During last week I trotted off to give a talk on career directions in the local web industry to a group of high school students.

This got me thinking about the best fit for career directions in the web industry. Seems I’m not alone, Alex Graham also has the same concerns.

It basically comes down to:

• Study at University or TAFE and then trying to get a job with limited experience.
• Doing an apprenticeship, studying part time while getting real hands on experience.
• Doing an internship in your final year.
• Setting up your own business.

Have to go off and compulsory vote today in our federal election. Not that our vote (in Western Australia) counts for much (that’s another issue). Anyway this entire cycle of voting every four and bit years for the federal government has got me thinking of the various cycles that life presents us with.

I wasn’t going to comment on Fred Wilson’s post, but I have been thinking on it for a few days now and frankly Fred has it wrong. He discusses in scant detail that the younger generation are building the future directions of the Web based not on the old school. But the new fresh medium around them and it is this factor that are allowing them to succeed and become young entrepreneurs. Maybe he is just seeing things from the narrow perspective of his VC business environment. This relates in a way to my previous post on age and the web industry and age discrimination. I do note with interest that Marc Andreessen doesn’t even consider age a factor in his referenced post (but I digress). Finally now West Aussie Duncan Riley has weighed into the debate as well.

If you have been working in the Web Industry for a while you would have been burnt out to some degree at one time or another. If you haven’t you’re kidding yourself. It has been my experience, over the years that the industry tends to promote a very dangerous lifestyle of an overwork ethic. You know the score, working long hours, working endlessly week in week out. This can lead to isolation (more on this later), depression and burnout.