Jeff Bjorklund spins his creativity on the Web
by Zhizhong Li, Outpost staff
Jeff Bjorklund gets a little motivation from this sign near his computer. Photo by Zhizhong Li |
"Spiderpage.com, You, Slacker!" is posted on the board at Jeff Bjorklund's workstation. He wrote those words to get himself motivated.
"Spiderpage.com is the web site of Spider Internet Communications that is a branch of Great Basin Internet Services, and I am in charge of Spider's Web design," Bjorklund said. "It is a note to myself, saying 'Do it! You slacker! You take it too long. Now get on it and do it!'"
Bjorklund joined Spider in 1999 and almost by accident. He jump-started his Internet career when a local Internet service provider offered him a chance to start his Web design career.
"I designed them a Web site for a radio station, and they gave me a year of Internet access for free," Bjorklund said.
With a passion for Web design, Bjorklund plans to improve his work by working for a good company: Great Basin.
"I heard of this company and always had the desire to work for them because they were the biggest, the best," Bjorklund said.
Like Bjorklund's Web design career, his Web tastes have also evolved since he started working at Great Basin.
"When I first started doing Web design, I was a big geek that liked to hang out in the news rooms, hang out in the chat rooms and go surfing with other people," Bjorklund said. "But lately it definitely becomes more for business. Every time I see the computer, it's work."
Bjorklund now believes devoting more time to his family and hobbies is more important than being online all the time.
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"Since I started working here, I was able to learn more advanced programming languages, like Perl and PHP, very descriptive languages for the Web that allow you to do CGIs and more advancing interfaces like shopping carts and e-commerce," Bjorklund said. "I also learn about how an ISP works. In the CGI area, my background was pretty weak before I came here. Now it's pretty strong."
Besides the new technologies, Bjorklund thinks customer service skills are very important to his work. That's because many of Great Basin's clients don't fully understand what's involved, what they are going to get or what they asking for.
"If you can't talk to the client in a way that they can understand what's going on and justify paying you, why get paid?" Bjorklund said. "So I think customer service comes first."
Looking to the future, Bjorklund says he wants to run a business like Great Basin on his own. He thinks it's nice to see Reno changing from a primarily gambling-driven city to a technology-driven city.
Posted: February 14, 2000
Copyright 2000 Nevada Outpost
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