I'm on the market...

**What happens to Katapult Media, Inc **
Nothing. KM will still keep thriving as it has but we're going to focus on internal projects vs client work (see below). We have roughly 6 projects that have been on hold for quite a while. My KM time will be limited but with no to limited client work (just a few small one off's every now and then) I'll be able to better steer the development process/completion dates.

Why?
* I have a family who has a work-a-holic dad...not because I want to be or prefer to be but because clients come with these crazy requests that always seem to have a deadline of 20 minutes ago or 40% less than the estimated time you say it will take. (ie - "Yes, it'll take us 4 days (Friday)." Response: "We have it to Wednesday end of day?") It always seems to happen something like that.
** I miss my kids man. I let Tia rest on Saturdays and Sunday mornings. During that time for that past 4 months or so I've worked dang near every day so my kids are running around playing, etc and sometimes they get bored. To get work done, as ashamed as I am, I'll send'em to their room to watch a movie. That simply isn't good parenting but if I don't get the work done they don't eat (literally). So...it is time to get my 9 to 5, no weekends schedule back.
* Scope creep is real. It happens and for good customer service reasons (just part of the game) we oblige some of it. That creep pushes me to do more and more work after hours just to try and meet the deadline.
* I'm sick of clients. It isn't the people, per se (or in all cases I should say), but the businesses and their wild expectations at times.
* The Totem Pole Effect: we're 4th in the flow so we can't speak about a project because position 1 doesn't want their client know they are just a middle man, position 2 doesn't want position 1 to know about position 3 (same reasons), and position 3 is the same with 4. We're always somewhere along the pole and sometimes we're at first position which may not matter either...the client may be an NDA stickler and force us to be quiet. Irritating.
** They pay whenever they want to. If we're 4th on the pole we have to wait for 3 rounds of payments. :-( The bigger the client the crazier their payment schedules are. We make really good money (really) but when a project spans payments over 6 months and they are horribly sporadic...the project basically goes into over-budget mode.
* arguments about project scope. Twice in the past month I've had clients say (almost verbatim to each other) "This was discussed at the beginning but nothing official was decided. This is how it needs to be done." The way it "needs to be done" always involves more work. I've just learned that requiring specs doesn't mean squat if they write the spec in a such vague ways. I know...I should catch them but some things do slip through.

BTW, this isn't the official Katapult response but my way of getting this off of my chest.

When am I going to work?"
First part of October. We're finishing our last 4 client projects and we're done. Almost all 4 are finishing in the next week/this week. I'll be at MAX 2007 and I'm looking to start soon thereafter. Any time after I finish working on these last 4 projects is golf time. :-D Yay yayyy!

Where am I going to work?
I haven't decided. Today I interviewed with a pretty large Phoenix-based company and spoke with another local biz about a potential partnering deal. So, I'm on the market and looking to find a good gig that I can go to, work, come home and not think about work until I get back to my desk. There are a few dev' shops I could go to but that is almost the same boat (just less control). Clients would still scope creep and deadlines would potentially be crazy which would almost require late nights and/or weekends.

What type of work?
Well, those of you who know me probably know me as an Adobe Flash Platform developer. That is where I excel the most and am most interested in staying at this point (due to Flex 3, Adobe AIR, etc). More of you probably know that I'm highly proficient in ColdFusion, very comfortable with PHP, and have an occasional affair with .NET (fairly proficient here too). Oh, I don't really care to say (people tout it like a boy scout badge sometimes) but I'm highly comfortable with Ajax as well. So, working in any of those areas (a combo of the Flash Platform+CF or .NET would be ideal) would make my day. Ahh...1 more thing...I don't want to go work in a stale shop (ex - working on ColdFusion 5 and don't want to upgrade; stuck in Classic ASP and not budging; Requiring Flash Player 6, etc). I want to be somewhere where I can help influence the companies products/services with some of the latest and greatest technologies available.

Anyways...I'M ON THE MARKET!! We'll see how this goes. If you're interested in hiring me or know a company/team I might like to work on...feel free to email, call, IM or whatever.

Resume: John C. Bland II Resume 2007.pdf