a person engaged or qualified in a profession : professionals such as lawyers and surveyors.

• a person engaged in a specified activity, esp. a sport or branch of the performing arts, as a main paid occupation rather than as a pastime.
• a person competent or skilled in a particular activity.

I noticed that the emphasis is on two factors: competence and money. Whilst I’d agree that they’re both part of the equation, they’re hardly unique to professional employment, if you don’t have the skills, you’ll eventually lose the job, and then you won’t get paid.

Personally I think this definition is incomplete, in fact it neglects the most important aspects of true professionalism.

Professionalism is a state of mind, or a way of thinking that’s an intrinsic part of certain personalities and can be enhanced by training to affect your whole outlook and approach to life.

Importantly my view frees professionalism from dependency on job titles, qualifications and even money, after all, voluntary or open source work can be approached in a professional manner.

But I’m not flogging the traditional dead horse, you know… the one about being a graduate of the school of life / hard knocks / been doing that since before you were born / <insert your own excuse here>. Qualifications represent knowledge and training that is absolutely necessary to achieve worthwhile objectives. Knowing when they’ll help and picking the right ones is the professional thing to do: continuing professional development is the phrase and higher quality service should be the goal.

But what does professionalism mean in practice? It means treating clients, suppliers and anyone else equitably; delivering on your commitments rather than walking away when you realise you’re going to make a loss; and always striving to produce the best work that the situation permits, why would you do less?

In short, I guess I feel it’s about integrity.

There’s a Google Group for this enterprise, so if you’d like to take part, and help us get it off the ground, please sign-up and join the discussion.

Nature’s generalists have a tendency to survive longer than its specialists when environmental change accelerates. For those species adapted to become dependent upon a particular habitat its loss can spell their doom.

There’s no doubt that the technological world can exhibit these phenomena for those with a limited set of experience and skills. This realisation should inform our career choices: which skills you should develop to avoid extinction?

The good news is that, unlike physical changes, professional evolution is capable of working on in a much shorter timeframe.

Constantly look for change.

In the 1960s, British railway rapidly moved from steam to diesel. In this environment trains still needed to be driven, so the drivers mostly survived, huge numbers of firemen didn’t. Since then travel by car and aeroplane have become far more common: I wonder how many train drivers realised this too late?

Those in highly specialised professions almost always command higher pay. If you make the conscious decision to chase the cash, that’s fine, but be aware that its a high risk strategy.

Look for the future trends: which are the promising technologies and can they be addressed with the skills you currently possess? If not, you need to decide upon the new skills and knowledge that will be necessary.

Learning is all around you.

Books are readily available and I’m a big fan of reading, but don’t expect them to be up to the minute. It takes time to write, edit and publish a book, so you’re best using them as a source of general knowledge.

Likewise, formal education courses are slow to react to the pace of technological change. I’ve often heard complaints about the failure of a course to teach the latest advances or techniques, but if used properly they have an important place. Industrial practices had little in common with my Engineering degree, but it did teach me how to think like an Engineer.

These two sources exist to provide a solid, general background knowledge that will enable you to develop your own understanding of the cutting edge. Basics covered, you’ll find the Web and journals much more useful.

There’s a massive quantity of both good and bad information available on the Web, and with your general grounding you’ll be able to tell them apart. In addition to traditional websites, there are podcasts, video tutorials, wikis, forums, and much of the very latest information will appear here before it can be published.

Academic and industry journals can be a little hard going, and some of the content is less than informative: intellectual property can be too jealously guarded sometimes. This said, they’re rigourously edited and can give a good global perspective on the direction of the industry.

Finally, conferences can provide a good indicator of what is hot or not, but beware of jumping on bandwagons. These are also good places to network and find out what other people are doing.

You may want to follow the herd or deliberately make your own path, just make sure you’re happy you understand your decisions. Constant development and the application of a little thought to your actions is the key to professional life.

1. Comply with established industry standards.

   Whomever controls the standards, this alone will help to make huge improvements in the quality of your work.

2. Establish a structured approach to work.

   This applies to the way you run your business and your project workflow. How you reach your design solutions, execute them and maintain them for posterity or disaster.

3. Keep on learning.

   It is vital to continually expand and improve your skills as markets and technology move on or you’ll end up dead in the water.

If you can meet these criteria, practical experience will continually improve the accessibility and usability of the websites you produce. It’s all about the combination of sound technical skills, a standard approach and professionalism.