In recent times, I have been observing an interesting emerging trend in contract or work descriptions. I wonder whether this is a consequence of our present economic climate, or whether it is a natural consequence of a widening communications gap between management and the implementing workforce.

My father once remarked that one of the challenges he saw facing him was the task of finding measures to protect a company from its own management – in particular, from the tendency of management to become self-serving. With the increase in inter-temporal liquidity, that is, the availability of complex (and damning) financial instruments, and the laxity of accounting and regulatory standards, it has become quite easy for management to engage in exploitative ‘creaming’ practices, while securing their own ‘backs’ through human resources ‘checklists.’

The astute reader will have already picked up on where I am going… Coming back to our job descriptions. The pattern that has been emerging is one of reversals. In particular, the least significant part of a job gets paraded as the most significant part, while the most significant aspect of the job becomes relegated to the least significant position.

For example, looking at a Design role knowledge of CS4 becomes more important than creative skill. I once knew a designer who used Photoshop 3 while everybody else was using CS. Photoshop 3 has only one level of undo! Yet his designs were top notch. Imagine him looking for work now…

Alternatively, for a developer’s role, knowledge of ‘Drupal’ may be touted as absolutely essential, while systems analysis or problem solving skills go unmentioned…

The benefit of using a ‘checklist’ approach, of course, is that it gets management off the hook – whether a company performs of not becomes irrelevant – the record will always indicate a satisfactory checklist.

Do all companies act like this? Of course not, there are still a few companies left, that rather than relying on static checklists, are willing to assess quality and potential. These are the companies that are genuinely interested in their employees. And, I dare say, these are the companies, that are in touch with the nature of their own business.

When everything gets reduced to the stock market and investment returns, there is the risk of forgetting, or even not caring, about what a company does – the services it provides, or the goods it produces. In other words, there is the risk of forgetting how those investment returns are being generated in the first place.

Granted, with the present lax accounting standards, it is quite easy to cook the books, and overvalue a company – but still, even then, sooner or later, the piper will come and want to see the real goods. So perhaps it is time to get back to providing real goods and services…

There are many differing schools of design out there, and in this article, I will look at the British, US, and German/Swiss schools of web design from a critical perspective. I have a fair amount of experience with each one of these varying approaches as I also have my own favourites. Without a doubt, my own preconceptions will colour this article – but then this is unavoidable – and perhaps even desirable.

Both in terms of visual and written content, the British approach tends to be the most baroque and rococo – with lavish embellishments and dressings vying to spin a yarn of exclusivity. The British approach tends to be highly conceptual, focused on spin, and geared towards mental massage.

Of course, the U.K. does not possess an indigenous and endemic web design school. What we witness in the UK is the extension of the printing craft and industry into the web medium. Consequently in the UK, the web medium carries excess print-baggage.

The origins of the desire to be exclusive could be coming from the glaring disparity between the abject and despicable poverty on the one hand, and the gluttonous exclusive royal glamour on the other. The UK is where Marx wrote Das Kapital. In Victorian UK, the extreme disparity between rich and poor probably created a desire for belonging to the ‘exclusive’ – albeit be it, for the poor, only an escape into a fantasy world. Nice ornamental designs could have served as a means for escape.

The UK approach has been successful at transplanting print designs to the web medium. This is no easy feat. The web medium is and remains in essence antithetical to print. The differences between print and web media are well documented, and constitute the ’101′ of any web design course in the US. But in the UK, if you talk about the difference between web and print, you are likely to get many injurious looks.

In recent years, with the advent of Web 2.0, UK web design has been moving towards the US approach, and it will be interesting to see how the UK web design approach will respond to accommodate its print background as well as the newer US ideas.

At some point, every digital designer, has asked themselves, “Is Internet Explorer the boogeyman?” And if you have not, now is a good time to do so!

In our profession, why do we  consistently single out IE (i.e., Internet Explorer) for all the ills that befall the flesh of our beautifully crafted designs? Is it because, as designers we are Mac based, and regard the Windows camp with ‘camp’  suspicion, or, it is because, we are making not a wild but a valid observation – one which is based on the facts and track record of IE?

After years of experience in the profession, I am inclined to consider IE as the worst browsing platform ever developed. If Microsoft were not the monopoly that it is, chances are IE would not have survived for as long as it has. So what is the big problem with IE? Is it that it is buggy? Perhaps… Is it that it is ‘embedded’ into Windows? Possibly? Is it that it is insecure and easily exploited? Likely so… But the main problem with IE is that it flaunts W3 standards in favour of its own Windows interpretation, which has been inconsistent, arbitrary and variable.

Indeed, in the hands of Microsoft, IE became an unwitting tool in the battle for Internet supremacy. Thanks to the Open Source movement, aided by smart revenue-raising anti-monopoly fines, and by IEs own lack of quality, Microsoft did not succeed. But along the way, plenty of damage in the form of decreased progress and increased cost has been exacted, and continues to be exacted. While waiting for the next version of Windows, the one that will fix “all Windows woes and bring about enlightenment,” I cannot help but think: “Here we go again…”

From now on, articles relating to Web Design and Web affairs will appear under this sub-section. The typical web design article tends to be of the problem-solution format, where the problem typically relates to (1) an issue with Internet Explorer, (2) CSS, e.g. vertical centering techniques, or (3) some oddity resulting from the buggy implementation of the wmode=’transparent’ Flash parameter in Windows Firefox…

However, as my first article, I will touch upon a conceptual issue – namely that of the Internet and Narcissism. The interested reader, who would like to pursue these issues in depth is referred to: Narcissism 101, Hypertext Nation, and The Internet Breeds Narcissim & Conceit.

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, Narcissism can be defined as “Excessive preoccupation with self and lack of empathy for others.” Consider the following example: An individual tweets himself (on Twitter) 20 times a day, and everytime, his blog is updated that he has tweeted himself. On his blog, he also has a plug-in which shows how many times his page has been visited, and another, which depicts in realtime, the stats of every click on his site… All the articles are about himself. You can click a share button, where you can share this guy’s site on one of the many bookmarking services. You can vote for his popularity. You are face-to-face with the largest digital mirror – showing you what a great and suave guy our friend Mr. X is…

Certainly, it is evident that Mr. X is spending countless hours on the Internet, and certainly he appreciates your visit. But are you really the intended target of his affections?

Meta-discourse – not just talking, but talking about that you have just talked – constitutes one of the defining characteristics of our post-modern life-style. Hence, meta-discourse is essentially a reflective tool – a mirror of sorts – and readily lends itself to narcissistic use. And in Web 2.0, with its multitude of social networking sites, blogs, tweets, you tubes and vimeos, we can easily construct ourselves a wondrous chamber of mirrors – far removed from the harsh realities of everyday life – realities filled with the real emotions of happiness and joy, but also with the pain of rejection, and the fear of humiliation.

Internet Narcissism can be seen as an escape. From time to time, we all need a break from reality. Yet when the need to escape becomes obsessional, when the false, some prefer virtual, reality we construct becomes our sole source of escape and drug of choice for numbing ourselves – then we are well on our way into the world of the internet narcissist.

We all have our vulnerabilities. Men may wish to be virile, while women may aim for desirability. Unfortunately, a steady diet of virtual reality – that appears ‘real’ – so much more real than our usual fleeting fantasies – will not assist us in learning how to deal with who we are.

From a practical point of view, as you consider jumping on the Web 2.0 bandwagon – with a blog, or tweeter membership, or you tube videos – think about what you would like to get out of it. Certainly it could be a self-gratifying experience – nothing wrong with that at all. But if you are a business, or a professional, then I strongly urge you to think about what services you will be providing. Your Web 2.0 presence is not just any virtual reality, nor should it be an exercise in narcissistic masturbation…

At its best, your Web 2.0 presence constitutes a digital extension of your values and services – an unconditionally open door, that does not flaunt, caress, cajole, or taunt with popularity – an unconditionally open door that welcomes, and makes your visitor feel comfortable, and lets them know that you are open for business.