Archive for October, 2006

Google Forcing IE over Firefox?

October 30th, 2006

Go figure that Firefox keeps giving me problems when I open my googledocs spreadsheet. Internet Explorer (which I have happily stopped using) works fine, but Firefox cuts off after a few rows, no matter what I do… (grrr).

Help me, Google!

Popularity: 4% [?]

Halloween Hiring

October 30th, 2006


What kind of job-market is it when this guy is out stumping for our sister-company, SOS Staffing?

Popularity: 5% [?]

Jobster Makes Networking Fun

October 27th, 2006

There’s something wrong when you wake up in the night thinking about a website. Especially if it’s something work-related.

JobsterBut what Jobster has done with the social networking site has made it easy and fun to not only add yourself, but broadcast yourself–and find other people you may be looking for.

The site absolutely has a professional tilt (uhh, the name *is* “jobster”) but it lives out beyond the dusty, stodgy territory of most business networking sites, and plants itself squarely in the realm of “cool” (uhh, the name *is* “jobster”).

In the summer, when Jobster relaunched, Mashable called them the MySpace for jobs.

The site is now an open social network similar to MySpace or Friendster – it allows you to create a profile page, tag yourself, list the companies youve worked for and answer questions on your work-related experiences. You can also add faves (coworkers and collegues you admire or would like to make contact with) and see who has favorited you in the fans section. Additionally, you can explore the site based on tags and add tags to describe other users.

Use their tagging and browsing/search tools to both see and be seen easilly. Want to find a Web 2.0 Guru? Someone with Start-up Experience? A Recruiter in Utah (ahem).

Plus, I like the plentiful RSS feeds and lots of other networking tools–and though there are services they provide which cost some bucks, if you’re Jo-Ann Jobseeker, it’s all flowing to you free. Sweet.

Now for some feedback for the jobsters:

  • Find me:
    • I put a link to my profile in my blog sidebar, and I had to break out a can of geek-fu to figure out what my own URL on Jobster is.
    • I’d like a personal URL that reflects my name/username, too–like jobster.com/robertmerrill or whatever it takes to get my name in the URL (so I can remember it and share it).
  • Network Me:
    • Do my faves and fans have a blog or website? I wanna know, please.
    • Are my faves/fans doing anything interesting? Let me know that, too, please.
  • Feed Me:
    • I can search for people tagged “Utah”, for example, but I’d love to be notified via RSS (or at least email) when there are new people that match my search. Gimme some feeds!
    • If my faves/fans have blogs, let me get to their feeds, too.
    • If my faves/fans have blogs, gimee OPML for that so I can import/save ‘em.
  • Share Me:
    • I’d be interested in putting a badge on my blog that shows my faves and fans in the sidebar, or lets my faves/fans chat with me like a tagboard or a meebo.
    • Publish my blog URL for people to see from my jobster page.
      • Allow people to subscribe to my blog feed from my jobster page.
  • Pay me:
    • If I find a company or a job that I like, and I am willing to promote it from my jobster page “companies I like” or “jobs I like”… and people click through and generate revenue for Jobster because of it, allow me to get a piece of that pie (if I want–or you can keep it, or donate it to charity).

All in all, I can’t complain. I am sure a lot of this is in the works already.
Jobster “gets it” and I like that. Keep it up!


Checkout accounting jobs, UK at AccountantCareers.co.uk.

Popularity: 11% [?]

Thought

October 23rd, 2006


Most people die before they are fully born. Creativeness means to be born before one dies.
Erich Fromm

Popularity: 4% [?]

CTO Breakfast Thursday 10-26

October 23rd, 2006

Mark your calendars, the monthly CTO breakfast in Orem is Thursday, 10/26

Popularity: 4% [?]

Do you “Get It” ?

October 20th, 2006

When it comes right down to it, one of the hardest things for a recruiter or hiring manager to determine is not what’s on a resume (resumes are not valuable on their own, and it’s too easy to find “resumes”, if that’s your goal).

The hardest thing to learn about a potential hire is who the person behind the resume really is.

  • Are they a problem-solver?
  • What’s their work-ethic?
  • Will they help champion our cause?
  • Will they think inside and outside the box?
  • Will they agree with our strategy?
  • Will they take our strategy to new heights?

A great way to reveal who you are outside the bullets and text-boxes on your resume is to blog. The point-being that a blog is a single-source of information about you–relevant and timely, an personal–and it isn’t scattered across the internet hidden in newsgroups or forums or emails on other people’s computers.

Jason Alba of Jibber Jobber fame has been giving out a monthly award to those who “get it”… at least as far as using the Internet to help you brand yourself is concerned.

This month’s You Get It winner of the month is Kent Blumberg! Of Kent, Jason says:

This prize is based on getting it that is, using the Internet to develop, enhance, reinforce a personal brand – which is one component of taking your career into your own hands. It is only one component, but it is increasingly significant.

Louise Fletcher of Blue Sky Resumes read his blog and noted (emphasis added):

I don’t know if Kent is actively job searching right now, but I do know
that he’s building a personal brand online that will ensure he is seen
as a leader in his field. What better way to make sure you never have
to send another resume again?

So, hat’s off to you, Kent. And for anyone looking for an expert in leadership, strategy and performance, I hope they’ll give you a call.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Top Hires are Problem Solvers

October 19th, 2006

Here’s a complete sidenote to what Phil Windley was talking about in his post When You Pick Your Tools, Pick Those That Can Build Tools

Programmers should be tool builders. If youre not building tools to make your life easier, youre wasting time.

This is one way I sniff out the top software engineers from the rest of the pack–how do they go about solving problems.

More than a year ago, in some comments I made about interviewing, I said it this way (emphasis added):

Remember that every job-opening represents a problem of some kind that the employer wants to solve.

So, thoughts to take home are:

  • When was the last time you made your tools work harder for you because you forced it to solve more problems?
  • If you were in an interview today (too late to make changes), how would your resume, blog, portfolio show that you’re solution-minded?


Checkout Las Vegas jobs at NV Job Search.com.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Mitt Romney’s Myspace Page?

October 18th, 2006

Not quite sure what I think of this, but it appears that Governor Mitt Romney has a myspace page.  Hmmm.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Personal Branding 2.0

October 17th, 2006



I had the pleasure, today, of attending a great, healthy discussion and training on Using Technology in Personal Branding presented well by Jason Alba, jobseeker advocate and founder and CEO of JibberJobber, an online tool to help you actively manage your personal network–CRM style.

He videotaped the event, so I expect to see something online soon about it. Great stuff.

I will note that the training happened after the weekly meeting of a very sharp executive networking group that meets weekly from 8:00am to 9:30 at 625 East 8400 South in Sandy, Utah (in the South East corner of the LDS Chapel there).
Some quick notes about Personal Branding:

  • Developing your personal brand is not new.
    Any one person who stands out from the crowd can be defined by their personal brand. Their brand may not be large or influential on a global scale, but it can be infinetly influential upon the people they know and the people that respect them.
  • Someone referened Lee Iacoca a man who clearly understood the power of a personal brand (apparently evidenced by changing his name from “Lido” to “Lee” to allow an easier pronounciation of his own name)
  • Shel Israel, co-author of Naked Conversations, noted how Steve Rubel’s departure from CooperKatz to Edelman PR is an indication of how Rubel developed his own brand thanks to his blogging efforts (among other things–surely), something that belongs to Rubel–not his employer (although his current employer, Israle notes, absolutely benefits from the attention).
  • Very strong personal brands even associate people with the superstars in that field. As human beings, we like “people”, so we associate things with people–either people we experienced something with (i.e. will you ever forget who you were with on September 11, 2001?) or the people who come to define a certain activity.

For example, if I say “News”, “Politics”, “Golf”, “CEO”, “Boss”, or even “Family Member” you will probably associate a person with all of those keywords.

  • People with the highest personal brands also demand the highest salaries (and greatest requirement to maintain it). One peek inside the life of a strong personal brand like Jennifer Lopez, and you will see what I mean.

Popularity: 7% [?]

Trails.com: Hiking and Camping Trails and Topographic Maps

October 15th, 2006

For me, the formula for a good subscription-based web application comes down to a few things:

  • Valuable data/information, very simply accessed (display & UI must be clean, precise)
  • Relevant tools become available as I browse, helping me learn & use more (even if it leads me offsite)
  • Simple cost-structure, equal to my usage. Some users may qualify for a $50/month subscription, but I will probably keep-on-a-clickin’. Charge me $1-5/mo, and you’ve probably got me.

Thanks to my volountary work as a Scoutmaster, I need good information about trails and camps in the area on a regular-basis. And, why wait in a line or buy something from a store, when you can search for what you need and get it online!

Enter trails.com, a very cool, simple to use tool which I’ve been enjoying quite a bit. The site is easy to use and navigate, and has good information about local trails, and any topographic map you could be looking for!

Recently, I needed to get some topographic maps together for our troop’s campout near the Loafer Mountain Trail outside Spanish Fork, Utah.

The only problem? I didn’t know the area was called “Loafer Mountain”. I just knew where it was… I had no idea what was nearby.

Using the Lat/Long for the area from my GPS, I located the maps I needed, printed them off, and was on my way. Also, trails.com taught me about the location, helped me locate both trails and geocaching opportunities within 10 miles of our camp–cool!

Below, see a section of a screenshot around the Loafer Mountain Trail I needed:

Loafer Map Screenshot

Popularity: 4% [?]