Why Is Malaysia Weak In This Field?

As long as I can remember, I started going online in 1995 and was pretty busy in my small lil Geocities space. Back then, Geocities was Geocities and not yet a part of the Yahoo! network.

Before website design and development began for me, everyone were happy with a website that had blinking or animated gaphics and colorful headers. Imagine a header with various colored letters in a header title own. Gosh! Thank goodness we’ve moved on..or haven’t we?

Website companies in Malaysia have advanced forward since then and every one of them hold a significant position in the industry. Some have been recognized for its creative brilliance by winning a Kancil award and some have become a known name that it’s one of the few I’d mention to anyone getting into this field.

So just why are some Malaysians weak in this field of website design? (notice that I don’t blame the company)

It’s because of our own incompetence of training ourselves earlier or earlier adopting the current standards of today. Well, how else would you explain some companies having very bad websites on every browser or some companies that provide bad websites to client. And worst of all, there are some people who claim they’re capable of performing certain duties without valid proof.

I’ll borrow a scenario I had when a friend asked for my help regarding a client she just finished a project. The client was very demanding and asked wants to be ranked the Top 10 in Google in less than a week. I’m not saying this can’t be done if your website is something no one has done but have people searching for it casually.

Now this is where incompetence and lies have made our Malaysians weak in this field. My friend heard from the client that they’ve got a friend who can get her website up in the Top 10 in a week or so. This will be done without paying Google for advertising. Another way for this to be done is to probably make more than 500,000 visit your website daily. However, that too doesn’t gurantee your results will be up there.

As much as some claim themselves to be an SEO ‘specialist’, if one of their methods is by noting “submission to search engines like Google, MSN and Yahoo!” then that doesn’t account for SEO.

On a different note, Malaysians remain weak in this field because they don’t take the time to work smarter for the client. When a client hires me, I expect to be treated as a professional and not as an employee. I’m not template robot that all you do is feed me keywords of a website look and feel, then out it comes. Even if it did, probably it’ll come out behind than on top.

Most Malaysian website designers are disrespected because we try to be like Tom, Dick or Harry. We aren’t trying to be Phil or Danny. We follow what others have done and think that it’s right. Then later they end up teaching their clients the wrong thing. As a professional, if I told my client that Flash is the way to go cause it’s funky and cool, the client might just be clumsy enough to follow my every word.

That’s why, Malaysian website designers need to start becoming their own Phil or Jenny. They need to be professionals from real knowledge and not just join the Tom, Dick and Harry that are around already. We’ve got more than enough of these companies that in 3-5 years, Malaysians are going to be left behind in this field.

Be a Malaysian website designer or developer with a purpose. My purpose now is to try guiding young and other who ahve interest but are too scared in this field. My purpose is to help this group of people become the Phil and Jenny in themselves.

Comments

Have something to say? Leave a comment