Listening to the Pragmatic Podcast recently, I picked up on the term Project Portfolio and it got me thinking. What if, instead of trying to show what I have worked on for client work; which is usually behind an NDA or some other form of agreement that prevents me from showing or claiming anything, I would just publish everything that I build locally. All the little todo apps, note taking apps, etc. All of them published on the web.
I never really liked the idea of a portfolio. What a time consuming pain. I mean I see the need for a professional portfolio; accolades, awards, letters of recommendation, etc. But a web portfolio is a time sucker and a blind display of work. I have no idea if the urls are active anymore. I guess I could host a local copy of the site in some circumstances, but then it may not match the actual site. What if the client changes script/images/etc.. Then I really don’t have any control. What a pain. I have never been a fan of them.
My personal projects on the other hand, are a labor of love. These are the apps I use almost daily. I continually improve and tweak them. If I really think about it, this is where my best work is at. This is where I experiment, try new technologies, optimize for speed, so on and so on. I’m really thinking about starting a projects section and throwing up all my projects on there. Publishing more was a goal this year, sounds like a good way to get started.