I have to admit that I’m a little bummed that the holiday weekend is over. Since it’ll be a solid 2 months until we get another one, we’re going to have to make do with Hill Holliday. They’re a full-service advertising, marketing, and communications agency with presences in Boston, MA; New York, NY; and Greenville, SC. It all started in Boston in 1968 as Hill, Holliday, Connors, Cosmopulos, Inc., and now it’s a firm of more than 800 employees with some really big name clients including Dunkin’ Donuts, Major League Baseball, Anheuser Busch, CVS, Liberty Mutual, Bank of America, and more. Unless you are a total hermit, there’s almost no way that you wouldn’t recognize at least some of their work.
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Ever consider a career in teaching? Here’s some info on how to get started.
There’s a long history of poking fun at Martha Stewart, and it started well before she went to prison. There’s just something funny about someone who takes perfection in domesticity as seriously as she does. My family even played an integral role in the satire of Martha with my little sister’s appearance in the parody magazine Martha Stuart’s Better Than You at Entertaining
, which was a follow up to Is Martha Stuart Living?
(here’s a picture my sister as young Martha Stewart in the parody). We can keep laughing at Martha Stewart, but she’ll always get the last laugh. She has an amazing track record of reaching the top in nearly everything that she has done–from babysitting for Mickey Mantle’s kids to starting a successful catering company in her basement to building a New York, NY based media empire in Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia. Martha Stewart is apparently now worth well over half a billion dollars, and has used her personal brand to build amazing print, television, online, and merchandise properties.
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A few days ago I saw a retweet from Peter Gammons’ account about some job opportunities. That seemed a bit odd to me since Peter Gammons is a baseball reporter and analyst, and the jobs didn’t seem to have anything to do with baseball. I made a note of it and went back to what I was doing. Today I went to check out 38 Studios, and I realized that Gammons was retweeting Curt Schilling, the former Phillies and Diamondbacks pitcher (he may have also played for the evil Red Sox, which is probably why Gammons, the biggest Red Sox homer ever, was retweeting him). Anyway, Curt Schilling is the founder of 38 Studios, which is “an entertainment and IP creation company in development on a broad range of products, including online and console video games, toys, novels, comics, film, TV, and other forms of digital media.” I’m not sure how I’d describe the stuff that they’re putting out, but if I had to pick one word it would be fantasy. Like I said, nothing to do with baseball. 38 Studios was previously based in Boston, MA, but they’re in the process of moving to Providence, RI, and that’s where most of their jobs are now.
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Last week I came across a pretty cool picture from the filming of Pirates of the Caribbean (I have no idea which of the movies). It shows what the actors looked like when the movie was being filmed, and then what they actually look like in the movie with all of the CGI and special effects. How do actors take themselves seriously with little balls stuck all over their body? Fortunately, they won’t have to much longer if Organic Motion has anything to say about it. They’re a New York, NY based company that “a leading innovator of computer vision and highly advanced motion capture systems.” They’ve developed a combined software/hardware solution that enables computers to capture the motion of humans and other organisms—no little balls necessary. It’s a huge breakthrough that can be used in all kinds of different applications.
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Let me preface this post by saying that there is no way that I am going to do the topic justice. There’s just no way that I can properly bring to life the story of Lucasfilm when I’m just not all that into Star Wars. I’ve seen the trilogy, and I even saw the one or two of the movies from the prequel trilogy, but I’m not a fanatic. With that said, there are plenty of fanatical Star Wars fans and fans of George Lucas’ work. What he was able to do with late 70s/early 80s technology in the Star Wars movies is incredible, but what’s even more incredible is the excitement that Lucasfilm has been able to build around its franchises—mainly Star Wars and Indiana Jones. Lucasfilm is located in San Rafael, CA, while they also have a large presence in Singapore. They’re a monster name in the film and entertainment industry, and they also have businesses including Industrial Lights & Magic, Lucasarts, Lucasfilm Animation, Lucas Licensing, Lucas Online, and Skywalker Sound.
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Early in the recession it seemed as though the video game industry would never be affected. Traditional game publishers were busy selling their wares to the unemployed and hiring to keep churning out games—so there were plenty of entry level jobs in video games. Things seem to have slowed down over the past year, but I think it’s more about a change in the games that people play than macroeconomic conditions. Facebook and the iPhone have created new markets for cheap and free (ad-supported) games to gain a lot of traction. There are a ton of gaming upstarts entering the market, and traditional publishers are changing the platforms that they develop on. One of the upstarts is Watercooler, a Redwood City, CA based social games developer that has already reached “over 25 million application installations.” The company started as a network of online fan communities focused on sports and TV, but they’ve switched focus and used their “social product expertise to create innovative and engaging social games.”
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Yesterday I came across a New York Times article about how Reed Hastings, the founder of Netflix, recently donated money to a non-profit called Charter School Growth Fund so that they could acquire online education startup DreamBox Learning, which creates web-based games to teach elementary school students math skills. As far as I can tell, the Bellevue, WA based startup will remain a for-profit entity even though it will be owned by a non-profit fund. Along with the donation Reed Hastings also invested $10 million into DreamBox to help them expand the number of subjects that they cover and to reach more schools with their software. You have to think that a large portion of that investment will be spent on hiring new people in the not so distant future.
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Here’s another one from Fast Company’s list of “The World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies.” Firstborn is a New York City based digital agency with “a knack for hard-core programming most of its hipster colleagues can’t match.” By combining advertising smarts with a firm grasp on technology, they’re taking the art of advertising to the next level. Firstborn claims major clients like Ford, SoBe, Aflac, and Wrigley. But they’re not just making commercials. They’re creating interactive experiences that combine branding initiatives with user generated content. Firstborn has been around since 1997, so they’re not new to this Internet thing. That’s why they’re the ones putting out the kind of stuff that gets true ad geeks really excited. Beyond Firstborn’s portfolio, you can also get a more in depth look at how they work by going through their case studies.
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It’s Opening Day of the baseball season, and I’m thrilled that I’m looking at 6+ months of meaningful games for my favorite sport. Last night was disappointing in that the Yankees blew a solid lead in a sloppy game against the Red Sox, but even that can’t drown out my excitement about the hope brought by a new season. Along with a new season comes new technology. Television and online broadcasts are constantly getting better, and not just in quality. There are all kinds of new technological innovations that are making sports more fun to watch, and a lot of them are coming from Chicago based Sportvision. It all started with the FoxTrax “glowing” hockey puck (which was pretty much a miserable failure), but now we have things like the “virtual yellow 1st and Ten line™, KZone™ virtual strike zone, and the RACEf/x system on NASCAR broadcasts.” Each of these was created by Sportvision.
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Apparently my parents and sister have engaged in a never-ending series of online Scrabble games played via iPhone. I’m with my parents in Florida right now, and every five minutes they’re bugging each other to make the next move. It’s crazy. Free online gaming has hit the masses, and it isn’t pretty. There are tons of new online gaming companies, and while some are focusing on bringing new gamers to the market, others are more focused on gaining ground with serious gamers. Culver City, CA based Riot Games is a perfect example of the latter. They are behind League of Legends, a free online role-playing game that is set in an imaginative world. The game has been downloaded more than a million times, and Riot Games has received $20 million in venture capital investment based on the game. $8 million of that investment came from a Chinese gaming company that has a huge user base, so this is very much an international play.
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It looks like Yahoo! Finance has taken a page out of my book and used Fortune’s 40 Under 40 list to highlight some companies that are hiring. I found the link on Twitter, and was pleased to see that I had already featured a number of the companies. One that I haven’t yet featured (and don’t remember hearing about before) is Slide. They’re a San Francisco based startup that claims to be “the world’s leading social entertainment company.” I think that’s a bit of a stretch, but they do make social networks more fun for hundreds of millions of people. Their 40 Under 40 CEO is Max Levchin, who co-founded PayPal (which was sold for $1.5 billion to eBay). He is apparently well on his way to having built another billion dollar company, considering the fact that Slide was valued at $550 million last time that they took money.
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After a second company used the term “rockstar” in their job postings, it became clichéd. I know that I’ve said this before, but no matter how good your coding skills (or whatever other rockstar skills employers look for) are, you’re never going to be a rockstar. Unless, of course, you land a job at Rockstar Games. If you work there, at least you’ll be a rockstar in name. You may not have a guitar, but you’ll be working for the company behind video game series like Grand Theft Auto, Max Payne, and Manhunt. And for those of you who have a different taste in games, they’ve got Table Tennis for the Wii. I keep harping on the fact that the video game industry is doing well, but it’s just so impressive. Other content producers like newspapers, magazines, record labels, and move producers are struggling with changes in how we consume content, but video game companies keep humming along—and Rockstar Games is no exception.
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It’s been almost 6 months since I first started talking about how the video game industry is a good place to find a job during a recession, yet I continue to be amazed by how aggressively some gaming companies are hiring. I don’t know if it’s a result of the fact that people buy video games when they’re unemployed or it’s that hard to find people to fill these jobs, but I’m shocked to see a company like Bungie with 21 job openings – many of which appear to be suitable for new grads. Now, Bungie and I go way back. I’ve been using Macs since the early 90s, and Bungie was one of the premier game creators for Macs. Although I was never a serious gamer, I definitely have fond memories of Bungie’s first huge success – Marathon. Then they hit it big with Halo. Microsoft bought them out, and they picked up shop and moved (all of their employees chose to follow the company) to Kirkland, WA.
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If you’re sitting around playing video games instead of being a diligent job seeker, then you’re the reason that companies like Kaos Studios are on “a hiring binge.” I guess that’s a good thing because you’re creating jobs for other people. It won’t do much for you, but you can call it an act of selflessness. I continue to be amazed by how well video game companies are doing in such a rough economy. The connection between unemployment and gaming seems to be pretty clear (although the question of which comes first is yet to be answered). I’d rather you enroll in our job search training course, than buy a couple of new games, but I’d imagine that the folks at Kaos Studios would disagree. They’re a NYC based video game and their most recent title is Frontlines: Fuel of War – yes, it’s a shoot ‘em up.
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This weekend my Dad e-mailed me about a company that had just moved to Connecticut (where I’m originally from). Connecticut has been working hard to attract the movie industry to the state – they even have what is called a “Hollywood East Task Force” in Hartford – so it’s big news when a company like Blue Sky Studios makes a move to Connecticut because they’ve been bribed by tax credits. It certainly brings a lot of jobs to Connecticut (even though New York loses just as many.) As interesting as it is that Connecticut is trying to become “Hollywood East,” it’s not nearly as interesting as what Blue Sky Studios does. They “pioneer creatively superior photo-realistic, high-resolution, computer-generated character animation for the feature film, television and entertainment industries.” Put more simply, they’re behind feature films like Ice Age, Horton Hears a Who, and Robots, and some pretty cool shorts too.
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Some people seem to think that this financial crisis is a sign that the end of the world is coming. Well, I can assure you that it is not going to lead to the end of the World… of Warcraft. Why’s that? Because video game sales were up 18% from last October to this October. I guess when you can’t find a job, a new video game seems like a smart investment (you have a lot of time on your hands). I’d recommend that you invest in our job search training course instead, but that’s just my opinion. So, even if you’re frustrated by your job search, don’t give up on the World… of Warcraft. Not only can video games give you a way to blow off your steam while you’re getting pwned by your job search, they can also provide you ideas for new employers to look into. For instance, Irvine, CA based Blizzard Entertainment, the company behind World of Warcraft seems to be on a hiring binge. Maybe your 1337 gaming skills aren’t useless (and don’t tell me that you don’t need a job because you’re mining cybergold). Oh yeah, and if you’re playing Hello Kitty Island Adventure, you’re doing it wrong, n00b.
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Are you a superhero whose alter ego happens to be looking for a job? Just for cover, of course, because superheroes don’t actually need to work. You’ve managed to keep it quiet through your 4 years in college, but now that you’re going off on your own, you need a good place to hide out when you’re not beating up villains and saving the world. Why not work at the last place that they’d ever expect you to work – Marvel Enterprises. It’s so obvious that it’s completely unobvious. In all seriousness if you’re not familiar with Marvel, they’re “one of the world’s most prominent character-based entertainment companies.” They made their name in comic books, but they’ve expanded into tv, movies, toys, video games, and more.
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In case you couldn’t tell by our post about Apple’s entry-level jobs, we’re really big Steve Jobs fans. That’s why we’re going to look at another one of the Steve’s projects (one that you probably didn’t even know was his) for exciting career opportunities for new grads. Steve Jobs started Apple, but left in 1985 after some disagreement with the board of directors. That left him with a lot of money and a lot of free time, so he did what any creative genius would do and purchased Lucasfilms’ computer graphics division from George Lucas for $10 million in 1986. It eventually turned into Pixar, which has put out computer generated classics such as Toy Story, A Bug’s Life, Monsters Inc., Finding Nemo, and The Incredibles. Pixar was bought by Disney in 2006, which made Steve Jobs Disney’s largest individual shareholder. Now that you know that Steve is even more of a genius than you previously thought he was, let’s look at what kind of entry-level opportunities Pixar offers.
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People don’t typically associate technology and innovation with Detroit and the auto industry. Whether it’s deserved or not, American car manufacturers have a pretty weak reputation these days. It’s unfortunate because the decline of the Big Three has seriously hurt the entire Michigan economy. That’s why you see these commercials with Jeff Daniels that try to sell businesses on a Michigan location. Armstrong White is exactly the type of company that is going to bring jobs back to Michigan. They have built a business in Bloomfield Hills, MI that directly serves the auto industry, but is also high tech and extremely innovative. No, they haven’t developed some sort of alternative energy technology. They specialize “in rendering reality out of automotive 2D and 3D assets and digital landscapes for print, broadcast and interactive mediums.”
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Sales is a field that is an odd mix of art and science. A lot of things that should work don’t, and a lot of things that shouldn’t work do. In fact, you’d probably be amazed at what tactics most effectively convert people from readers to buyers. Getting your online visitors to read is one way to get them to convert, but Portland, Oregon based AngelVision Technologies has found a much better way to help businesses make sales. They create “impact movies” that go beyond the normal text-based marketing that drives most online business. These animations are exceptional sales tools, and AngelVision has made a big business out of developing them – their revenue has increased 1,441.2% over the past three years.
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