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I hired Jeff Smith

February 19, 2007

I’ve been waiting to announce this for a few weeks now, so I’m very pleased to finally be able to tell everyone (or at least everyone that reads this blog) that I’ve managed to get Jeff Smith to become part of the Further Ahead team. He officially started today. Jeff has loads of experience and brings a lot to the team as a standards-based designer/developer hybrid.

Jeff and I have been talking on and off for some time now about him possibly doing contract work for me on an “as needed” basis. That work would be during his freelance time, though, as Jeff had a full-time job, and that just wasn’t going to solve my problems.

Despite the fact that I hadn’t met Jeff in person (we have known each other for quite some time online), we had a few serious discussions before and after Christmas. At that point, I decided that I was ready – or more accurately, I decided that I was more than 80% ready. 80% ready is the new metric I use to decide if it is time to do something. That is based on the following premise:

If you wait until you’re 100% ready, you’ll never do anything.

You will never be 100% ready, but once you’re 80% ready, you’re committed and the rest is details.

When I met Jeff at Web Directions North, I knew I had made the right decision, and I’m really happy to have him on board.

Please join me in welcoming Jeff to the team!

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14 Responses

Comment by Anton — Feb 19 2007 @ 10:56 am

Yay for both of you! Does that mean that you’ll let him come to SXSW with you at some point?

Comment by feather — Feb 19 2007 @ 11:06 am

@anton: the plan is for Jeff to be at SXSW this year if we can swing it – passport issues are being looked at, and hoping they can be sorted in time. Fingers crossed!

Comment by Scott — Feb 19 2007 @ 11:09 am

Congrats all around! I’m looking forward to finally meeting you and hopeully Jeff as well at SXSW. Bring on the Canadians!

Comment by Olly Hodgson — Feb 19 2007 @ 11:19 am

Huzzah! Much woo and yay to both of you :)

Comment by Scott Fegette — Feb 19 2007 @ 11:19 am

Congratulations, Derek and Jeff! Hope to catch up with you both in Austin next month.

Comment by Jon Hughes — Feb 19 2007 @ 3:24 pm

I sure wish I knew people… I suck at networking.

I was at WDN, but I only know Derek due to his speaking, and have no idea who Jeff is :(

Congrats to you both, may your professional relationship flourish!

Comment by Jonathan Snook — Feb 19 2007 @ 4:22 pm

Congrats to both you and Jeff. Only the best to come for the Further Ahead crew. :)

Comment by Jeff Smith — Feb 19 2007 @ 4:50 pm

Thanks for the all the well wishes everyone. I’m really stoked to be joining Derek’s team and hopefully getting to meet those that have posted above that I haven’t met yet at some point.

Comment by Tuna — Feb 19 2007 @ 7:17 pm

Congratulations Jeff and Derek. Derek it does take a bit to get the right person for your mix and that will work well with you. Does this mean you’ll be getting Further Ahead (sorry).

Comment by Ben Buchanan — Feb 19 2007 @ 7:42 pm

Hey that’s awesome, adding to your team is a big move :) I like that 80% rule!

Comment by Matthew Pennell — Feb 20 2007 @ 4:19 am

Congratulations, Jeff and Derek – hopefully see you both at SxSW. :)

Comment by Sheri Bigelow — Feb 20 2007 @ 2:27 pm

Congrats Jeff. I hope you enjoy working with the highly acclaimed Derek Featherstone, who achieved a 5 on the Geek-O-Meter scale at the 2005 Web Essentials conference. A small team dedicated to excellent customer service is clearly a good place to be. May your days be filled with interesting and accessible projects.

Comment by Mike Stickel — Feb 20 2007 @ 3:30 pm

Excellent! Hopefully the passport issues get ironed out in time and I can meet up with both of you guys next month.

Congrats to both of you.

Comment by Geof Harries — Apr 02 2007 @ 1:06 pm

Is Jeff working remotely or did he make the move from St. Albert to Ottawa?