by Willy Franzen on June 19, 2009
by Willy Franzen on June 18, 2009

In my opinion one of the coolest features of the first generation iPhone was its ability to accurately give you your location despite its lacking a GPS chip. The technology is based on using Wi-Fi access points and cellular tower triangulation to determine your coordinates. Obviously a GPS chip is a better alternative (at least as long as you don’t have a roof blocking your satellite signal), but there are plenty of applications where Wi-Fi location comes in pretty handy. That’s why Boston based Skyhook Wireless is a growing company. They’re behind the technology that provides location to non-GPS equipped iPhones (as the New York Times covered quite well), and they’re also using their technology for geotagging, device recovery, social networking, and much more.
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telecommunications,
web development
by Willy Franzen on June 17, 2009

Try 5 lessons from One Day, One Job’s Job Search Prep Course Found Your Career for free. It will help you get a job faster.
Nobody likes getting spam in their inbox, but a well-crafted, beautifully designed marketing message from one of your favorite brands isn’t always that bad—especially if it includes a special offer (kind of like the one above). We’ve already talked about Aweber and Constant Contact in terms of e-mail marketing, but today we’re going to talk about a company that does it on a much bigger scale. Burlington, MA based e-Dialog “is the proven provider of advanced e-mail marketing and database technologies, products, strategies, and services for permission-based e-mail marketers,” and they can back that up with a client list that includes the NFL, Nintendo, the NHL, OfficeMax, Harvard Business School Publishing, and many more serious brands.
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by Willy Franzen on June 16, 2009

This week One Day, One Job is coming to you from the Northern woods of Michigan, which means that I have fly fishing on my mind. At least half my days up here are spent in waders—boots that go all the way up to your chest so that you can walk around in the river without getting wet—which gave me a great idea for a company to feature today. Newark, DE based W.L. Gore & Associates “is a leading manufacturer of thousands of advanced technology products for the electronics, industrial, fabrics and medical markets,” but they are most relevant to me (and probably to you too) as the company behind GORE-TEX®. If you’re not familiar with it, GORE-TEX® is a waterproof fabric that is breathable. That means that waders and rain jackets that are made out of GORE-TEX® not only keep you dry from the water on the outside, but they also keep you from drenching yourself with sweat on the inside.
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entry-level jobs,
manufacturing,
operations,
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sales
by Willy Franzen on June 15, 2009

This is a guest post by Heather R. Huhman. Heather is the media relations manager at a national health care professional association and entry-level careers columnist for Examiner.com.
“Leverage the power of traditional and digital media relations to elevate premium and emerging technology, health and science brands” – that’s what global public relations agency Racepoint Group works hard toward on a daily basis. While their worldwide headquarters is outside of Boston, Racepoint Group also has offices in San Francisco; Washington, D.C.; a European headquarters in London; and a global network of partners and affiliates spanning four continents.
Racepoint Group’s practice areas include corporate, crisis and issues management, employee relations, financial communications, government relations, marketing communications and public affairs, while their industry expertise includes technology, health and science, social commerce, mobile and energy. And while many agencies claim to be “award-winning,” Racepoint Group really means it. In 2008 alone, they won more than 20 industry awards.
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by Willy Franzen on June 14, 2009

At some point during your job search, you’ve probably read at least one article about what to wear to a job interview . If you’ve already had an interview or two, you were probably stressed out about the decision: blue shirt or white shirt? or some other mundane detail like that. For a lot of people, what to wear to an interview is a much bigger issue. That’s where Dress for Success comes in. They are a New York City based non-profit that aims to “promote the economic independence of disadvantaged women by providing professional attire, a network of support and the career development tools to help women thrive in work and in life.” Every year Dress for Success and their affiliates across the world help more than 40,000 women become better prepared to land a job.
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by Willy Franzen on June 13, 2009

There are countless celebrities who support charitable causes. There are many who throw their full support behind a single organization; however, few celebs are as personally invested in their charitable work as Michael J. Fox is. Why is he so invested? Because his life is on the line. He is suffering from Parkinson’s Disease, “a degenerative disease of the brain that often impairs motor skills, speech, and other functions.” If you’ve seen Michael J. Fox on tv lately, you’ve seen what Parkinson’s does to the human body. It’s a tragic disease that will hopefully be cured due to the work of the New York City based Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research. As an accomplished actor and someone who is living with Parkinson’s, Michael J. Fox is the perfect person to lead the fight against the disease.
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by Willy Franzen on June 12, 2009

Considering that I do this nearly every day, I see a lot of companies and a lot of jobs, but today I came across something that I’ve never seen before. It’s called Agency Nil, and it’s an full-service advertising agency, except it’s nothing like any ad agency that you’ve ever seen. They don’t have a physical location, they don’t have a salaried staff, and they don’t have set fees. It’s almost as they don’t exist (I think that’s where the “nil” comes in), but they do. As PSFK puts it, Agency Nil “hopes to channelize the skills of experienced but laid-off talents from the advertising industry, as well as that of graduate students from advertising programs – people who just can’t seem to lay their hands on that elusive job.” In other words, they’re trying to put the glut of available talent to good use. It’s brilliant.
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virtual
by Willy Franzen on June 11, 2009

Since you’re looking for your first job, it’s probably a safe assumption that you are not familiar with “expensing” things. Hopefully you will be one day (soon). Many companies (especially consulting firms) allow their employees to pay for travel, lodging, and food, and then submit receipts to the company to get reimbursed. It can be pretty sweet if you’re getting $30 a night to spend on dinner, while racking up credit card points and frequent flier miles at no expense to you, but the downside is that submitting expense reports to get reimbursed is time consuming and quite annoying. Concur, a Redmond, WA based company that I learned about in Sramana Mitra’s Entrepreneur Journeys
, solves this problem through their “on-demand Employee Spend Management business services.” Put simply, they have a suite of solutions that enables companies to automate the expensing process.
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by Willy Franzen on June 10, 2009

A lot of people think inventing is easy. You see those guys like Billy Mays screaming on tv, and you think to yourself, “I could have thought of that.” Believe it or not, even those stupid infomercial products aren’t easy to come up with, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the world of invention. Inventing a new product is a long, arduous process that requires a ton of resources. Invention Machine is a Boston based software developer that “drives sustainable innovation by enabling global organizations to consistently generate breakthrough ideas that accelerate product development.” It’s hard for a non-inventor to understand how software can help the inventing process, but judging from the number of large corporations that are using Invention Machine’s software, there’s something there.
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by Willy Franzen on June 9, 2009

Last week I told you about Sramana Mitra’s book Entrepreneur Journeys
and how it was loaded with cool companies that would be awesome to work for. One of those companies is HotChalk, an educational startup that provides online learning management systems for free. They enable teachers to bring their classrooms online in minutes without having to worry about administration approval or staying within a budget. HotChalk isn’t just tailored to teachers though; HotChalk also focuses on pleasing students, parents, school administrators, and tech coordinators. The simplicity of the whole thing has enabled HotChalk to gain a ton of marketshare—they have over 7 million monthly unique visitors and more than 375,000 teachers using the service. That’s what “free” will do for you.
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by Willy Franzen on June 8, 2009

This is a guest post by Heather R. Huhman. Heather is the media relations manager at a national health care professional association and entry-level careers columnist for Examiner.com.
So much of media relations today is focused on “new” or “social” media, but The Rosen Group still recognizes the importance of “traditional” media. A full-service public relations firm with more than two decades experience building awareness for its clients, The Rosen Group has locations in New York City and Washington, DC. While The Rosen Group is a relatively small firm of 25 staff members, their client list is rather impressive, including PC Magazine, the American Wind Energy Association, Weight Watchers and many more.
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by Willy Franzen on June 7, 2009

If there’s one criticism that I often hear about the non-profit world, it’s that they’re plagued by inefficiency. It’s certainly not true across the board, but taking the profit motives out of an organization can certainly create efficiency issues. Additionally, things like organizational structure, egos, and political agendas can disrupt for-profits and non-profits alike. Root Cause is a Cambridge, MA based non-profit strategy consulting service that “envisions a world in which the public, private, and nonprofit sectors work together to invest and re-invest in the most efficient, effective, and sustainable solutions to social problems.” In other words, they want to find the absolute best way to solve the world’s social problems, and then work with social innovators and social impact investors to make things happen.
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by Willy Franzen on June 6, 2009

Most scientific literature isn’t what I’d call an easy read, so I wouldn’t be surprised if most of you aren’t beating down the doors to get your hands on the newest research papers. Unless you are a big consumer of research literature, then you probably don’t care much about the openness of scientific and medical publishing, but you should. Open sharing of information can significantly promote innovation, and who can argue against wanting more advances in science and medicine? The Public Library of Science is all about open sharing, as they are a San Francisco, CA based “nonprofit organization of scientists and physicians committed to making the world’s scientific and medical literature a public resource.” They were founded in 2000, and since then they’ve been pushing for scientific and medical journals that “are immediately available online, with no charges for access and no restrictions on subsequent redistribution or use.”
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by Willy Franzen on June 5, 2009

I’ve done it. I’ve found the most ridiculous looking corporate website on the web. It has an animated moving background and multiple bouncing balloon/blimp logos that make it look like it’s straight out of the Imagination Land episode of South Park. It may be a little hokey, but it works for Niles, IL (right outside of Chicago) based The Bradford Group because they’re in the collectibles industry. Their customers aren’t concerned with flash and edginess, they’re all about sentimentality. When you’ve been doing direct marketing of collector plates, music boxes, and all kinds of commemorative items for 36 years, you probably know your audience. So, even though The Bradford Group’s web design leaves me laughing out loud, I’m not going to sell them short based on my taste as a non-collector. (And if you totally disagree with me and love the design, you can make it your computer’s background.)
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by Willy Franzen on June 4, 2009

I finally got around to reading a review copy of Sramana Mitra’s Entrepreneur Journeys
over the weekend, and it offered a pleasant surprise. Beyond providing an inside look at the lives of more than a dozen entrepreneurs, it also provided me with a number of ideas for companies to write about here. Today, we’re going to take a look at Adify. They’re a San Bruno, CA based company that helps media companies build vertical ad networks by combining “advanced ad serving and targeting technology together with an invaluable layer of expert human judgment and monitoring.” In other words, they make it technologically easy for content companies to monetize their websites.
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by Willy Franzen on June 3, 2009

When I was at Cornell, working on group projects was the bane of my existence—especially when I didn’t get to choose the members of my group. It always seemed that I got stuck with a slacker or two, and there was always someone who just wanted to do the whole project by himself/herself (ok, sometimes that was me). Besides getting stuck with crappy partners, the logistics of organizing meetings, keeping edits to a document straight, and communicating with people who don’t check their e-mail drove me crazy. I guess I wasn’t the only one who didn’t enjoy the group project experience at Cornell, because Dana Lampert, a fellow alum, founded Wiggio, a company and web application that “makes it easy to work in groups.” They’re based out of Cambridge, MA, and they’ve moved well beyond focusing on just college students. Wiggio can help sports teams, non-profit organizations, small businesses, Greek organizations, and pretty much anyone who works with other people. They’ve already broken 100,000 users, and they seem to be growing at an awesome pace, which is why now is the time to think about working for them.
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by George Tarakhovski on June 2, 2009

This is a guest post by George Tarakhovski.
In my experience, consulting has always been one of the top career choices for graduates at my alma mater (Duke). Although the work frequently involves countless hours of engineering multilayered pie charts and histograms in Excel, there are lots of things to like about the profession – great pay, stimulating assignments and lots of client interaction.
For a consulting firm that represents over $8 trillion in assets, kasina’s claim to fame is its expertise in introducing “revolutionary business ideas” to the asset management and insurance industries. kasina, which is based in New York City, is all about practical innovation through unique, trend-defying solutions that keep companies from going stale and losing profitability. Despite sporting an impressive client list, kasina does more than just help corporations stay in business. The team preaches community involvement and is actively involved in non-profit initiatives, including its own youth foundation. To maintain its “culture of learning,” kasina has its team members partake in a book club and post interesting and relevant entries on their blog. Overall, the team culture is fun, communal and non-intimidating. That’s pretty impressive (and unexpected) for a firm that pioneered solutions in hybrid wholesaling, profit-based compensation systems, and behavior-based segmentation.
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by Willy Franzen on June 1, 2009

This is a guest post by Heather R. Huhman. Heather is the media relations manager at a national health care professional association and entry-level careers columnist for Examiner.com.
At McGrath/Power Public Relations, they recognize a clear, concise and compelling message is just the beginning of a client’s needs. Although McGrath/Power is a full-service firm located in San Jose, CA, they specialize in crisis management, investor relations and emerging media services. Their 12 practice areas include consumer brands, associations, consumer technology and much more. McGrath/Power also is the Silicon Valley partner of the Worldcom Public Relations group, the world’s largest network of independent public relations firms.
Want to be involved with an agency that gives something back? McGrath/Power supports the community through financial resources and professional abilities. They also encourage staff members to suggest causes or events they feel deserve the agency’s support.
Make Your Splash
Currently, McGrath/Power has an entry-level opening for an Account Coordinator. Candidates should have strong written and verbal communication skills, a results-oriented mentality, and the ability to multi-task and meet deadlines. The benefits package is pretty extensive—from health care plans to gym memberships.
Interested? Send your cover letter and résumé to hr@mcgrathpower.com. Lynne Hosack, Director of Finance and Operations, is in charge of recruitment for the agency.
Links to Help You Begin Your Research
Need help with your cover letter and résumé—or your entire job search? Heather offers low-cost coaching packages specifically for students and recent graduates seeking careers in public relations. Click here to learn more.
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by Willy Franzen on May 31, 2009

For most of the jobs that we feature here, safety isn’t much of an issue. You may be concerned about job security given the current economic conditions, but not many of the jobs that we cover will put you in harms way—at least as long as you don’t tip back too far in your desk chair. Unfortunately, there are still a lot of dangerous jobs out there, and many of them are in the construction industry. It’s doubtful that the business of building things will ever be completely safe as long as humans are doing it, but CPWR is doing its best to improve safety in the construction industry. Their acronym used to stand for The Center to Protect Workers’ Rights, but now it seems that their full name is The Center for Construction Research and Training. They are a Silver Spring, Maryland based non-profit organization (despite their .com web address) that was created by the AFL-CIO in 1990, and they’ve become “an international leader in applied research, training, and service to the construction industry.”
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by Willy Franzen on May 30, 2009

We all know it; studying abroad can be a total joke. I know plenty of kids who partied in a different country for a semester and managed to get college credit for it. Fortunately, there are plenty of study abroad programs that focus more on the “study” than the “abroad.” One of those is The School for Field Studies. Now, you may be skeptical when you see their list of locations sounds more like your top 5 vacation destinations (Costa Rica, Turks & Caicos, Kenya, Mexico, and Australia), but look at all of their student accomplishments. The School for Field Studies is “the nation’s oldest and largest environmental study abroad program,” and it combines “hands-on environmental studies with scientific research to develop sustainable solutions to critical environmental problems.”
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by Willy Franzen on May 29, 2009

We’re at a transitional point right now when it comes to television. In some ways it’s easy to watch the shows that we want to see by heading over to Hulu or some other Internet destination, but in many situations we’re still at the mercy of the television networks. We are not yet able to watch what we want to watch when we want to watch it no matter where we are, but that’s quickly changing. San Francisco’s Sling Media is one of the companies that is pushing that change. They’re behind a device, called a Slingbox, that you can hook up to your tv and cable box to watch and control your television from any Internet connected computer or smartphone.
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by Willy Franzen on May 28, 2009

I’ve already written posts on Activision (Guitar Hero), Harmonix (Rock Band), and Tapulous (Tap Tap Revenge), but can you ever really get enough of the music playing video game genre? Of course not! That’s why we’re looking at JamLegend today. How are they different from the other game makers that I just mentioned? First, JamLegend is free. Second, it offers more songs. Third, you can use your computer keyboard as a guitar. Fourth and most importantly, it’s social! You can play your friends, you can play the world, and you can even enter tournaments to win prizes. JamLegend isn’t just the name of the game, it’s also the name of the company, a small startup based out of San Francisco.
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by Willy Franzen on May 27, 2009

Once you get your undergraduate degree, you have a choice. You can continue with higher education, or you can get a job. You can start making money, or you can keep spending money. If you’re having trouble deciding between those two options, don’t worry. There’s a way to get a job without leaving the world of higher ed. That’s because The Chronicle of Higher Education, which is based in Washington, D.C., is hiring. As they put it, they are “the No. 1 source of news, information, and jobs for college and university faculty members and administrators.” Apparently 80,000 academics and 350,000 people in total subscribe to The Chronicle of Higher Education, while their website gets 12 million monthly pageviews. They were even “ranked in the top 10 of most credible news sources by Erdos & Morgan.” Clearly, The Chronicle is the place to go for information about higher education.
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by Willy Franzen on May 26, 2009

This is a guest post by Heather R. Huhman. Heather is the media relations manager at a national health care professional association and entry-level careers columnist for Examiner.com.
When I was in college, I wanted nothing more than to work at Fleishman-Hillard. Renowned for their corporate culture, Fleishman-Hillard is headquartered in St. Louis, Mo., has 80 offices throughout the world, does business in more than 20 languages and has 29 practices areas. In 2008, the firm’s work and culture earned them the “Best Agency to Work For” by The Holmes Report. But their list of awards hardly stops there, including “103 Silver Anvil Awards, 90 CIPRA/SABRE Awards, and numerous other national and international awards.”
And Fleishman-Hillard doesn’t just win awards outside the organization, but also with its own employees. In 2007, 98 percent of Fleishman-Hillard employees called the firm an organization “of which they can be proud,” according to an employee satisfaction survey. Fleishman-Hillard rewards their employees in return, giving out two awards annually – the “team player” and John D. Graham – recognizing “individuals in various geographic regions for unparalleled commitment to the client, the agency and their team.” Managers also give awards at their discretion for “their heroic efforts.” I’ve known many individuals who’ve worked for Fleishman-Hillard over the years, including one of my college mentors, and I’ve heard nothing but good things.
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by Willy Franzen on May 24, 2009

You know all those rights that you learned about in school? All that stuff in the Constitution. I’m sure it’s important to you now, but how important was it to you as a kid? Unless you were a unique kid, you just wanted to play. That’s why Right To Play is such an interesting non-profit. They’re “an international humanitarian organization that uses sport and play programs to improve health, develop life skills, and foster peace for children and communities in some of the most disadvantaged areas of the world.” Play may seem trivial to many, but Right To Play has found that it’s often the key to opening up those other rights that many of us take for granted. They’re a Toronto based organization with a New York City presence, and they’re currently working in 23 countries: Azerbaijan, Benin, Botswana, Burundi, China, Ethiopia, Ghana, Jordan, Kenya, Lebanon, Liberia, Mali, Mozambique, Pakistan, Peru, occupied Palestinian territory, Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania, Thailand, Uganda, the United Arab Emirates and Zambia.
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by Willy Franzen on May 23, 2009

Although the book publishing industry isn’t struggling like the newspaper publishing industry is, I still wonder what the future holds for publishing. Maybe Graywolf Press has it right—they’re a non-profit publishing house based in Saint Paul, MN. (I hear that the New York Times is now non profit too. badum-CHING!.) Now, I can’t find a mission statement for Graywolf Press, but I’m going to guess that it has something to do with advancing the art of the written word. Unlike Island Press, a non-profit publisher and “provider of the best new ideas in environmentalism” whose internships we featured on One Day, One Internship, Graywolf Press doesn’t seem to have a common theme that ties together the books that they publish. The most that I could find was that Graywolf Press focuses on “introducing and promoting the most exciting and creative writers of our times.”
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by Willy Franzen on May 22, 2009

Online dating has come a long way – from picking people up in chat rooms to having a computer find your perfect match. Considering the reaction that many people still give when you talk about online dating, it has a long way to go yet. New York City’s Ignighter might be responsible for the next big step forward. They provide a free online dating service… for groups. That means that they’ll match you and your boys with someone and her girls and vice versa or however else you want to do it. You can all go out together and see what happens. Instead of worrying about ending up on a date with a psycho killer, you have to worry about going on a date with a bunch of psycho killers – and even if that happens, you have some friends to back you up. What a relief! This idea might just be crazy enough to work.
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by Willy Franzen on May 21, 2009

As you may or may not know, I’m an Apple guy; in fact, I’ve been an Apple guy for close to 20 years (I’m 24). I’ve watched the Microsoft vs. Apple rivalry unfold over the years, and even though the rivalry isn’t nearly as bitter as it used to be, I still enjoy taking jabs at Microsoft whenever I get a chance. You can call it a character flaw if you want. Anyway, the reason that I bring this up is that over the years, Microsoft has enabled a cottage industry (and by cottage I mean insanely huge) for people and companies who fix their products. The antivirus industry alone is worth billions of dollars, and that’s just one example. That’s where Clearwater, FL based Sunbelt Software comes in. They’re an antivirus software company that has Microsoft to thank for much of their success. They’ve been around since 1994 and they’re a member of the Inc. 5000. Seriously, they need to send Microsoft some sort of thank you gift.
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