Josh Russell

And I completely agree.

When I was a chef several years ago, I learned so much (ask me next time we bump into each other). How to cook was only part of it. Long story short, I eventually realised that I’d stopped caring about the food, and that it had become just a job. As soon as you realise that, you can no-longer do the job the same way. You need to give a shit. You need to be part of what you’re doing, and it will be part of you too. So I gave it up. Luckily I soon started to work at Comic Relief.. and during my time in the kitchen I started Loose Connection too.

The reason I started working in the kitchen in the first place was because I wasn’t enjoying the web any more, and I got out of that for the same reason!

Needless to say, I’ve learned a lot from the experiences of all those paths, and am happy to be back in the web/digital industry. I have focus, purpose, experience and (almost most importantly) community.

Now watch this, he says it better than me.

So, the points to remember: (and this is not exclusive to building things online)

• love it, or stop
• live it, you’ll be working *all the time*
• don’t just listen, take part
• be prepared to fail for your love, don’t compromise your ideals (that’s the hippy bit apparently)
• do something you’re actually into, it’ll show if you’re not, and you’ll lose interest
• and more… you can work it out

And go find him on Twitter, he’s worth listening in on.

For some more technical stuff about building things online, here’s my list of what it takes to build the perfect webapp.

Update: Oh I forgot, remember to be happy. That’s the foundation for being successful. In both life and business.

Update: I made a map recently that covers many more wifi hotspots in Brighton. You can contribute back to it too..

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Brighton. What can I say.. You’re never more than 5 minutes away from another geek or “web professional” like-minded folk. All it takes is a twitter about coffee and a vague mention of a location, and the geeks will find themselves drawn towards you. So where do we go?

These are a few of the places I’ve been frequenting recently, and some classics that will always be the default starting point if I’m lacking inspiration..

View Larger Map

See the map on Google Maps

Where do you go to get out of the office or meet your geeks?

We’re thinking of organising a small Sussex Digital meetup. It’ll be really informal, just another opportunity to meet each other and chat. But also an opportunity for those outside of Sussex and Brighton to come and meet the local faces and scope out the talent, interesting companies and projects.

So, when’s best for you? I’ve made a (very) short list of dates that currently fit into the gaps between other events going on. You choose, just select the days that you’d prefer below:

And then let us know what you’d like us to try and do or what we should focus on. Like I said, it’ll be an informal thing, but it would be good to know if you want anything specific:

If it’s just too close to the busy holiday period, maybe we’ll do it in January, a looking forward to 2008 session!

Once we have a date I’ll create an Upcoming event and let you all know.