I’m not sure I agree with everything James said about writers who know what they are doing, but I can understand his point. When we first started this business, James thought I knew everything there was to know about designing sites and graphics in general. After a few projects that had me tearing my hair out, he finally came to realize that I didn’t know everything and that some things were best left to people with more experience. I’ve even said to him, “For someone who knows what they’re doing, it’s probably easy.”
But “easy” is a relative term. Yes, someone who understands how to do a certain project will have an easier time with it. They will be able to approach the project from the angle of experience, and if it was something they had never encountered before, they at least have a point of reference to start.
For the rest of us, we have no such point of entry. We’re looking at it with all the tools in our hands, but with no idea how to use them. Big difference.
Maybe the person who states the project is for writers who knows what they are doing really believes that the person he hires will be able to handle the job efficiently. But since the provider has no clue of effort required to begin with, the writer ends up with a bigger mess than they can handle.
*Looks at last paragraph*
Ok, James, I see your point. I think I just contradicted myself.
Alright, let’s take my thoughts into the realm of SEO. I understood how to put a site together, I had experience, but when it came to certain areas and a few additions to our sites, I ran into some real problems. We outsourced the tasks, and it turns out the solutions were easy – for designers who knew what they were doing.
Maybe the key lies in having some experience and knowledge of what you are trying to create to start with. The clueless clients are the people that irritate us. They make over-generalized statements without knowing the truth. The ones who have a clue to start with really are stuck and know that for someone with more skills than they have, the job can be done more efficiently.
