Multi-touch or Bust

I've decided to throw all good sense and caution to the wind to focus entirely on multi-touch as my next career path. I've had a lot of wonderful opportunities presented to me since I was laid off a month ago, but there is only one option for me right now and that’s multi-touch development and design.

I have a family of 4 little ones (ages 7, 5, 3, and 1) and a wonderful wife and if I was sane I would focus on getting a nice paying job, any job. But sanity left this body months ago when I interacted with Surface for the first time at Web 2.0 Expo. Since that fateful day I can think of nothing else. Working in any other field of software development right now would be giving up on a dream and I'm not going to do that. The economy is horrible. The market for multi-touch developers and designers is growing quickly but is still small, but none of that matters to me. I will make it work.

I've only been this obsessed with technology once before, when I stumbled across Java in December of 1995. Java development was not a job for me, it was an obsession. I ran my own Java magazine, started a Java user group, and worked full time in Java development within 10 months of discovering Java. At that time no-one wanted Java developers - at least locally - and finding work was difficult. Hard to believe, but true! I spent half my time writing and evangelizing Java every day.

I feel the same way today about multi-touch and in particular Microsoft Surface. It's all I think about and it consumes every moment I'm not with my family. I stay up all night working on it and reading about it. I had missed that kind of passion. My love for Java is still strong but the passion left my bones a long time ago. Today, it’s all about multi-touch and Surface. Surface is not the only multi-touch platform in town (I would like to learn to develop for others) but it’s the best one outside the iPhone and one of the few where there is a job market. I'm hooking my horse to the Surface bandwagon and holding on for dear life. So far I love the ride!

So I'm no longer going to consider any work that isn't multi-touch related. That means I'm turning my back on fifteen years of enterprise Java development and expertise. Surprisingly it's not a difficult decision for me. Multi-touch or bust!