When you’re a kid, you think that teachers have an easy job. They have good hours, lots of vacation with summers off, and they get to stand in front of a room and tell you what to do. As you get older, you start to realize that teaching also includes grading papers, planning lessons, communicating with parents, writing comments for report cards, and a whole lot more. A grade book just isn’t a good hub for managing all of this. Teachers need something industrial-strength, and that’s what Instructure provides with their Canvas Learning Management System. The Sandy, UT based company offers a suite of tools that enable teachers to spend way less time on administrative stuff, and more time teaching and working directly with students. They serve educators at all levels–from Kindergarten to some of the world’s top universities, which shows you just how flexible the Canvas platform is.
Read the full article →
Tagged as:
all employers,
design,
education,
engineering,
marketing,
online marketing,
sem,
seo,
software development,
systems administration,
user experience,
Utah,
web development,
writing
In college I studied Industrial and Labor Relations, which means that I spent four years focusing on the world of work. The curriculum covered everything from slavery and indentured servitude to unions and the movement of capital to find lower cost labor. The common theme was that the way that we define and think about work is constantly changing. Today’s trend is all about having a flexible workforce–people who can join on for a project form wherever they live and then move on to a new project with someone else. Work Market is a company that “give businesses access to an on-demand scalable work force along with tools to manage three categories of labor: employees, contractors and third parties.” Many businesses in this space focus on actually building the market where labor can find work, but Work Market takes it one step further and offers the software for businesses to build their own market.
Read the full article →
Tagged as:
community management,
design,
engineering,
human resources,
New York,
operations,
recruiting,
software development,
user experience,
web development
Local businesses are about as old school as you can get–many of them have continued to succeed doing the same thing that they’ve done for decades or even centuries. There have certainly been advances that have changed that–refrigeration, digital cash registers, and the Yellow Pages are just a few, but nothing even compares to the Internet–especially the mobile Internet. Local businesses are now able to reach and interact with customers and potential customers in a way that they only could have dreamed of a few years ago. CityGrid Media is a West Hollywood, CA based “leading media company connecting consumers and businesses everywhere local happens.” You’re probably familiar with at least one of their properties which include Citysearch, Insider Pages, and Urbanspoon.
Read the full article →
Tagged as:
account management,
advertising,
all employers,
analyst,
California,
engineering,
finance,
local,
marketing,
online marketing,
sales,
software development,
systems administration,
Washington,
web development
Do you love local businesses? Help them get discovered with an Inside Sales job at SinglePlatform.
You’re not going to like this. You’ve paid a lot of money for a fancy education, and now some of the best universities in the world are giving it away for free. You still have to pay to get the piece of paper, but if you’re just looking for the knowledge, then you need to check out Coursera. They’re a Mountain View, CA based startup that is “partnering with the top universities in the world to offer courses online for anyone to take, for free.” So far they’re working with Princeton, Stanford, Berkeley, Michigan, and UPenn. It doesn’t get much better than that. What makes Coursera unique from things like MIT’s OpenCourseWare is that these classes are specifically created to be consumed online.
Read the full article →
Tagged as:
all employers,
California,
community management,
customer service,
design,
education,
engineering,
online education,
operations,
quality assurance,
quality engineer,
software development,
user experience,
web development
100 years ago today the Titanic sank. It wasn’t the world’s first transportation disaster, nor was it the last, but it’s the one that continues to captivate people. As a kid I was absolutely fascinated by the story of the Titanic–the unsinkable ship that sank. I had a few books on the topic that I read over and over again. I learned about Alvin, the deep sea submersible, and Jason Jr., the underwater robot, and how they were used to explore the Titanic once it was discovered in 1985 (by essentially dragging video cameras just above the ocean floor). The discovery and expeditions were partially done by teams from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, which is a Woods Hole, MA based “non-profit research and higher education facility dedicated to the study of all aspects of marine science and engineering and to the education of marine researchers.” If it has to do with ocean science and exploration, there’s an extremely good chance that the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is on top of it.
Read the full article →
Tagged as:
all employers,
education,
engineering,
information technology,
Massachusetts,
non-profit,
oceanography,
research,
science,
software development,
web development
Today’s kids better be smarter and taller than our generation. Why? iPads. They’re amazing educational tools, and now they’re replacing textbooks. That means that today’s students not only should learn more quickly, but they can carry around a single device that weighs less than a pound and a half instead of a 40+ pound backpack filled with textbooks (and finally get back to standing upright). Inkling is a company that is making this beautiful future happen more quickly. They’re based in San Francisco, CA, and they’re building “a better textbook: one that [is] interactive and engaging, one that [takes] advantage of the opportunities afforded by new media like iPad.” They’re tearing away the assumptions that people make about books and moving in many different directions–literally. Even though Inkling calls what they do “interactive textbooks” to take advantage of familiar language, they really are building something completely new.
Read the full article →
Tagged as:
all employers,
analyst,
California,
customer service,
editorial,
education,
engineering,
publishing,
software development,
web development
Guys. If you’re going to land a job, you need pants. And shoes. And shirts. And maybe even a jacket and tie. Looking good is important, which is why you should outfit yourself in Bonobos like I do. Here’s $25 off your first order. My gift to you.
I have no idea where people went to ask embarrassing health questions before the Internet. I guess you could have gone to a doctor, but it’s really nice to pre-educate yourself before you ask a professional. That’s why there’s ridiculous demand for health-related information online. Everyday Health is a company that has been reacting to this demand since they started in 2002. They are a New York, NY based company that provides “consumers, healthcare professionals, and brands with content and advertising-based services across a broad portfolio of over 25 websites that span the health spectrum.” If you ask Google and embarrassing health question, there’s a really good chance that you’ll end up on one of their sites. In 2010 they were averaging 26.5 million monthly unique visitor, which is just a massive amount of traffic–especially in a niche as valuable as health related information.
Read the full article →
Tagged as:
advertising,
all employers,
blogging,
community management,
customer service,
editing,
editorial,
engineering,
events,
fitness,
health care,
marketing,
medicine,
New Yrok,
online marketing,
operations,
planning,
public relations,
sales,
sem,
seo,
technical support,
writing
Reasoning Mind is an education focused non-profit that uses the web to teach kids math, and they’re hiring 30 new grads as Program Coordinators. Learn more about these amazing entry level opportunities.
Just a few days ago I mentioned that computers are better than humans at math. That’s true for many math operations, but the ultimate combination is a smart human working with a fast computer and great software. MathWorks is a Natick, MA based company that makes this possible, as they are “is the leading developer of mathematical computing software for engineers and scientists.” They’ve been around for nearly 30 years, which is a seriously long time in the software business. MathWorks is probably best known for MATLAB, which is “a programming environment for algorithm development, data analysis, visualization, and numeric computation.” It’s used everywhere from research in top universities to designing industrial machines. If advanced math is involved, there’s a good chance that MATLAB will be used.
Read the full article →
Tagged as:
accounting,
all employers,
analyst,
data,
engineering,
finance,
information technology,
Massachusetts,
math,
operations,
quality assurance,
quality engineer,
research,
science,
software development,
statistics
Reasoning Mind is an education focused non-profit that uses the web to teach kids math, and they’re hiring 30 new grads as Program Coordinators. Learn more about these amazing entry level opportunities.
There are some things that computers are far better at than humans, like math. There are some things that humans are far better at than computers, like understanding nuance. Then there are a lot of things that fall somewhere in between, but we can be pretty certain that computers will do them better soon enough. One of these things is determining context. This is especially important in the world of advertising. Right now a human can do a much better job than a computer of determine which ads would fit best within the context of a website, but he or she will be much slower than a computer. PulsePoint is a New York, NY based company that is working to give the computer another win over humans with a technology platform that helps “marketers and publishers gain greater audience transparency and deeper engagement across digital channels at an unprecedented scale.”
Read the full article →
Tagged as:
advertising,
all employers,
analyst,
engineering,
New York,
online media,
operations,
sales,
software development,
web development
Reasoning Mind is an education focused non-profit that uses the web to teach kids math, and they’re hiring 30 new grads as Program Coordinators. Learn more about these amazing entry level opportunities.
The health care situation in the United States is a mess. It’s hard to disagree with that, but it’s easy to disagree about how we can fix it. I think that technology is a big part of the answer. I don’t mean medical technology (though that will certainly help)–I’m talking about administrative technology. I know it’s not nearly as exciting, but if doctors can run their practices more efficiently, they’ll be able to deliver better care at a lower costs. That’s a big deal. Drchrono is a Mountain View, CA based company that is using the power of the iPad to change how medical practices are run. They’ve developed a software-based patient care platform that does everything from patient check-in to managing electronic health records to billing. It may not sound like it’s going to turn around the health care situation, but it’s a start.
Read the full article →
Tagged as:
administrative,
all employers,
blogging,
California,
customer service,
design,
engineering,
graphic design,
health care,
marketing,
medicine,
online marketing,
photography,
sales,
sem,
social media,
software development,
web development,
writing
Job searching these days feels a lot like playing the lottery. There’s all this hope of being that one in a million winner, but in the end you slowly get demoralized as the odds play out. But there’s one surefire way to win the lottery. Be the lottery. (So I guess it follows that one surefire way to get a job is to be the employer. That’s what I did. Entrepreneurship FTW!) Or you can be contracted by the lottery. That’s what GTECH is. They’re a Providence, RI based “gaming technology and services company, providing innovative technology, creative content, and superior service delivery.” They call themselves “architects of gaming,” which seems pretty accurate considering that they’re involved in pretty much every part of designing and developing gaming products.
Read the full article →
Tagged as:
administrative,
analyst,
casino,
engineering,
finance,
game design,
human resources,
Rhode Island,
software development,
video games
My last foreign language learning experience came in tenth grade French class. I found it mind numbingly boring even though we used French in Action, which was supposed to be a wonderful method for learning the language. If you can’t keep a student engaged, he or she will never learn the language. That’s why Voxy might be worth checking out for those of you who have had trouble learning languages through other methods. They’re based in New York, NY, and they offer “an exciting, award-winning way to learn a language from life.” How do they do this? They use web and mobile technologies to teach you a language while you’re doing things that you’d normally do–reading articles, playing games, or walking around your city. Not only does this make learning more fun, but it also makes it more useful. What you learn is based on the context of your life, so you’ll actually know why what you’re learning is useful.
Read the full article →
Tagged as:
affiliate marketing,
all employers,
analyst,
bilingual,
blogging,
communications,
data,
design,
education,
engineering,
language,
marketing,
mobile,
New York,
online marketing,
public relations,
social media,
software development,
user experience,
web development,
writing
Admit it! You’ve used the Internet to self-diagnose a medical problem, and you probably used WebMD. For some of you it was to convince yourself that you’re not going to die tomorrow, and for some of you it was probably the opposite. It’s great having access to so much information, but it’s kind of dangerous when you a) can’t verify its accuracy and b) have no idea how to use it properly. Running to the doctor for every little issue is ridiculous, so there needs to be a better way to get medical information online. Luckily my little sister (who is awesome because she went to art school and then decided she wanted to go to med school, so she’s doing a postbac now) let me know about HealthTap. They’re a Palo Alto, CA based company that provides “free online and mobile answers from thousands of the best physicians in the U.S.” It’s kind of like Yahoo! Answers for medicine, but the people responding to your questions aren’t complete morons.
Read the full article →
Tagged as:
all employers,
California,
community management,
copywriting,
design,
editorial,
engineering,
health care,
information technology,
marketing,
medicine,
mobile,
operations,
product management,
research,
social media,
social networking,
software development,
user experience,
web development,
writing
I have to admit that I’m feeling a little left out these days. There’s something that I’ve never done that it seems like other Americans are doing a lot of. I’m constantly seeing advertisements for it–on tv, on the web, on billboards, and even on banners pulled behind planes during the summer. I know it’s embarrassing, but I’ve never purchased car insurance. These poor companies have spent so much money trying to reach me, and I haven’t even looked into buying what they’re hawking. But if I was, I might try using CoverHound (if their service was available in Illinois). They’re a San Francisco, CA based company that is building the “technology and brand behind the future of insurance comparison shopping.” Why let commercials about cavemen, a guy with a deep voice, or “doing the right thing” sway you when you can base your decision on real data?
Read the full article →
Tagged as:
all employers,
analytics,
business development,
California,
community management,
customer service,
engineering,
insurance,
marketing,
online marketing,
sales,
social media,
software development,
web development
I’ve never been great about eating breakfast, but when I do eat breakfast, I try to get as much protein into the meal as I can. My problem is that I find eggs completely unpalatable. One can only eat so much sausage and bacon, so I’ve had to find some other protein sources. Sometimes it’s a glass of milk and a scoop of peanut butter, and other times it’a bowl of yogurt. Yogurt’s certainly nothing new (it’s essentially been around since bacteria and milk mixed, but humans have been producing it for millennia), but it’s experienced quite a spike in popularity lately. Probiotics and Greek yogurt are probably the two biggest trends in the industry right now, and they’re part of the reason that Dannon is “one of the fastest growing consumer products companies in the U.S.” While based in White Plains, NY, Dannon is a subsidiary of a multi-billion dollar French company called Groupe Danone). That shouldn’t matter all that much to you, though, as Dannon seems to operate mostly independently.
Read the full article →
Tagged as:
account management,
all employers,
analyst,
engineering,
food,
food merchandising,
human resources,
laboratory,
marketing,
New York,
Ohio,
Oregon,
quality assurance,
sales
Since we celebrated National Pancake Day yesterday, we’re not going to make a big deal about Leap Day, but if you’re looking for a leapy post, you may want to read our profiles on LeapFrog and TicketLeap. Instead of the calendar, we’re going to talk about family history. I’m lucky in that my family has done a great job of documenting our history. One of the best stories from my family’s past is about William Ker Muir (my Great Great Great Grandfather), who at 24 left his homeland of Scotland to take a job in Canada’s burgeoning railroad industry. Four years later in 1859, he was riding in the last seat of the last car on a train from Toronto to Hamilton. He heard a crash at the front of the train and jumped out the back door. He landed safely on the track as the Desjardins Bridge collapsed and the train fell into an icy gorge killing or injuring most of the passengers and crew. Without those quick reflexes, I wouldn’t be here. It’s stories like those that make investigating genealogy worthwhile, and if you’re going to do that, online tools like those provided by Provo, UT based Ancestry.com can be a huge help. It’s “the world’s largest online resource for family history, with more than 1.7 million paying subscribers around the world.”
Read the full article →
Tagged as:
all employers,
California,
engineering,
genetics,
history,
marketing,
Massachusetts,
Pennsylvania,
research,
software development,
Utah,
web development
Because I’m a tech savvy kind of guy, I often get asked a lot of computer and Internet related questions. One of the most common questions that I get is: “How do I see how much traffic a website gets?” This is useful information whether you want to check to see if a startup is really as popular as they claim or if you want to size a market, but it’s not easy information to come by. The best answer is get the login and password to the site’s Google Analytics account. Considering that’s difficult and likely illegal, your next best bet is to you use some of the competitive research tools that are available. The free ones include Alexa, Compete, Quantcast, and Google Trends for Websites. Unfortunately, none of these are particularly reliable or accurate, and they’re especially bad for sites that get less than hundreds of thousands of visitors a month. The gold standard for this kind of information is offered comScore, but it comes with a hefty subscription fee. The Reston, VA calls itself “a global leader in measuring the digital world and the preferred source of digital marketing intelligence,” so paying those fees will get you a lot more than just traffic estimates for websites.
Read the full article →
Tagged as:
all employers,
analyst,
analytics,
California,
data,
engineering,
Illinois,
market research,
marketing,
New York,
online marketing,
product management,
research,
software development,
Virginia,
Washington,
web development
I’ve made a point of being more active in Cornell’s entrepreneurship community, so I like to think that I do a good job of keeping tabs on which other companies have been started by fellow alums. That’s why I was shocked to learn that the #2 online retailer of home furnishings and housewares was not only a company that I’d never heard of before, but a company founded by two Cornell grads. It’s called Wayfair–they’re based in Boston, MA and did $500 million in sales last year. The reason I hadn’t heard of them is that they were known as CSN Stores until last year (they were founded in 2002). CSN Stores was focused on building out 200+ product specific properties with generic domain names like Bedroomfurniture.com, Cookware.com, AirHockeyTables.com, and AllBarstools.com. Last year they decided to get serious about branding and started pulling all of their sites into the Wayfair brand.
Read the full article →
Tagged as:
all employers,
analyst,
analytics,
Australia,
brand management,
buyer,
customer service,
data,
design,
e-commerce,
e-mail,
engineering,
furniture,
international,
Ireland,
marketing,
Massachusetts,
merchandising,
online marketing,
product management,
sales,
software development,
style,
Utah,
web development
I really like the idea of push notifications, but I find that they’re often inconsistent in terms of being delivered. I also hate it when apps try to trick me into accepting push notifications that I will find annoying. Still, it seems pretty clear that push notifications are going to become an increasingly important part of our life (as sad as that may sound). As more and more apps start pushing us information, more companies are going to need to solve the technical challenges associated with delivering push notifications. Urban Airship is a Portland, OR and San Francisco, CA based company that provides technology that powers “mobile engagement, monetization and reporting.” Beyond push notifications, they also do subscriptions, in-app purchasing, and reporting.
Read the full article →
Tagged as:
account management,
advertising,
all employers,
California,
engineering,
marketing,
mobile,
Oregon,
sales,
software development,
web development
They say that you can’t forget how to ride a bike, but I’m giving it my best try. In elementary and early middle school I was constantly riding around town. I picked up inline skating for a year or two after that, and never got back on the bike. Now I tell people that I hate bike riding. I don’t actually hate it, but as I mentioned in my post on Niner Bikes, I love seeing people’s reactions to that statement. My twelve year old self would be disappointed that I don’t even own a bike, let alone a cool brand like a Cannondale or Specialized. Luckily for Specialized, they’ve been able to grow an impressive business without me as a customer. They’re based in Morgan Hill, CA, and from what I can gather their annual revenue is measured in hundreds of millions of dollars (but I can’t find a reliable source on that). That’s impressive considering that it all started in 1974 when founder Mike Sinyard sold his “old VW Microbus for $1,500 and used the money to fund a cycling trip through Europe.” That led to importing Italian bicycle parts into the United States, and a business was born.
Read the full article →
Tagged as:
all employers,
apparel,
California,
credit,
customer service,
design,
engineering,
finance,
industrial design,
international,
manufacturing,
marketing,
merchandising,
Pennsylvania,
post production,
product development,
production,
sales,
social media,
sports,
Switzerland,
transportation,
Utah,
video
I don’t know about you, but I love the smell of gasoline–at least in limited doses. Oddly enough, I absolutely hate the smell of coffee, so I’m not sure how I’d do if I had to work at a RaceTrac. They’re an Atlanta, GA based chain of more than 525 gas stations and convenience stores that stretch across twelve southeastern states. The odd thing about them is that their home page puts more emphasis on their coffee than on the gas. I guess gas is pretty much the same at every gas station, but good coffee will actually bring people through the doors. Besides the coffee RaceTrac differentiates itself with its size–their stores are typically over 5,000 square feet with more than 4,000 items and 20-24 pumps. If I owned a chain of gas stations, I’d probably use clean bathrooms as a point of differentiation. I think it would be a goldmine, but RaceTrac’s $8 billion in annual revenue makes them the third largest private company in Atlanta, so maybe coffee is the right choice.
Read the full article →
Tagged as:
all employers,
analyst,
energy,
engineering,
Florida,
Georgia,
grocery,
human resources,
Louisiana,
Mississippi,
real estate,
recruiting,
retail,
software development,
Tennessee,
Texas,
transportation
I don’t mind flying; in fact, I kind of enjoy it–especially on smaller planes. Unfortunately, it’s not often that you can hop in a 6 seater and get a sweet view for the entire flight. Usually you are crammed into a 150-seater and spend most of the time looking at clouds. I guess most people are more comfortable with that, but not me. When I’m flying I’m not particularly brand conscious, so I mostly choose my airline by who has the cheapest fare. That means that I end up on flying all different airlines, but I’ve never flown Allegiant. They’re a low-cost carrier and travel company based in Enterprise, NV. They travel to 75 destinations with a fleet of 75 MD-83s and MD-87s. All of Allegiant’s routes begin or end in one of 9 hubs: Bellingham, WA; Los Angeles, CA; Las Vegas, NV; Phoenix, AZ; Myrtle Beach, SC; Orlando, FL; Tampa Bay, FL; Fort Myers, FL; and Fort Lauderdale, FL.
Read the full article →
Tagged as:
all employers,
analyst,
Arizona,
California,
Colorado,
customer service,
engineering,
finance,
flight,
Florida,
Illinois,
Indiana,
Iowa,
Nevada,
Oregon,
South Carolina,
Texas,
transportation,
travel,
Washington
The University of Chicago has a number of entry level positions open right now. Check them out here.
Call me whatever you want, but I still buy incandescent light bulbs. I tried a few CFL bulbs in the past, but they were an utter disappointment–not very bright and a disgusting color of light. I paid more for them because they’re supposed to pay off in the long run, but they can’t save me money if I don’t use them. It’s going to take a more compelling energy efficient light bulb design to get me to switch. And that’s exactly what Switch has come up with. They’re a San Jose, CA based startup that is using LED technology to replicate the beautiful light of an incandescent bulb without wasting so much energy. They’re close to achieving the holy grail of light bulbs (and a big pay day), especially considering that there will essentially be a ban on incandescent bulbs by 2014. Now they just need to convince people to switch.
Read the full article →
Tagged as:
all employers,
California,
energy,
engineering,
environmental,
green,
product development
In case you didn’t get the drift from out post on Best Made Company, artisan craftsmanship is in and mass manufacturing is out (unless it’s done by Apple). But what if you could combine the two? You’d have the technology of mass manufacturing, but the closeness to the process of something that is handmade. That’s what MakerBot Industries is making possible. They’re a New York, NY (Brooklyn) based company that has been “producing an open source 3D printer to democratize manufacturing.” All you need is a CAD drawing and one of their Thing-O-Matic 3D printers, and you can print pretty much whatever object you want in plastic. I think they might have finally figured out Santa’s trick.
Read the full article →
Tagged as:
administrative,
all employers,
customer service,
design,
engineering,
manufacturing,
materials,
New York,
product development,
software development,
technical support,
web development
Whether you need something to wear for a job interview or a tropical vacation, Gilt is the place to get it at a good price. Here’s a link that will get you an additional 20% off.
In my previous life as the boyfriend of a management consultant, I would often spend my Thursday evenings using a flight tracking website to figure out when I’d be eating dinner. Those days are mostly over now that Amy is working at Groupon, but I had a bit of a flashback since she is traveling for work this week. My preferred flight tracking website is FlightAware, which tells me that she’s somewhere just south of the Great Salt Lake right now. I also know that she’s moving at 459 knots at an altitude of 35,000 feet. I can even see that the fares for her flight ranged from $50.03 to $3,365.92 with an average of $238.13. FlightAware is based in Houston, TX, and they provide “live flight data, airport information, weather maps, flight planning, and navigation charts, as well as aviation news and photos to over two million users a month.” I have no idea how they get all of their data, but it’s extremely useful and very easy to access.
Read the full article →
Tagged as:
aerospace,
all employers,
engineering,
flight,
software development,
systems administration,
Texas,
transportation,
web development
Want to try Proper Cloth? Use this link to get $25 off your first shirt. It’d probably help to have a shirt that fits when you’re interviewing.
I’m a big guy at 6’3. I typically enjoy the benefits of being tall, but there are disadvantages like having to knee myself in the face on airplanes and not being able to hear a single word that anyone under 5’8 says in a loud room. I’m not so tall that I need to shop at specialty stores for clothes, but I’m just at the point where clothes off the rack don’t fit all that well. I fixed my pants problem with Bonobos, but I have a ton of shirts (button downs, t-shirts, sweaters, and more) that fit beautifully until I start actually moving around–then they somehow bare my midriff like I’m a teenage girl. Nobody needs to see that, which is why I should probably start buying custom shirts from a place like Proper Cloth. They’re a New York, NY based company that makes it “super easy to buy stylish, quality dress shirts that fit.” I haven’t tried them yet, but it’s probably about time that I go custom.
Read the full article →
Tagged as:
all employers,
analyst,
apparel,
customer service,
engineering,
fashion,
graphic design,
marketing,
New York,
operations,
user experience
So far our survey says that you find the job search frustrating. Tell us more so that we can help.
When I was a kid I had this really cool electronics set that allowed me to build all kinds of devices just by connecting different wires to each other. It looked kind of like this. A friend and I even built our own radio transmitter and were able to transmit music about 20 feet to my mom’s car. It totally blew our 10-year old minds. Unfortunately, neither of us had any idea how it worked. littleBits is a New York, NY based company that has more than one-upped the electronic playground. They have developed “a growing library of pre-assembled circuits that snap together with tiny magnets.” Not only do littleBits look super cool, but they should be pretty intuitive considering that each piece has a unique electronic function. I think it would be hard to play with them and not understand how they’re working.
Read the full article →
Tagged as:
all employers,
design,
education,
engineering,
industrial design,
New York,
product development,
science,
toys,
video
E-mail is supposed to be simple: you send a message and the recipient gets it nearly instantly. That’s the way it usually works for most people, but there are those rare instances where a message gets caught in a spam folder or bounces back to the sender. Those problems get much bigger when you start to send a lot of e-mail; in fact, I recently had to deal with an issue that resulted in some of our daily e-mails that were sent on a Friday being received the following Wednesday. Because I send nearly 400,000 e-mails a month, I use one of the top providers in the business, and this still happened. E-mail is a complicated beast, which is why companies that send multiple orders of magnitude more e-mail than I do need help to overcome the fact that “20% of emails sent by web applications either go missing or they get caught by spam filters.” SendGrid is a Boulder, CO based company that specializes in e-mail delivery. They’ve delivered more than 20 billion e-mails for clients that include Foursquare, SlideShare, and GetSatisfaction, so I think they must do a lot better than 80%.
Read the full article →
Tagged as:
accounting,
all employers,
California,
Colorado,
community management,
e-mail,
engineering,
quality assurance,
quality engineer,
social media,
software development,
technical support,
technical writer,
web development,
writing
Want to try TaskRabbit? Here’s $10 to get started. (The link only works if you’re setting up a task, but you can sign up and then use it.)
We all have stuff that we don’t want to do, don’t know how to do, or don’t have time to do. We’d love to pay someone to do it for us, but finding someone to hire to do it is on that list of stuff that we don’t want, know how, or have time to do. TaskRabbit is a company that wants to help people overcome this predicament. They’re based in San Francisco, CA, and they’ll get you “in touch with friendly, reliable people who can help you get just about anything you need done, and put some free time back into your life.” Through the power of the Internet, they’ve been able to build a network of “TaskRabbits” and connect them with people who need stuff done. It’s the same basic marketplace with a fee model that has made companies like eBay, Craigslist, and Airbnb huge successes. Here are the details on how TaskRabbit works.
Read the full article →
Tagged as:
all employers,
business development,
California,
engineering,
Oregon,
sales,
software development,
Washington,
web development
