Two weeks ago, I had job security at a highly rated company that's still growing. I respected both upper management and my boss. I was working in Ruby and Rails, a language and a platform that I love. In fact, I took that job in September of 2007 as my first full-time Ruby on Rails job.

I submitted my resignation anyway.

Out of respect for everyone involved with the situation, I'm not going to talk about the exact reasons why. I'm not convinced it's an interesting topic.

Sometimes going somewhere is more about your destination rather than your origin. Not all travels happen because you're unhappy where you are.

I'll offer a segment from the "Go Independent" chapter of Chad Fowler's ridiculously excellent The Passionate Programmer

You have a set of skills. You've honed them. You know what you're worth. Becoming an independent contractor is one of the ultimate tests. You have no bureaucracy to hide behind. You are directly accountable to the people paying the bills. The idea that you are providing a service becomes directly apparent in everything you do. There is no team to share the blame when you do things wrong. It's only you, your expertise, and your ability to execute.

We all go through different phases in life where different things sound appealing, but I feel like that paragraph might has well have been addressed to me personally.

OK, What Now?

So, it's easy enough to make the decision to go independent, but there's an enormous fear factor there. I'm going to show you the tools that I used to make a positive difference in my career. They are tools that you have, and these are techniques you can use. Don't be frightened.

I am going to have you tell your own future.

No big deal.

Ingredients:

• Lots of index cards, enough for two brainstorms.
• A pen
• An understanding that you cannot do this on your computer.
• Your to-do system of choice
• An hour or two of your weekend

Part 1: Technologies

I want you to brainstorm all technologies that you can think of that might be relevant to your job. It could be languages. It could be server programs, like your database or your webserver. It could be plugins or add-ons. It could be some new technique for daemonizing something you heard about in IRC last week. It could be IRC. And you probably just better make one for HTML 5, everybody gets that one. The point is to list everything. Write each technology down on one card and move on to the next. Think about everything you touch on day-to-day basis, then a week-to-week basis, and so on. When the ideas are no longer popping, stop.

Now I want you to take those cards and group them together. Some of them will belong in more than one group-- that's OK, just keep those stacks near each other. Stop when you're done with your sorting efforts.

Guess what? You just created the landscape for the industry you're going to be taking part in for the next year to five, with a particular emphasis on you. What do you like about what you see? What do you not like? Is there something that kept coming up over and over again that surprised you? Is there something that you were surprised didn't come up more often? How do you feel about the number of cards you generated? Reflect on this for awhile before proceeding, because your feelings are important.

Part 2: People

I want you to brainstorm all the people in your field. If you, like me, are a part of the open-source technology community, practicing openly is so natural that having someone ask questions is usually delightful; so be liberal. Write down every name that you know that's involved with the technologies that you just generated. Write down everyone you've met in your town that you know does something similar to you. Write down everyone you know of that works with those people. Write down old co-workers that you've been meaning to keep up with. Write each person's name down on one card and move on to the next. When you've thought of the names of five people you would never want to talk to ever EVER, stop.

We'll do something a little different this time. I want you to think about each person and their relationship to the technology grid above. They're looking or thinking about a grid similar to this one. Where do they fit? Where do they want to go? How do they see those pieces fitting together? Is that different from your perspective? You should be taking a moment to consider each person.

Part 3: To Do's, etc.

At this point, the ideas should be flying hot and heavy. Go through every card that you just made and list at least one thing you could do. You don't necessarily have to do it, just make a card for if you could do it. A lot of the technologies I had in my stack (for example) included downloading them and trying them out. It doesn't have to be a major project. You're looking for something you can actually do, and not something that will get you down.

Add to this stack, "Buy the Passionate Programmer" because seriously, it's that good. If you're still reading this, you'll like it even more.

During this process, I also came up with a bunch of different ideas. Some were for projects that I wanted to take on. Others were recurring themes that pointed out major issues I wanted to investigate and get involved with. You can check out that picture up there for some others.

What's the point?

You've taken an in-depth look at your industry, and your own place in it. By looking at the relationship between technology and the people who drive it, you've at least developed some intuition about where the industry is going. You may not be right, but you've got a lot better chance when you at least think about it! I can't think of a better mindset to have when approaching your potential career.

If you take the opportunities that you've created for yourself with those cards, you'll start conversations where you'll learn things. You may teach some things, too! You will certainly create a connection that you can then benefit from. Networking 101 is an important part of life when you're trying to find a new job or to be a freelancer.

Thanks for reading. Next time, I'll talk a little bit more about what my personal landscape looks like.