Cross Town Traders Inc., a very large retailer of women’s apparel. They are completely reworking their e-commerce devision, and about a year ago they brought in Eric King to head up the overhaul. Eric King was the Head of E-Commerce for Buy.com, so basically he really knows what he’s talking about.

On top of that, their head Web Designer, Chris LaClair is a very talented individual and I am bound to learn loads from him.

I am very excited about this position, as there is a lot of opportunity for growth and recognition in the industry. Eric plans to make the next generation clothing retail site, and when we succeed, it will be no small thing.

Also, I am coming in on the ground floor, and we are going to be at least tripling our staff over the next year. This means that if I prove my self, then I could be promoted into a managing position sooner than is the norm. Like I said, this is a really, really great opportunity for me.

I am going to try my best to get to South By Southwest Interactive this year. It is in Austin Texas, so it isn’t too far of a drive, and attending this conference would be a lot of fun.

South By Southwest is a huge, yearly conference and festival that includes Music, Film, and Interactive categories. It is a major event in all those industries, and a lot of big names come out for it.

Being a web designer, I am mainly interested in attending the Interactive part of the conference. There are going to be a lot of great panels to sit in on, and major individuals like Dave Shea, Molly E. Holzschlag, Jon Hicks, Ryan Carson, Elliot Jay Stocks, and Jeffrey Zeldman just to name a few are going to be there. To say the least, it is a great opportunity to further immerse my self in the industry, and to learn a ton of valuable lessons from more experienced people.

Hopefully I will be able to scrounge up the finances. It wont be cheep and I am hoping that I will be able to get it all together to attend.

I opened the mail box today and instantly my mood went up several notches. My first issue of .net had arrived. I was as excited as a young child with a new toy. Simply ecstatic I tell you. I rushed to open it and vigorously flipped through the different articles and pages. I am still reading through it, but several articles have great promise.

I have wanted a subscription to this wonderful magazine for quite some time now, but only finally broke down last month to place an order, it is a bit pricey to get it in the US. Thirteen brilliant issues promise to have a wealth of information for me in the coming year.

For those of you who are unaware of the web design world, in other words the majority, .net is a UK publication on web design and development. It contains articles and techniques and general information on what is going on in the web design world.

The UK is a big hub in this industry. There are loads of talented people over there. LOADS I tell you! Brilliant designers and developers and general innovators. I hope to be able to get over there in the future to attend some of the many different web centered events that go on, especially Oxford Geek Night.

I will probably have a lot of posts that are inspired by articles from the magazine, so be prepared for it.