About Flatland Media
What is Flatland Media?
Flatland Media is not a company; it is a consortium of
independent developers and designers led by myself, Pete Coulter. For many
projects, I am the sole developer, responsible for the entire development life
cycle. On projects that demand more man power due to a larger scale or a
shortened delivery schedule, I put together a team based on the needs of the
project. While I have considered formalizing this consortium, I have been
fortunate to be too busy with other people's projects to put that much time into
my own. For instance, I have grand plans for this web site, but until
time permits, it will remain bare bones.
What are the Benefits of Working with Flatland Media?
I have been a database and web application developer for almost ten years
now, and I have done this work in many capacities:
intern, hourly employee, salaried employee, sub-contractor, and
independent contractor. You're probably looking for someone with a little
more experience than an intern, and I'm a little bit past my prime internship
years, so that leaves you with three basic options in selecting someone to work
on your project.
- High Cost, Long-Term
Commitment
One, you can hire a full-time employee.
Advantages are a fixed salary and daily access to your employee.
Disadvantages are a fixed salary even when your big project is over, the cost
of providing benefits, and the overhead of providing a workspace. Of
course, you already know this, or you probably wouldn't be reading this.
- High Cost, Short-Term
Commitment
The next option is to hire a company who specializes
in web application development. The advantage is that you can tap the
design and development resources and experience that this company has
already assembled. It also eliminates the disadvantages of hiring
an employee, but it brings some disadvantages of its own. These
companies add a management layer between you and the people actually
developing your site. This layer doesn't come for free and it adds a
personnel hurdle as you try to communicate your needs to your developer.
They also have a significant overhead that gets added in to the cost of
your project. I've worked in this scenario, and it consistently
increases costs and the time-frame of the project, while decreasing the
benefit for the people doing the hands-on work. Another disadvantage is
that companies like these often try to leverage a code base that they've
developed for other clients. This tends to make them inflexible in
addressing your needs specifically, as they are trying to make their code work
generally for all of their clients.
- Low Cost, Short-Term
Commitment
The last and best option is to work with me and
Flatland Media, and let me build the team that fits your project
perfectly. I will assemble only the resources you need and the overhead
costs are next to nothing. Since I am both the lead developer and the
project manager, you know that your requirements will not lose anything in
translation, and I won't need approval from my superiors before implementing
any change requests. While I have a wealth of code to pull from to
perform certain common tasks, I am developing an application for you
and you only, so I encourage rather than resist all customizations that you
require. I work quickly and efficiently, and my quick response time
always catches my clients off-guard.