Refresh Phoenix

The December meeting for Refresh Phoenix was held last night. This is my meeting summary.

Announcements:
Plenty of new jobs are listed on the Google discussion group; also Brian Shaler announced jobs at his employer - designer (entry level), developer (.net, database), copy writer (with experience in automotive); April Holle mentioned her employer is looking for a project manager/project coordinator; someone else (who I didn't know) announced GoDaddy is looking for a designer
Feel free to post about meetings in any site you use - Upcoming.org, Eventful, etc.
SXSW Interactive - March 7 - 11 in Austin, TX (summer camp for geeks!)
BarCamp Phoenix - Saturday, Dec 8th at UAT
Inza is getting a liquor license for wine & beer (I'm really excited about this one!)
ReadPhoenix.com is a great place to find local bloggers so post your blog!

James Archer led a discussion about the web survey by A List Apart. This survey was a ground-breaking look at what is going on in the web industry. Over 30,000 people responded! I'd recommend looking at the results...it's pretty interesting.

Personally, my favorite statistic to think about is that 16% of the respondents were women. It reminds me a lot of the same statistic from most MBA programs - 20% female attendance. Where are all the women?

I took some notes from the meeting last night, but right now I think they're pretty boring. The thing that sticks out in my mind is that there seemed to be a lot of side conversations going on all night. I wonder if the topic was boring to people or if they were having their own conversations about the data. Maybe the topic wasn't suited for such a large group discussion and that it would be better discussed in small groups. (Hmm, we've never had the Refresh group split into small groups for discussion. That could be an interesting exercise.) I know that I, personally, had some side conversations going so I can't point fingers. The bulk of my side conversations was about the data, but one was completely off topic (but hopefully means some new business for Integrum).

After the meeting, I had the pleasure of meeting a bunch of new people. Dinner and drinks at Rock Bottom after the meeting was a ton of fun too. I really enjoyed having the chance to get to know Cotton a bit better. I had such a good time that I didn't get home until nearly 11pm!

Despite the fact that I think my notes are boring, I'm going to post them. Feel free to stop reading here.
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Age: Quick straw poll at Refresh shows about balanced between 21 - 24 and 25 - 32.
Gender: 16% on survey; less at Refresh only 4 or 5 women

Job title: Interesting to see the breakdown; can't believe some people are still called "webmaster"

Region: such a large group in the Midwest was a surprise; someone from the group thought Chicago & Minneapolis

Education: More than half of the surveyed have a bachelor's degree and 15% has master's. This was a surprise as the way it used to be was less degree.
About 1/3 or less at Refresh had bachelor's degrees. Only 1 person (me) had master's degree. Though after the meeting, I learned that Mike will be earning his master's degree next week!

Blog: 72% surveyed have a personal site or blog. Wow! Could this be because word of mouth about this survey was through the web?
How many are actively blogging?

Hours worked per week: James thought it was reassuring not everyone was working 80 hours a week. This was fascinating to April because it feels like we're working more.

Refresh Phoenix had 4-5 people who have been in the industry more than 10 years!

Shaler wanted to see the question, "What percent of web developers are ADD or ADHD?"

Derek Neighbors thought the geographic bias questions were interesting. He's talked to a lot of people who believe you can't make money in the SW and can't develop here. The survey seems to say the opposite.
Who filled out the survey? Were there people from here? Is Derek just talking to the jaded people?

Job satisfaction / raise / frequency of job change - correlated?
Is satisfaction really as important as raise? Or are people leaving jobs to get raise?

Matt Gist shared that at the Future of Web Design conference, Zeldman fielded questions about this survey. While generally, people feel it was a good thing, A List Apart realizes that there's a lot of holes. They don't know how to handle the survey next year. Do they fill in the gaps and make it a 90 question survey?

Someone (that I don't know) thought it was interesting that so many of the usability experts work for the government. Accessibility is very important to government agencies.

Derek asked "Are there any small business owners using this survey to figure out how to compensate their salaries?" James said he did.
Follow up question, "As an employee how do you want your employer to decide how to compensate you?" Group said it depends on type of agency (ex startup), benefits, personal needs.

People would like the survey to cover benefits (such as health insurance). Also interested in benefits such as bring a dog to work, foosball table, gourmet chef, etc.
People also wanted to know more about turnover - why people move from one job to another.