It seems like June is "we-just-updated-our-user-interface" month and LinkedIn follows suit with some nice enhancements.

The LinkedIn Inbox is cleaner and easier to manage. They’ve added interactive tabs to keep things simple from the home-page which I like, and some powerful features to help tame the flood of inbound requests (since you are so popular after all).  On the company blog, Yassine Hinnach lists out a few objectives to the inbox upgrade:

Here are your oft requested features that will be incorporated into your LinkedIn Inbox moving forward. Thanks for your feedback and comments.

1. New look and feel: Inbox and module on home page are now redesigned to be simpler and more intuitive. We’ve separated invitations and messages into two separate tabs making it easier for you to view and respond to your pending invitations.

2. Bulk actions: You can now archive a number of similar messages at once, making your Inbox even easier to maintain and control. You can also bulk accept or ignore invitations making connecting with others a snap.

3. Delete: The top request from our users was the ability to delete messages. Done and done.

This is just one more step in improving your LinkedIn Inbox experience. We hope you enjoy your new Inbox

And here’s a nice tips video highlighting what’s new:

Thoughts? Do you use the LinkedIn Inbox much?

MTV (which, according to some sources used to play actual music videos) is asking the twitterverse and its audience to help them find the first ever TJ – Tweet Jockey, a social-media maven they will pay $100k to twitterfy the universe with MTV-rich goodness 24/7/365

Turn your tweets into a $100k job at MTV!

MTV and ZYNC from American Express(SM) have partnered to find the social voice of MTV. Nominate yourself or your favorite social media superstar and help them win the ultimate dream job: The first MTV TJ. The winner gets access to red carpet events, hot celebrities and earns a $100,000 salary. Follow @AmericanExpress for program updates. Read More

AP reporter Sandy Cohen adds:

MTV officials say the search is on for a new social media maven who will engage with the MTV audience and serve as a liaison between viewers and network honchos.

MTV General Manager Stephen Friedman called the TJ position "a natural evolution of how we connect with our audience."

The network has identified 18 potential candidates and is asking its audience to find two more. The 20 hopefuls will compete in a series of online challenges this summer designed to reveal their personalities and demonstrate how they connect with Twitter followers.

Five finalists will ultimately compete on a live show on Aug. 8, when fans will pick who gets the new job.

It sounds just crazy enough to get MTV some attention.  Although this isn’t the first time a media company has tossed out some big bones to someone in exchange for doing what they already love. CMT hired a blogger, Chris Nelson, amid crazy press in 2005 to watch reruns of the Dukes of Hazzard and… blog about it. His salary? A cool $100k for one year (no vacation allowed).

How did I find out about this? Well, twitter, of course:

There’s a lot going on out there about LinkedIn, the check-your-personality-at-the-door social networking site for business-types.

Here’s a few key take-aways for you:

• The New York Times today speaks about LinkedIn‘s recent influx of capital, and the benefits the site has in being a decidedly-stuffy site for networking among professionals:
  

  “LinkedIn gives professionals, even the most hopeless wallflower, a painless way to follow the advice of every career counselor: build a network.”

• Author and Speaker Lindsey Pollak noted not only the article above in her blog post this morning, Why you should use LinkedIn (if you aren’t already), but also jotted several notes down she received from a PR manager at LinkedIn on how you can use LinkedIn more effectively:
  

  1. Study people you admire.
  2. Tailor your profile to look similar to the people whose careers you want.
  3. Research people you are scheduled to meet.
  4. Ask for… and Give advice.
  5. If you want to increase your Google-ability, set your profile as public and choose a vanity URL

  She also points people to more information about using Linked in smartly here, here and here.

• Finally, Kiley Newbold pointed me to a court-ruling in England where  the High Court orders an ex-employee to hand over LinkedIn contacts apparently used to compete with his former company.  Nevermind the random and really-trying-hard-to-include-relevant-news image of Obama in the article, the point is that companies are trying to clamp down on the rolodex of their past-employees… is  that fair? What do you think?

One of my favorite events each month is coming up tomorrow (Friday, 5/30). Phil Windley’s CTO Forum/Breakfast at the Novell Cafeteria in Provo (map).

Anyone interested in how information technology is used to build products or run companies. Despite it’s name, you don’t have to be a CTO to attend—just interested in technology, where it’s headed, and the problems of starting and building a high-tech business in Utah.

If you’ve seen something cool or just want to discuss a current topic, come prepared to bring it up.

Put these future meetings on your calendar:

* June 27 (Friday)
* July 18 (Friday)
* No breakfast in August
* Sept 26 (Friday)

Some social-network administration I’ve been doing includes:

• I just joined Friendfeed and Lijit.
• Twitter says Jeff Barr will be in town today, but his Dopplr doesn’t say where.
  Note that Jeff Barr got me hooked on twitter in December 2006 (woah).
• I’ve gone through all my little accounts and updated my icons to be the same… the now-famous “guy in the car” photo that people recognize me from at various meetups, etc.
• Finally got facebook and twitter talking so my statuses work.
• I listened to Cris Russell’s Social Media Recruiting cast with some interesting news articles that got me really thinking…
• Thinking about personal branding. Always impressed with Peter Clayton’s Total Picture Radio.
• I seem to be the last person in the Western Hemisphere to know about Laura Fitton, but twitter took care of that in about a 3-minute round-trip. Cool.
  (actually, I’ve read her blog here and there, just didn’t realize what a rock star she is)
• Blogged about the G33k Dinner/Lunch @ Tucanos next week (salivating).
• Speaking of podcasts, listening to Tech Weekly from Guardian.co.uk is like sugar for my ears.

And it’s just now 7:30.  Off to get kids to school, and myself to work…

P.S. And I wish WordPress 2.5′s wysiwyg editor didn’t put “http://” in the URL linking box.

I’ve got to say I like what LinkedIn has done lately… cool new features, a facelift and now, access to their systems via mobile phones:

[Announcing] LinkedIn mobile for any Web enabled wireless phones that use the wireless application protocol (WAP). What that allows you to do is access LinkedIn from any mobile device ranging from your Blackberry to iPhone

http://m.linkedin.com/

Check out LinkedIn’s corporate blog post on the subject, including some cool videos. Check it out. It’s been three years since I called LinkedIN out abut missing the boat.  SO MUCH has changed in this marketspace, since then, but I’m glad to see they’re making good progress.

To kick off the new CouchCast.org, a weekly talk-radio show to discuss what’s happening out there, co-hosts Thom Allen, Matt Reinbold and I interviewed Jesse Stay, co-author of I’m On Facebook, Now What, and a co-founder of socialoptimize.com, a social network application consulting firm:

Couch Cast Interviews Jesse Stay of SocialOptimize

The Couch Cast Crew interviews Jesse Stay of SocialOptimize.com, and co-author of “I’m On Facebook, Now What??” A look at social networking tools and how to use them

I think I just wrote the best blog post of my life… and it wasn’t even on MY BLOG.  It was on Jason’s… down in the comments. It’s how to get yourself noticed by a hiring manager when you have too many skills, or you’re overqualified, or you  are a round-peg in a square-hole.

Note: I wrote this post while I worked for SOS Technical. I don’t work there anymore. I run my own recruiting agency now called M|REC (Merrill Recruiting). I still recruit, but now I do it even more awesomely than before. I can help your company suck less at recruiting, too. This post is here for archival purposes, but please know I am not on their payroll any longer. Thanks!

Last week, I traveled to Albuquerque, New Mexico as part of a recruiting event in partnership with DBM, a global outplacement firm.

While I was there, I presented some information to a great group of people about who SOS Technical (my employer) is, and what our services are. I felt it would be good to archive this information for others to have, so I’ve uploaded my presentation in PDF and PowerPoint format for your viewing and sharing pleasure.

Below is a map of the current locations of SOS Staffing’s family of companies (including 8 strictly “SOS Technical” location)

(Please note that SOS Technical, its other divisions or parents, assumes no responsibility for this blog or any of its content)

I’m LQTM about the following I noticed in my facebook account just now:

Yeah, I know. It’s probably not funny to you. Its just a bit interesting how, when you aggregate enough people together, you can accurately tell whole populations what you ARE doing by simply comparing yourself to what someone else is NOT doing.

Via my Twitter network today: Is your social network about the number of “friends” you have? Or is it about who you trust, and who trusts you?