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Help Wanted: News Editor at GigaOm (San Francisco)

gigaomMathew Ingram’s been putting the word out that GigaOm – the technology blog started by Om Malik – is looking for a news editor. If you’ve got the knack for running a virtual newsroom and coordinating the activities of bloggers who are scattered all over the globe, this could be the job for you!

somaSOMA: Your work neighbourhood, should you get hired.

Here are the details, as they appear on their LinkedIn jobs page:

Job Description

SOMA/Financial District (San Francisco Bay Area)

GigaOm is looking to hire a News Editor to manage the edit flow for the team. This person will work on east coast time and will be the main assigning editor for hitting news stories. Working very closely with the Managing Editor, the NE needs to stay on top of everything happening in the (virtual) newsroom and focus everyone toward the same goals. It is a fast-paced, collaborative online newsroom, and the NE duties change every day but they include:

  • Manage the editorial team’s day to day work, including assignments based on current news, scheduling, editorial guidance, and final edit on stories before they go live;
  • Manage story budgets;
  • Maintain the balance of news and long feature pieces on the sites;
  • Work with editors to align and direct news and feature coverage across all channels, crossposting materials as much as possible;
  • Community management including tweeting and general interaction with the community, as well as approving comments on GOM;
  • Assign, review and edit guest columns for weekend and holiday content;
  • Coordinate event and breaking news coverage as the point;
  • Regularly review the online stats and work to shift focus to increase traffic;
  • Bring in and review new freelancers and story ideas.

This position is full-time with full health, dental & vision benefits, vacation and sick time, and a competitive salary. There is room in the SF office but someone working remotely on the East Coast could also successfully fill this position.

Everyone at GigaOM is busy doing their thing, so the hiring process for this position is being managed externally. Please submit your resume, cover letter and relevant clips or links to Emma Logan via LinkedIn or email emmalogan.hr (at) gmail (dot) com; direct applications to GigaOM may get lost in the shuffle.

Desired Skills & Experience

The ideal person will be/have:

  • Passionate about technology and the changing media landscape;
  • A head for news;
  • An engaged management style with experience handling a remote team environment;
  • Google Analytics or other stat evaluation software experience a must;
  • Hard-core organizational skills;
  • Relevant experience at a comparable online company;
  • Engaged, eager, optimistic, realistic, and flexible;
  • The ability to juggle, negotiate, charm, and let water roll off your back.
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Where to Stay in Minneapolis (May 6th–8th)?

minneapolisCreative Commons photo courtesy of Sri Dhanush.

I’m helping out with BarCamp Minneapolis, a.k.a. MinneBar, which takes place on May 7th. The event takes place at Best Buy’s headquarters out in Richfield, and we out-of-towner helper-outers are staying downtown. If you know any good and reasonably-priced hotels in an interesting but not sketchy part of downtown, please let me know in the comments or drop me an email!

This article also appears in The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century.

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It’s the Final Countdown, Day 5

Being a developer evangelist at Microsoft was my biggest, most influential, broadest-reaching job ever, and as this is my final week working for The Empire, I though it would be fitting to mark it with a different version of Europe’s classic ‘80s hair-rock hit, The Final Countdown. To kick it off, I give you the original version in all its mulleted Reagan-era glory. Crank up your speakers, bang your head, throw the horns and enjoy!

This article also appears in The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century.

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MobileTeach 2011: May 30th–June 3rd in Montreal

mobileteach

Billing itself as the biggest mobile development conference in Canada, MobileTeach will take place in Montreal from Monday, May 30th through Friday, June 3rd. It’s put on by our friends at DevTeach and part of the annual DevTeach conference (also taking place May 30th – June 3rd) and will cover Windows Phone 7 development along with development for the Esteemed Competition’s platforms.

Among MobileTeach’s sessions on Windows Phone 7 and Silverlight are:

  • What you should know about WP7 Dev
  • WP7 high-end app pitfalls and how to avoid them
  • Secure and Personalize with WCF RIA Services
  • Async Calls in Silverlight and WPF clients
  • Optimizing Silverlight animation

colin meliaThere will also be a full-day post-conference Windows Phone 7 workshop on Friday, June 3rd run by our good friend Colin Melia, who’ll get you up to speed on Windows Phone development topics, including:

  • Silverlight Development
  • UI Design
  • Data Binding & Data Access
  • Development Tools
  • Notification Services
  • Cloud Services
  • MVVM
  • Application Model & Navigation
  • Input
  • Shell Integration
  • Devices Integration
  • Building Phone-compatible Services
  • Marketplace policies
  • and other select topics requested and a selection of XNA topics

For all the details, see the MobileTeach site.

This article also appears in Canadian Developer Connection.

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Brandon Foy’s Indie Windows Phone 7 Ads

I’m told that if Brandon Foy’s funky indie ad (as in it wasn’t commissioned by Microsoft; he just came up with the idea and made it himself) for Windows Phone 7 gets 200,000 views, it’ll get aired in a national spot. Let’s give this young digital artist’s career a jump-start, shall we?

Brandon also created this ad (also for Windows Phone 7):

This article also appears in Canadian Developer Connection.

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Internet Explorer 9 / Windows Phone 7 Boot Camps in Ottawa and Edmonton

ie9 wp7 boot camp

More IE9 / WP7 Boot Camps? Where and When?

We’ve had some great Internet Explorer 9 / Windows Phone 7 Boot Camps in many cities across Canada already, and here are two more!

ottawa

The Ottawa Boot Camp takes place on Wednesday, May 11th. It runs all day (8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.) and takes place at the National Arts Centre (53 Elgin Street, at Confederation Square) in the Panorama Room. This event is free, but you should register to attend.

edmonton

Edmonton’s Boot Camp happens on Tuesday, May 17th. It runs all day (8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.) and takes place at the Art Gallery of Alberta’s Ledcor Theatre (2 Sir Winston Churchill Square). This event is free, but you should register to attend.

What’s on the Agenda?

These boot camps will be all about making the most of IE9 and WP7. Internet Explorer 9 has released and Windows Phone is due for a couple of updates this year, so there’s never been a better time to get up to speed on these two technologies. That’s why we’re holding boot camps in cities across Canada to help you get the most out of both. These free (that’s right, free, as in you-don’t-pay-nuthin’) events will feature the sessions below.

The Internet Explorer Sessions (in the morning)

A Lap Around Internet Explorer 9 and HTML5
A look at IE9’s support for the troika that collectively goes by the name “HTML5”: HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript. You’ll see how standards compliance and the resulting “same markup” will make life good for both developers and users and how that same markup runs faster on IE9 thanks to the newer, faster JavaScript engine and hardware acceleration.

Enhancing Pinned Sites with Internet Explorer 9
IE9’s “pinned sites” feature makes web apps feel more like desktop apps by letting users add website to the taskbar and start menu and let developers add custom context menus to pinned site icons, provide visual notifications on the task bar with icon overlays and even add custom buttons on the default thumbnail preview. This session will show you how to best use this feature and also cover IE9’s developer tools.

The Windows Phone Sessions (in the afternoon)

Windows Phone 7 Silverlight Recipes
You’ve read the introductory material and written “Hello World” on the Phone, and you’re now thinking of starting a bigger project. You’re now asking this question: “How do I do X on Windows Phone?”. This session is the answer. You’ll learn all the recipes for building blocks of applications, which you can use, modify and combine in your own Windows Phone 7 apps.

Windows Phone 7 XNA Kickstart
Haven’t you always wanted to write a videogame, but could never get started? This is your chance. This session will show you the basics of XNA, the game development framework for Windows Phone (and the Xbox 360 and Windows too!). You’ll get your feet wet writing 2D videogames, learn some game coding techniques and get you need to start you on your journey as a game developer.

This article also appears in Canadian Developer Connection.

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The Job Offers are Flattering…

Tarzan, Jane and "Boy" from the old Johnny Weismuller "Tarzan" movies

…and there’ve been quite a few since my announcement that I was leaving Microsoft, but I’ve had another gig lined up for a while now. After all, Tarzan doesn’t let go of the last vine until he’s got a firm grip on the next one, right?

This article also appears in The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century.